Treatment of the Parshmen - Revisited

[Vailima]

Hello all!

I've seen closed threads about this before, and there was a lot of intellectual, speculative discourse about whether the eventual enslavement of the Parshmen was, essentially, for the best.

I'm not going to talk about whether it was or wasn't justified, I just want to contextualise this with an Earth-based analogy, rewind a bit to early and first contact, and ask people to take their intellectual hats off and put their feelings hats on.

 

You and your family are chilling on your ancestral lands. You and your family have lived on this land for as long as anyone remembers, you know this land. You know what grows here, you know what animals animals live here, you have stories about the landscapes that your ancestors told, and their ancestors before them. You have a symbiotic relationship with this land - it provide for you, and you know how to take care of it - this symbiosis is Cultivation and Honor. You live a fairly comfortable life in a fairly egalitarian society. You make art, you sing songs, you eat meals together. There are occasional skirmishes, sure, but overall you live a happy and productive life. In this analogy, this is the Parshman. 

One day, another group of hominids arrive. In this analogy, the humans. They tell you they don't have anywhere to live. They tell you their own planet has been destroyed, by a powerful weapon they foolishly unleashed - this weapon, for the purposes of this analogy, is odium. Well, you and your people think that's really sad, and you want to help out these down on their luck people. So you say, you know what? We've carved you out a space and a home. You give these people a piece of land, and you say, from here to here, you can grow and live and eat and play. It's what you would want someone to do for you if you lost your beloved home, right? 

It's okay at first, but some of these newcomers become unhappy with the arrangement. Not all of them, just a few. They want more, more land and more wealth. They start encroaching in on your peoples' land, expanding their own territory, and they brought just the tool to help on their campaign - shards of Odium - guns. 

They start shooting your people, running you off your land, and you're horrified with this device. It is so powerful and terrifying. Some of you are scared, but some of your people decide to fight fire with fire and acquire these devices of their own. This terrifies the newcomers. 

So what do the newcomers do? 

They wage war on all your people, utilising the land and resources (Cultivation and Honor) - it's for your own good, they say. Who knows, you might reverse engineer this device and destroy the planet like we did ours, they say, so they come after you, "for the greater good". They destroy all the guns, and it will take thousands of years for this tool to ever be developed again, but that's not all they do, they put all of you that they can find, into chains (effectively removing your song in listener terms). It doesn't matter that the threat of Odium has been immobilised for now, they decide this land is theirs because of the threat you pose, and they keep you in chains, and force you to build over your homeland in their image. Millennia pass, you're forgotten your culture and your songs. Your land is unrecognisable from the land your ancestors knew. You're a slave, and apparently that's all you and your people have ever been.

Your descendants are slaves, and of course you regret your people picking up the shards of Odium. But many things lead to that. 

Before the weapon, there was a threat. Before the threat, there was an agreement. Before the agreement, there was pity for a displaced people. Where does the regret begin? 

And for the newcomers; before the indigenous people fought back, there was expansion. Before the expansion, there was a weapon. With the weapon, there was the destruction of your own planet, and an exodus. When does the greater good begin? and whose greater good is that? 

And how would you, how would the Listeners, feel after all of that? I know we can talk sociology and philosophy and history and psychology and human nature all day on these topics, and you know what? that's okay. It's okay, every topic should be open to intellectual dissection and analysis, there's an academic inside all of us wanting to figure out the moving pieces of things. But it's important to remember feelings. Topics like colonisation are an academic or philosophical exercise to some, but, to others, they're lived and painful experiences, with complex feelings, negative socioeconomic results and inter-generational trauma. It can be distressful for some people to hear about their experiences as merely a sterile debate with numbers and facts and figure. Thinking about it with your feelings and putting yourself in the Listener's shoes, sharing your acknowledgement instead of looking at it as purely an intellectual exercise, is important to humanise real life instances for imperialism or colonisation, and, for me at least, makes the world building richer and the reading experience more powerful. 

 

Anyway, sorry for the kind of ramble of a novella that never really had a concise point. I'm not here to make anyone feel like crem or called out or anything like that, honestly, I'm just opening up my chest and letting out some of my feelings, which is good enough for me. I'm not here to change anything, just express myself. 

Edited September 10, 2020 by Vailima
Parshendi -> Parshmen

[Frustration]

*mumbles about how Frustration will lead to eventual victory*

I'm going to say it's a bad analogy, I know hate me, but we don't know exactly what happened way back when, and the Dawnsingers did turn to Odium, please change it from Parshendi it's very confusing. And honestly the whole greater good never fits in. And on top of that the enslavement was A. not intentional, and B. not until several thousand years latter.

[Vailima]

18 minutes ago, Frustration said:

 please change it from Parshendi it's very confusing. 

Good point, thanks for pointing that out, I have edited the title 

29 minutes ago, Frustration said:

We don't know exactly what happened way back when, and the Dawnsingers did turn to Odium

You're right, I provided a very imperfect analogy. We're not sure what went down exactly in Roshar, so this is another good point 

19 minutes ago, Frustration said:

And honestly the whole greater good never fits in. And on top of that the enslavement was A. not intentional, and B. not until several thousand years latter.

