rdn32

I intermittently attend a “science and literature” reading group. The last thing I read for the group was “The Languages of Pao”, by Jack Vance. Actually, we only read the first nine chapters.

I’m not really much of a science fiction fan—I’m not much of a novel-reader in general—and to start with the book was a bit of a grind. But once the story got going I found it quite intriguing: perhaps it had some sort of personal resonance.

The book is about a planet, Pao, with a docile, agrarian population living under a single supreme ruler: the Panarch. Early on in the story there’s some skulduggery that results with the rather ineffectual Panarche being replaced by his more aggressive brother Bustamonte. However, Pao is then attacked by the war-like Brumbos from, oh, some other planet. This results in Panarche Bustamonte having to pay a heavy tribute in order to keep his position.

In the ninth chapter, Bustamonte goes to yet another planet where the inhabitants’ advanced science and technology has given them the reputation of being wizards. He goes to seek the advice of one Lord Palafox, hoping that he might be able to supply Pao with suitable weapons to help see off those pesky Brumbos.

A hint of impatience entered Palafox’s voice. ‘Ten thousand Brumbos overcame fifteen billion Paonese. Your people had weapons. But no-one considered resistance. They acquiesced like grass-birds.’

Bustamonte shook his head doggedly. ‘We are men like other men. All we need is training.’

‘Training will never supply the desire to fight!’

Bustamonte scowled. ‘Then this desire must be supplied!’

Palafox showed his teeth in a peculiar grin. He pulled himself erect in his chair. ‘At last we have touched to the core of the matter.’

What is needed, Palafox insists, is a culture change.

The particular way he suggests that this change be brought about is through language. Some region of Pao should be selected, and the people in it should learn a new language specifically designed to encourage a militaristic mindset. Palafox gives some details of how such a language might work.

In a similar vein, Palafox suggests how a different section of the population could be selected to learn a different language that would encourage inventiveness and industriousness, thereby removing Pao’s need to import manufactured goods.

Palafox has more:

‘And should you plan to seek extra-planetary markets, a corps of salesmen and traders would be advisable. Theirs would be a symmetric language with emphatic number-parsing, elaborate honorifics to teach hypocrisy, a vocabulary rich in homophones to facilitate ambiguity, a syntax of reflection, reinforcement and alternation to emphasize the analogous interchange of human affairs.‘

Palafox finishes his pitch:

‘All of these languages will make use of semantic assistance. To the military segment, a “successful man” will be synonymous with “winner of a fierce contest.” To the industrialists, it will mean “efficient fabricator.” To the traders, it equates with “a person irresistibly persuasive.” Such influences will pervade each of the languages. Naturally they will not act with equal force upon each individual, but the mass action must be decisive.’

‘Marvelous!’ cried Bustamonte, completely won over. ‘This is human engineering indeed!’

I actually rather liked the fact of stopping reading the story in media res. It gives scope for imagining how things might turn out. Let me give an example.

One of the things that Lord Palafox says is that the culture change will take twenty years to be completed. In the reading group, a number of people were dubious about whether twenty years wasn’t far too short to be realistic for such a radical culture change. However, to me that was beside the point.

Palafox is a consultant, and at this point all he needs to do is to get Bustamonte’s buy-in. Once Bustamonte has committed to Palafox’s plan, it will be difficult to back out without losing face by admitting to having made a mistake. From then on, I reckon Palafox is in a no-lose situation:

• Given that it is such a difficult undertaking, Palafox can reasonably insist that he be involved in the project over the whole of it’s lifetime.
• If the plan isn’t popular, Palafox can say “People can get very set in their ways, they don’t like change. That’s to be expected.”
• If the plan doesn’t go smoothly, Palafox can say “It’s inevitable that, with such an ambitious project, they’ll be a few teething problems.“
• If the decades pass without the project achieving it’s goals, Palafox can say “Look, we’ve come this far. You owe it to yourself to see things through to the end.”
• Even if the project ends up being an undeniable failure, Palafox can say “I said from the outset that there were no guarantees. That’s just life.“

Lord Palafox doesn’t really need to concern himself deeply about whether the plan will work. I can imagine him chuckling to himself “I don’t give a monkeys’, I get paid either way.”