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[OB] Treatment of the parshman


Lazarus52980

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I intentionally made the title as benign as possible because I didn't want to setup a "clickbait" situation, but the more I think about it, the more I think the parshmen were actually treated just how they needed to be treated.   Now, before everyone jumps on me, please hear me out.  We know that someone somewhere "stole" their minds and made them into brain fogged obedient slaves and while I agree that is terrible, we don't know the circumstances behind it Maybe it was that or commit genocide against them and this at least allowed them to live?  I don't want to get into THAT debate right now, but I do think that once whatever was done to them was done, I don't see how the Alethi could have done too much else.  They could have treated them with more dignity than was generally done, but what else could have been done with them?  It's pretty obvious that in the state they were in they could not care for themselves in a way that would have allowed them to live.  If the Alethi had all gotten together and said "enslaving the parshmen is unfair, let's let all of them go so they can be free", I'm guessing they all would have stood around and starved to death (IIRC, that is actually mentioned in TWoK).  I can understand why they are mad now that they are back in their right mind and it might be too much to ask of them to see that they could not have been given their freedom as they were, but I can't see what else could have been done by anyone currently alive on Roshar.  

 

Am I seeing this wrong? 

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It's hard to imagine anything more evil, excepting perhaps genocide, than unilaterally revoking the personal freedom of an entire race. It seems obvious that the peaceful existence of the Parshendi for, what, millenia (?), unambiguously destroys any argument in favor of enslaving the parshmen.

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I agree with you OP. I am almost certain that after the spiritual/mind wipe, there was a debate whether or not to kill all the subdued parshmen and it was decided that the lesser of evils would be to use them as slaves. Even then, I'm positive that a huge number of them were killed in anger irregardless of their newly passive nature. Perhaps they had a more humane task originally and were treated with respect but after several generations the horrible monsters that could awaken and kill, were only seen as servants. It makes me queasy to admit this but I don't think the Alethi were in the wrong, pragmatically at least. 

 

16 minutes ago, treblkickd said:

It's hard to imagine anything more evil, excepting perhaps genocide, than unilaterally revoking the personal freedom of an entire race. It seems obvious that the peaceful existence of the Parshendi for, what, millenia (?), unambiguously destroys any argument in favor of enslaving the parshmen.

Except no one knew that they existed. the Parshendi didn't even know that Parshmen existed. We are not even sure why they were exempt and how many of them there were originally. For all we know, the original Parshendi could have been the ones to spearhead the process of subduing their brethren; they would have better insight on the nature of the process than humans. 

Edited by shadowwisp
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@treblkickd OK, just to play devil's advocate here, what if the revocation of personal freedom was a side effect instead of the intended result?

To be more specific what if Ishar or a Bondsmith of old severed the Connection that the Listener race had with the rhythms (in an effort to break their ability to communicate - like an attack on a communications satellite in modern warfare), and the revocation of personal freedom was an unintended consequence? Does that change your calculus of judging the act to be evil?

Perhaps a more interesting moral question is this: Is the life of one of your race or tribe worth more than the life of your enemy's race or tribe? I think in war, human nature dictates that the default answer to the question is yes. So, if breaking your enemy's access to long-distance communication saves countless human lives while rendering the Listeners as automatons, it's one that humans are likely to make every time they are faced with the decision. How you avoid a situation where mindless enemies become shamelessly exploited is a difficult question, though. If you don't make them work, they are a drain on resources. If you do put them to work, you've consigned them to a life of functional slavery. It's a hard call.

However, if the humans had already won the war and broke the Listeners' minds just to enslave them, then yes... that is pretty horrible.

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3 minutes ago, treblkickd said:

It's hard to imagine anything more evil, excepting perhaps genocide, than unilaterally revoking the personal freedom of an entire race. It seems obvious that the peaceful existence of the Parshendi for, what, millenia (?), unambiguously destroys any argument in favor of enslaving the parshmen.

Lazarus' point is that once the deed had been done, what's the normal, non-genocidal person (who had no part in stealing the sapeince if an an entire people) supposed to do concerning the victims? We can all agree that, give our current information, what was done to the parshmen in breaking their minds was absolutely aweful, and I have trouble conceiving of a situation where it would be defensible.

That said, if there were no means of restoring them, the only options you really have are let them starve,  somehow organize an effort to feed, house, and care for the entire population, or employ them as labor to justify keeping them alive. Not an ideal situation all around. 

