Once you start looking for HPing themes in fiction it's
amazing how much you find that was previously invisible to you. Even a story set
in the distant future out in space echoes resonantly with the tones of the gas
spanner, the patslide and the lodge. Strikebreaker
is a short story by one of the biggest names in science fiction, Isaac Asimov.
It was first published in a literary magazine in 1957 and has since been added
to several other periodicals and a couple of Asimov's numerous anthologies. Its
original title was "Male Strikebreaker" which implies scabbing is a
women's thing, which is not true and therefore the editor's choice made no
sense to the author. The story is set on a tiny planet called Elsevere, one no
bigger than one of the real minor planets of our solar system like Vesta or
Eris, only this is an exoplanet; it orbits another star. A group of astronauts
from earth have landed on it and created a permanent base by excavating tunnels
and chambers inside it. However, their long isolation has caused them to
develop some unusual political and sociological traits. Because there is no natural
biosphere on Elsevere they must recycle everything they use and process all waste
very carefully. The threat of scarcity and austerity looms constantly and this his
has led to a highly rigid and authoritarian society; including a caste system
in which people are socially segregated depending on what job they do, similar
to traditional communities in India. A visitor arrives at the colony, a
sociologist called Steven Lamorak who is doing a study about the community, but
when he gets there he finds that there is some tension in the air. Water on the
planet is reused over and over again, extracted from sewage by distillation and
the toilet waste is separated and used as fertilizer for the indoor farms. This
job is handled by somebody called Igor Ragusnik and his family. He is the
community's untouchable, a dalit. Now
he has gone on strike and is refusing to process fresh water. This would
eventually lead to the death of the entire community from dehydration or
potable disease. His demand is for an end to his social segregation, for his
child to be allowed to play with other kids and for his wife to be able to talk
to other women. He is adamant and refuses to back down. The government of the
colony refuse to comply also. They know that this stalemate will result in all
their deaths, but the taboo of breaking the caste system is so strong that is surpasses
even their survival instinct. Lamorak decides he has no choice but to intervene
and volunteer to do Ragusnik's job for him in order to save everybody's life.
This would force the water processor back to his duties because his clout over
the others will be gone. None of the other castes know how to do the job so
Lamorak has to give himself a crash course from instruction manuals. Ragusnik
is obviously furious, but Lamorak tells him that he has won the moral argument
and that he needs to stop now before people die. He has achieved his aim of
making the other people on Elsevere aware of his feelings and so they will subsequently
begin to question the fairness of their caste segregation. Ragusnik reluctantly
returns to work and the crisis is over. However when Lamorak returns to the
governmental offices expecting gratitude and friendship for saving the people
of Elsevere, he is forbidden entry and is informed very brusquely that he is
being deported and banned permanently from the planet. The reason being, he has
done the work of the untouchable himself and so is therefore now also a dalit. Strikebreaker is approximately a ten minute read. Source: http://blog.ac-versailles.fr/villaroylit/public/Strikebreaker.pdf.
The allegory in Strikebreaker
is obvious. We HP's are all Ragusniks. The caste system described in the story
actually exists, but not just in India and other places where it is very formal
and regimented. It also can be found in Western capitalist societies in the
form of the social class system. This is becoming more complex as history
evolves, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2013/04/what-class-are-you.html, but is remains an unspoken and self-organizing imperative. It
is not codified by law; there is no statute prohibiting a senior registrar from
marrying a porter, but the rule nevertheless exists. It is enforced by peer
pressure, social approval or disapproval. Such psychological and cultural
forces are very powerful and history has shown they are broken far less often
than official regulations. This became obvious to me when I realized that
"Jack Shaw" was far angrier with me than he would have been if I had
set fire to his car or stolen his wallet etc, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/i-lied-to-jack.html.
Unlike some people, especially the trade unionists at my hospital who are very
leftwing, I don't think social class structure is necessarily a bad thing. In
fact it may well be inevitable and natural in an organic society free from the
social engineering we see so much of today. It is worth noting that in the
story, Igor Ragusnik lives in a much bigger and more luxurious house than anybody
else on planet Elsevere; it's a way to compensate him for his loneliness. However,
when that class system causes people to behave with groundless and senseless
hostility to those "beneath them", or even the opposite in the form
of inverted snobbery, that society enters into a serious pathology. For
example, extreme class division over many generations produces distinct racial
differences between the different classes. We see this in India Iran Afghanistan India India India
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/well-take-it-from-here.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/how-dare-you.html.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/well-take-it-from-here.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/how-dare-you.html.
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