Good point also, I did not provide enough context of what I'm talking about - the specific closed post I was reading, had many people talk about how it was the greater good and best option or outcome - then, got into intellectual discussion about the history of slavery, how human's needed imperialism and slavery historically to progress, etc., this is where I got super uncomfortable. 

To have something your recent ancestors went through, and your family is still struggling with, sterilised and then discussed through an academic lens, is very jarring. I can't speak on behalf of everyone who is part of a community that has been through this, I wouldn't dare to. I am sure this is not the case for all of us in these communities, but it is for some. To be spoken of as historical relics, or a theoretical abstracts and in such sterile, unfeeling terms, is very uncomfortable. It can make you feel disconnected, and kind of depersonalised. I'm sure we want everyone to feel comfortable to be themselves and to participate in these forums, and one of the ways we can help minorities feel comfortable in this community, is to humanise their struggles, acknowledge, and recognise their struggles. Does that make sense?

43 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I know hate me

Absolutely not! You're all good, I provided a bad analogy and it's fair of you to point it out! I didn't make the point I was trying to make clear, and all you've done is given me the opportunity to make my point clearer, thank you for that.  

Simply put I guess my OP was not well written or thought out - the analogy I guess was not the correct vehicle to get my point across. 

I mean, all in all, it's probably a bit silly for me to make such a long post, about something that was posted three years ago that everyone else may have forgotten about. I haven't even been on the forum long, and maybe people don't even talk like that anymore, and this whole thing was pointless.

Anyway, thanks for reading and for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it 

[Frustration]

20 minutes ago, Vailima said:

Good point, thanks for pointing that out, I have edited the title 

Thanks, but I hope it's not too much to ask for you to edit the main post. Sorry but reading it really threw me off.

21 minutes ago, Vailima said:

You're right, I provided a very imperfect analogy. We're not sure what went down exactly in Roshar, so this is another good point 

Good point also, I did not provide enough context of what I'm talking about - the specific closed post I was reading, had many people talk about how it was the greater good and best option or outcome - then, got into intellectual discussion about the history of slavery, how human's needed imperialism and slavery historically to progress, etc., this is where I got super uncomfortable. 

To have something your recent ancestors went through, and your family is still struggling with, sterilised and then discussed through an academic lens, is very jarring. I can't speak on behalf of everyone who is part of a community that has been through this, I wouldn't dare to. I am sure this is not the case for all of us in these communities, but it is for some. To be spoken of as historical relics, or a theoretical abstracts and in such sterile, unfeeling terms, is very uncomfortable. It can make you feel disconnected, and kind of depersonalised. I'm sure we want everyone to feel comfortable to be themselves and to participate in these forums, and one of the ways we can help minorities feel comfortable in this community, is to humanise their struggles, acknowledge, and recognise their struggles. Does that make sense?

Absolutely not! You're all good, I provided a bad analogy and it's fair of you to point it out! I didn't make the point I was trying to make clear, and all you've done is given me the opportunity to make my point clearer, thank you for that.  

Simply put I guess my OP was not well written or thought out - the analogy I guess was not the correct vehicle to get my point across. 

I mean, all in all, it's probably a bit silly for me to make such a long post, about something that was posted three years ago that everyone else may have forgotten about. I haven't even been on the forum long, and maybe people don't even talk like that anymore, and this whole thing was pointless.

Anyway, thanks for reading and for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it 

You're welcome, I haven't seen anything like that in my time here, but I can see why that would churn your stomach enough to bring it up. 

[Honorless]

@Vailima, that was a wonderful read. Could you link these closed discussions for convenience, so people can see what this has been written in response to?

[Vailima]

8 minutes ago, Honorless said:

@Vailima, that was a wonderful read. Could you link these closed discussions for convenience, so people can see what this has been written in response to?

Thank you so much. And, no problem! Here's the thread was posted in 2017 

It starts off as a rigourous, intellectual debate re Stormlight, and in-world morality - it's slightly uncomfortable, people make similar arguments as to why it was OK for humans to enslave the Parshmen, as the arguments and excuses people made/make for colonisation (mental capacity, inferiority, it was too long ago for accountability, etc). I mean, it's in world discussion, I'm sure people didn't mean for those parallels to be there - People are allowed to have those discussions! of course! We're talking about a made up world and made up people here. It is very much from the Rosharan Human's perspectives though, there's very little in terms of humanising the Parshmen. 

Around the end of page three it has hints at veering into real life, then page four full on does, while still maintaining an academic tone. 

I mean, it's clear no one in the thread thinks we should have slaves, and that the slave trade in the America's was morally wrong, etc. It's not hate speech, everyone has come to conclusions that aren't bad - but, to me, it's the academic tone that is just quite jarring! 