Basically, I don't think modern rosharens are as culpable for the inhuman treatment of the parshmen as our sense of righteous indignation would like (barring individual cases of cruelty that certainly occurred). The parshmen were for (nearly) all intents and be purposes, sub-human. Of course, the restored parshmen do deserve to keep their freedom, peacefully, but currently we are headed towards a very bloody conflict instead. 

The only thing that's clear in this situation is that this was a masterful play by Odium. 

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The question of who fogged their minds is quite important. If we assume that the humans were not responsible for this, then the OP makes a good point. Taking the parshmen in was ultimately helpful to them in preserving their race, even if many of them individually would have preferred death to the fog. 

If the humans are responsible then it is difficult to argue for the OP on a moral basis. It sounds too much like an opportunistic excuse to enslave them. However, he is probably correct that the parshmen slave situation was better than mass death. That doesn't do much to recommend it though.

As an alternative to the humans being fully responsible, I was thinking that the mind-fogging might have been the result of removing voidspren bonds. Like removing a parasite and damaging the host in the process. Perhaps the humans tried to end the war and help their enslaved enemies at the same time by severing the bonds between parshendi and spren. They may not have understood the ultimate consequences, or they may have deemed them preferable to enslavement by evil spren. 

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Parshendi are highly intelligent, though. Shallan said if you left a parshmen in the wilderness s/he would just sit there, scholars apparently had done at least some level of research. Parshmen were treated like domesticated animals and they wouldn't have made it on their own before the everstorm restored their cognitive abilities. I don't blame present day humans.

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9 minutes ago, KidWayne said:

@treblkickd OK, just to play devil's advocate here, what if the revocation of personal freedom was a side effect instead of the intended result?

 

Given the horrific nature of what was done to the parshmen, I would argue that the right thing to do in this scenario would be to try to find a way to reverse the enslavement. If you have complete power over an entire race of sentient people then I would argue that the "right" course of action is never to enslave them and call it a day. The bare minimum morally defensible choice would be enslavement followed by working to rehabilitate safely. It is obvious that wasn't the path that Roshar's human population took.

Stepping back slightly, the early release chapters, thus far, have leaned heavily on the theme that it is dead wrong to attempt to draw distinct lines between "good vs evil" groups based on racial criteria in Roshar. It's not a terribly complex or controversial idea, but in the context of fantasy literature it does end up being a little subversive (Sanderson's not he first fantasy author to play around with this idea, of course). Just looking at the OB chapters released so far, it has already been made clear that the Parsh-people (-men/-endi/did we decide on a term?) are "people", just like the humans. It's also been made clear that the Parsh-* do not have a monopoly on being subject to corruption by Odium (see, e.g., the Thrill). I mean, we're getting flashback chapters every week that reveal that Dalinar was a horrible person, potentially sociopathic, and certainly a murderer. The fact that his actions were essentially considered "par for the course" in Alethkar is quite damning for the human population there (or at least those with authority).

One of the things I find myself struggling with while reading Oathbringer, in fact, is that I don't see how I can consider Dalinar much of a true hero or protagonist; his best case scenario might be some sort of redemption story arc. In this vein, it's darkly amusing that Dalinar is attempting to take up a leadership role in working to unite Roshar peacefully, while he seems completely oblivious to the fact that his own history/actions should pretty much disqualify him from any sort of peacemaking/diplomatic leadership role. Sure, we get to see current Dalinar PoVs that indicate his sincerity, but when you sit back and think about it there's literally no reason for any in-world person, outside of perhaps a few people closest to him, to trust Dalinar "the blackthorn" Kholin as a leader of men. Personally, I would love for a part of Dalinar's story arc to be the realization that he needs to take a back seat to others in the attempt to unite Roshar. Perhaps the best thing that he can do is to work to re-found the Knights Radiant, seeking out, supporting and training potential Radiants, and give up any authority over nations and armies (we've already seen the first step toward this, actually, w/ Elhokar's proclamation). Anyway, sorry to wander pretty far afield from the topic at hand. 

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I can't help but think there was better alternative to the parshmen situation than genocide or enslavement. I'm not certain what that is without knowing more about their mental state and capabilities. With time and sufficient training, can they learn to care for themselves?  Is there an environment in which they can live and have some autonomy without causing harm to themselves or others? Being severed from the rhythms mentally handicapped them in one way, but there must be other ways for them to learn and evolve without the rhythms, without being robot slaves to humanity. Slavery is the easy way out of the situation, but not the most humane. I would hope that humans would try every possible way to integrate them into society to give them the most freedom, or at the very least let them live in their own habitat and send teachers to try teach basic survival skills. 

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This is being turned into something it's not. 

Yes the Parshmen were treated horribly. Yes they deserved better. But the Parshmen were not like the Parshendi. 

Without Bondsmiths to unworkable what was done, or the Everstorm, the choices were to feed the Parshmen, and either enslave them to recoup the resource drain, or just be purely charitable, which humans as a species aren't. 

The alternative was slaughter or starvation. They could be taught menial repetitive tasks but the could not care for themselves. 

Imagine that we develop robotic servants that require a steady inflow of some resource to keep functioning but are invaluable servants. Some would treat them well, some would abuse them. Some wouldn't bother owning one. 

This is what the Parshmen were. They weren't human, and they weren't broken. They just were. 

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I think the idea is that the Parshmen were somehow made what they are, and humans are our best guess as to who did it. Keeping an entire race mentally and emotionally restrained in order to profit from their labor is a pretty horrific deed. Removing parts of the Parshmen's souls may have been the best idea at the time, but keeping them that way after Odium's influence had waned was morally wrong. The ideal thing for the Alethi to do, while they still had knowledge of what had happened, would have been to slowly reverse what they had done and gradually integrate the Parshmen into their society or just let them go.

I'm not saying this is a realistic scenario, I'm saying they probably had other options. None of this changes the fact that keeping an entire race in slavery is morally wrong.

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I think we are all forgetting that civilization was in complete ruin after the desolation. There was simply not enough structure to care for a large population of beings that could not care for themselves. There was barely enough to allow the humans remaining to pick themselves up to a really low standard of living.  

So basically, you can let them all die, or you can let them help rebuild civilization.

That's how the slavery probably started. And after a while of being around a race that is mostly mindless, it doesn't surprise me that people stopped thinking of them as intelligent creatures. 

And as for fixing them, you might have forgotten that the listeners tried to wipe the humans off the face of the planet (or at least that's the implication of the only story we've heard so far). Why would they want to make the listeners capable of mass-slaughter again? 

Now, I'm not denying that it is likely that the historical facts are mostly wrong about how the war went down, so it's possible things will totally change in our view. But here are some things we know now:

1) Kaladin's experience shows the parshmen are similar to humans in intelligence and personality traits

2) Some parshendi have been fully possessed by spren and are unable to exert their free will

It is possible that after Kaladin get's to know these great parshmen they will be enslaved by spren and wreak havoc on the world. That is probably what the humans were afraid of, if they ever even considered 'fixing' the listeners. And that, of course, is assuming they had any idea how to do it in the first place. Remember, they were set back to the stone age after the desolation. 

I think we all know that slavery is a terrible thing. I'm not sure that any of us has come up with a viable alternative for the post-desolation situation, even if every human on Roshar were altruistic and forgiving. Of course, it's quite difficult to speculate on possible solutions because it was so far in the distant past that we don't have a lot of details.

So here's a theory that makes space for an alternative: We will find out that the listeners were set up as scapegoats so that they would be enslaved and help humanity rebuild. This was done by the KR or the heralds as a way of saving humanity. That deception was discovered and is what broke the knights radiant.

Edited by soulcastJam
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34 minutes ago, soulcastJam said:

Well, if you accept the theory that the parshmen would die without someone to tell them what to do, then it had to be immediately after they were fogged.

It's not so much a theory as it was directly stated that if you leave one somewhere, it will stand around doing nothing waiting to be told what to do. (Can someone find that part? I'm on mobile)

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The real problem with this ethical dilemma is that it ignores the vast amount of time that's taken place. Even if humans caused the damage to listener souls at the end of the Last Desolation, what responsibility do modern humans have for it? They didn't have a say in the decision. They were born into a world where it occurred millennia ago.

Let's try characterizing it in terms of our world. Let's start by assuming that in the year 2500 BCE, the people of Ancient Egypt performed some magic ritual. As a result, the people of the Akkadian Empire (and their descendants, in perpetuity) are stuck in parshman slaverform. Over the millennia, they are integrated into human society. In the present day, we use them as menial laborers. Some are mistreated; others aren't. They can't do complex tasks and will for starve to death if left alone, but Akkadians are really good at simple, mundane tasks. They're a body without much of an apparent mind and no observable emotions.