For all I know, it got closed for getting off topic, and there isn't much or anything else on this site like this! But it felt nice to get off my chest what was going through my head while I read through it. I know that I'm a very sensitive person, very sensitive indeed haha and this probably doesn't ring the alarm bells in other peoples' heads that it does in mine, but, it's a life long reality to hear people talk about me and my ancestors in the abstract, so I've had to spend a lot of my time thinking about and unpacking these types of things. 

 

[Halyo_Alex]

I'm a very emotional kind of person, and reading this reminded me of how much I want to A. Punch the humans of Roshar in the face and B. how much I want to see Radiant Parshendi/Singers later on in SA.

Lightweaverform is going to be so much cooler than any human Lightweaver.

Singers are just so much better than stupid, boring humans. I want a gemheart...

 

Sorry. Just haven't had a place to say those things before. Hope you don't mind...

[HSuperLee]

My issue is not with wanting to defend the actions of the human ancestors of modern Stormlight characters. What they did was wrong. They spat in the face of kindness and became conquerors and killers. But the issue is, there descendants, the modern Rosharan humans had nothing to do with that. I believe very much in not punishing the son for the sins of the father, and the truth is that the modern humans are benefiting from the crimes their ancestors committed, but I can't be angry at modern Rosharans. At least not for being born and living in land that they didn't know was historically stolen. I feel terrible for the Listeners (still not sure what the best term for them is,) but the truth is that the ones that wronged them are all dead now (except maybe the Heralds, not sure on that one.) Simply kicking the humans out of what has become their home would be just as wrong as the original taking of that land from the Listeners would have been. There's no easy answer to this, which is I think what Sanderson is trying to convey. As much of a skybreaker as I am, I don't think this is a situation where justice can be satisfied, because the victims and perpetrators are all dead already. This is moving into the domain of forgiveness, and unity. And no, don't take that as me saying the Listeners need to just get over what happened, that's not what I'm saying at all. But it might be time for them to share the land. Some humans, upon learning the truth, might decide the Listeners are right, and want to return to Shinovar. It's great if that happens, and ideally all the humans might decide that (though it would definitely cause upheaval in Shinovar and would need to be pursued carefully.) But you also can't just force humans to leave their homes. Thus, we need some kind of peace to form between the two, and even more, for them to learn to live with each other in peace. That might not be satisfying, but frankly I don't care whats satisfying or what feels right, I care about what's actually right. Roshar has tried war and vengeance time and time again to the point that its basically their whole history. And to be clear, Odium needs to be stopped, so the present war might in some ways be necessary. But once Odium has been stopped, Roshar needs to find peace. Luckily, we're now getting people like Kaladin that genuinely care about both sides, so maybe peace and unity can actually be found.

 

Sorry for the long rant, but I agree this is a deep topic that requires discussion, and I know how easy it is to demonize the humans because we're also human, and sometimes its easier to make ourselves feel guilty than actually address the problem, so I figured someone needed to make the case for something other than their total destruction or displacement.

[Frustration]

4 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Some humans, upon learning the truth, might decide the Listeners are right, and want to return to Shinovar. It's great if that happens, and ideally all the humans might decide that (though it would definitely cause upheaval in Shinovar and would need to be pursued carefully.)

Isn't that them taking land from the Shin? 

Sharing land is a much better solution.

[HSuperLee]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Isn't that them taking land from the Shin? 

Sharing land is a much better solution.

Ah, so you found that problem. Yeah, I considered that, that's why I have the " though it would definitely cause upheaval in Shinovar and would need to be pursued carefully." I hoped someone would catch that.

 

But yes, sharing land is the much better solution. It's just the harder solution, because generally creatures don't like sharing if they don't have to.

[Vailima]

8 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Sorry for the long rant, but I agree this is a deep topic that requires discussion, and I know how easy it is to demonize the humans because we're also human, and sometimes its easier to make ourselves feel guilty than actually address the problem, so I figured someone needed to make the case for something other than their total destruction or displacement.

I totally agree with you that humans should not be destroyed or completely displaced! 100% I strongly feel as if the true bad guy in all of this is Odium, not the Humans or the Listeners. It's just super easy for him to take advantage of the "us vs them" species dichotomy to get willing servants, the conflict serves him well. We've seen that there's people on both sides who are willing to serve him for whatever reason - power, fear, because they don't feel like they fit into current society, etc -  I ultimately feel as if Humans and Listeners will have to overcome their animosity and need to compete with each other, and those of them that serve Honor will need to figure out a solution re. Odium together. 

Or at least I hope so - I'll be really disappointed if these book end with the total destruction of either race!

 

[Vailima]

16 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Sorry. Just haven't had a place to say those things before. Hope you don't mind...

I do not mind at all! This is exactly what I'm advocating for - taking our intellectual hats off for a bit and having space to put our emotional hats on haha

[Halyo_Alex]

Just now, Vailima said:

I do not mind at all! This is exactly what I'm advocating for - taking our intellectual hats off for a bit and having space to put our emotional hats on haha

Oh, good, so I didn't misinterpret that.