Now we get there Everstorm, and suddenly all Akkadians have the same capacity as everyone else. What responsibility would any of us have for the status quo? Should we have let them starve? Should we have fed them without expecting them to work? Most of us don't even know where the Akkadian Empire was located (I'll bet 90% of you will have to look it up on Wikipedia like I did). Some of us might think it's one of those fictional countries used in sword and sorcery stories (e.g. Cimmeria, home of Conan).

Yes, what happened to them tragic. Yes, it was most likely something done by very distant ancestors of modern humans. However, modern humans have no knowledge of that. They get a lot of the more recent history worth wrong as it is. Why should they be held accountable for something they didn't do and in which they had no say?

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This is a very complex problem, one the one hand modern Humans can't be blamed for taking their minds/souls (Whether it was the humans who did it or not) which is the greater evil than the slavery but it's hard to see the Parshmen as anything but victims, can't exactly ask them to go back to the people who stripped away their freewill, while the Parshmen are in a position of weakness, and make friends; that's not something you get over for the sake of pragmatism. Logic may say that but logic isn't much of a comfort in something like this.

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This may be a can of worms, but I'm genuinely curious about the pure, philosophical implication of part of this question.

Racism is primarily characterized by a belief that one race is superior to another. From the point of view of the modern Rosharan humans--considering that the Parshmen literally lacked a serious chunk of cognitive ability--was their sense of superiority racism? I mean, we are acknowledging that, in terms of mental capacity, the Parshmen literally were inferior. 

Now that doesn't change the strong possibility that the initial decision may have been cruel, and those who committed the soul-tearing did something wrong. It also doesn't change the fact that the current Rosharan humans ought to see the change in the Parshmen and treat them with respect as an honest reaction to reality. But--barring any individual acts of legitimate cruelty or unkindess*--I just cant see how the average, modern Rosharan human could be guilty of any wrong towards the Parshmen up until the moment their minds were restored.

And if that's the case, the anger of the Parshmen--though passionate and founded in a true, severe, past injustice--would also be utterly unfounded towards the current Rosharans.


*I'm certain these have taken place, I'm less certain they are attributable to most of the population

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Slavery is historically typical. 

And aside from Mistborn Era 2, all of the cosmere's civilizations are developmentally a millenia older than ours. Without machinery and the assembly line, manual labor is necessary for growth and advancement. And without globalized economy, capitalism, republics and so on, you can't pay everyone. So in order for there to be monarchs and/or a luxury class, there must be serfs/slaves.

Also, you can't morally object to the parshmen enslavement using our context. Vorin morals strongly agrees with slavery as a form of punishment/prevention: hierarchy leads to enslaved religious figures, desolations lead to voidbringer/parshmen enslavement, and crimes/poverty lead to human enslavement.

I believe Sanderson creates more than enough historical reasoning for the slavery while sympathizing with the innate wrongness of it. 

Edited by Kaladin Zahel
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@treblkickd

On Dalinar 'The Benevolent Tyrant' vs. 'Blackthorn.'

I will argue that his progressing Redemption DOES give him some moral ground. We have seen him for 2 volumes of this Saga focusing all of his effort on what can be safely called Hororable actions and goals. We have seen 2 interludes of Blackthorn Dalinar and the difference is STARK. 

Look at Alethi Elite Society as a whole (Lighteyes) by their standard, EVERYONE is beneath them. Of the Alethi Elite, only Dalinar has made any effort to move beyond this. His ongoing Redemption absolutely qualifies him to spearhead the movement. He has a flagrantly violent past, he had an awakening moment and has been slowly refocusing on the world around him. 

I understand that it isn't the Ideal, Poetic, Prosaic, paradigm shift that we think should happen (Based on Human experiences over the last few hundred years) but you've got to keep in mind that Roshar's situation is effectively centuries behind ours. You cannot apply our ideals and the lessons that we have spent so long learning directly to the Alethi.

This is 4000+ years of 'Our Way of Life' and this is the VERY first time that they have seen it challenged. Give Dalinar some time, more than a little leeway (he is just learning, after all) and let him make his mistakes so he can learn even more.

It has to start somewhere.

Edited by IllNsickly
Grammaticalness.
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6 hours ago, treblkickd said:

One of the things I find myself struggling with while reading Oathbringer, in fact, is that I don't see how I can consider Dalinar much of a true hero or protagonist; his best case scenario might be some sort of redemption story arc. In this vein, it's darkly amusing that Dalinar is attempting to take up a leadership role in working to unite Roshar peacefully, while he seems completely oblivious to the fact that his own history/actions should pretty much disqualify him from any sort of peacemaking/diplomatic leadership role. Sure, we get to see current Dalinar PoVs that indicate his sincerity, but when you sit back and think about it there's literally no reason for any in-world person, outside of perhaps a few people closest to him, to trust Dalinar "the blackthorn" Kholin as a leader of men. Personally, I would love for a part of Dalinar's story arc to be the realization that he needs to take a back seat to others in the attempt to unite Roshar.

I don't know, I see what you're getting at, but Dalinar is literally a changed person. And I don't think the return of his horrible memories will cause him to become who he once was. And besides that, is repentance not  thing? And I don't just mean in the purely religious sense it comes from; Dalinar is no longer the person he was, and while the people around him aren't obligated to see that and just let go of his crimes, I don't think he is under any obligation to just stop trying to save the world. Surely saving the world is some form of atonement. If everyone utterly refuses to help him thats something else entirely

 

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45 minutes ago, Asrael said:

This may be a can of worms, but I'm genuinely curious about the pure, philosophical implication of part of this question.

Racism is primarily characterized by a belief that one race is superior to another. From the point of view of the modern Rosharan humans--considering that the Parshmen literally lacked a serious chunk of cognitive ability--was their sense of superiority racism? I mean, we are acknowledging that, in terms of mental capacity, the Parshmen literally were inferior. 

Now that doesn't change the strong possibility that the initial decision may have been cruel, and those who committed the soul-tearing did something wrong. It also doesn't change the fact that the current Rosharan humans ought to see the change in the Parshmen and treat them with respect as an honest reaction to reality. But--barring any individual acts of legitimate cruelty or unkindess*--I just cant see how the average, modern Rosharan human could be guilty of any wrong towards the Parshmen up until the moment their minds were restored.

And if that's the case, the anger of the Parshmen--though passionate and founded in a true, severe, past injustice--would also be utterly unfounded towards the current Rosharans.

Briefly ignoring the debate on was it right/wrong to treat the Parshmen as slave labor, I am interested in the question posed here: Was their sense of superiority racism? Interesting question. It is certainly unclear. I might argue that if it was racism they would treat the Listeners differently than they had when they encountered them. They did not assume the Listeners were slaves, nor did they attempt to enslave them to use as labor based solely on appearance/apparent similarity.  They engaged them as a nation, recognizing their rights to the lands they occupied and negotiating a treaty to use their lands.

Back to the main debate, Eshonai's POV in the prologue to OB demonstrates that even the Listeners saw tremendous differences between themselves and the Parshmen. It comes to mind then, that through some magical or supernatural means, those Listeners who became Parshmen were physically and mentally altered in a way that made them unable to care for themselves. At this point there may be a moral obligation to care for them, but the form of that care (and the labor extracted as a cost of that care) are of concern. 

This reminds me of the difficulty in deciding when someone is no longer capable of consent, such as in the cases of medical powers of attorney or extreme disability. The legal status in the US is of Guardianship or Conservatorship. A Guardian or Conservator is granted the power and authority to make decisions on behalf of the incapacitated person, or ward. To declare that the Parshmen were in no way wronged by modern Rosharans requires the assumption that the Parshmen are so unable to care for themselves that they are incapacitated. This seems to be a good assumption. However, for them to have done no wrong, they must be acting in the ward's best interest and cause no harm. They certainly cannot be financially gaining from the labor of the ward.

Can it be said, in treating them as slaves, that the Rosharan's were acting as responsible and moral guardians of their wards? At best, they were neglectful and wrong. In truth, they were taking advantage of their wards to benefit themselves, and so were acting immorally.

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21 minutes ago, soulcastJam said:

Technically it is not racism if they are of a different species. :D

Well...there are quite some different species on Roshar, none of which is really "human" ... although they are not THAT different, as they can interbreed ... :rolleyes: ... hard to say how similar species have to be to call it racism ... quite a can of worms better left closed ...

EDT: bold

Edited by Michael Portz
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