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Cargo Cults and the Ethics of Active SETI
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Cargo cults and the ethics of active SETI John W. Traphagan Department of Religious Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2505 University Ave. A3700, Austin, TX, 78712, USA
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Active SETI Cargo cults Ethics Anthropology Astrobiology
The story of the cargo cult is one of contact between different groups of people with different types of technologies who interpret and construct a framework of interaction and communication that involves colonial officials, indigenous people, anthropologists, and military personnel. In this article, I use the idea of the cargo cult as a way of thinking about contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. The cargo cult idea represents a useful tool in thinking about how contact with a civilization from another planet might unfold, particularly if we assume that there is some level of commonality in the epistemological frameworks guiding thoughts and behaviors on both sides. I conclude that careful consideration of the cargo cult phenomenon suggests that from a policy perspective groups interested in active SETI should be cautious about both the construction and sending of interstellar messages and that from a moral perspective it may be prudent to refrain from active SETI for the time being. Given the fact that a variety of groups and individuals are undertaking active SETI projects, this is a topic that needs to enter the radar of government organizations.
1. Introduction Natural scientists may be familiar with the term “cargo cult” as a result of Richard Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement address in which he used it metaphorically in reference to pseudo-science. Feynman notes that cargo cults are historical practices among some Melanesian peoples that follow contact with more technologically advanced societies [1]. In certain cases, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and particularly during the time of social upheaval surrounding World War II, groups would engage in ritualized behaviors such as building models of airplanes or runways in hopes that it would result in the acquisition of material or other rewards. Feynman appropriates this idea and applies it to pseudo-science on the grounds that the products of these ritualized practices in Melanesia might be accurate in form, but are lacking in content. In other words, they don't work. He calls pseudo-sciences like UFOlogy and ESP studies Cargo Cult Science, because they follow the forms and precepts of scientific investigation, but they lack content–empirical evidence and a theoretical framework based on that evidence–and as a result they represent empty attempts at scientific investigation. Feynman drew on a widely described practice from the post-World War II anthropological literature that explores issues of mimesis and mimicry related to contact within colonial and imperialistic contexts of dominance [2]. A particularly notable example of the work in this area is Peter Lawrence's classic study Road Belong Cargo that explores ways in which indigenous people in New Guinea used forms of religious
experimentation to respond to colonial domination [3]. Lindstrom notes that the term cargo cult is not simply descriptive of mimicry that arises in contact situations, but is a politicized concept that emerged in print as a “discursive grenade” used by missionaries, colonial administrators, and settlers who observed religious and ritual responses among indigenous people to the collapse of the colonial order following the Japanese invasion of the islands and the ultimate surrender of the Japanese, leading to several years of administrative and social disorder. Initially called Vailala Madness in official descriptions of social movements dating back to the 1920s that responded to contact with colonial administrators and missionaries, the concept of cargo cult was often viewed like an infectious disease that would hit indigenous groups, spreading like a pandemic unless kept under the firm control of colonial powers [4]. The story of the cargo cult is one of contact between different groups of people with different types of technologies who interact, interpret, and construct a framework of interaction and communication. On the surface, the process looks fairly clear: 1) Society A encounters an external society (Society B) with superior technology or at least the ability to provide goods that are desired; 2) Society A reasons, perhaps predictably, that by reaching out to Society B (the seemingly superior one) they may gain benefits of material goods that might alleviate problems they have such as food shortages; 3) Society A creates ritual and mythological frameworks in an attempt to gain access to the goods possessed by Society B. However, the example of the cargo cult is not simply a story of technologically inferior natives mimicking superior
E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.04.001 Received 21 February 2018; Received in revised form 26 March 2018; Accepted 6 April 2018 0265-9646/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Traphagan, J.W., Space Policy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.04.001
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did not build warehouses or air strips, and the behaviors may have been more the result of a necessity to believe in something—to have some source of hope—in the face of a context of domination by a colonial power. Another way to think about this is to view it as a way to articulate dissatisfaction with the status quo–the cargo cult represents a form of cultural generation, as anthropologist Roy Wagner has put it, in which members of a particular society attempt to substantiate and confirm an epistemological paradigm, or in this case to contest a paradigm, as a way to invent a particular reality by objectifying ideas and values associated with an existing or new social paradigm [10]. The Johnson Cult is an example of behavior based on ideas that abundant European or American goods (cargo)–ships, aircraft, guns, or presidents—can be obtained, usually from a divine source, and in the case of the Johnson Cult functioned from a social perspective as a framework for engaging in social critique. Exposure to an external and technologically superior society tends to have a disruptive influence on the indigenous society as individuals and groups attempt to cope with outsiders, particularly when indigenous groups find their own identity and status within the larger and changing social context unpalatable. The Johnson Cult, like other Melanesian cargo cults, is an example from a colonial context, but the basic pattern of behavior has counterparts in many societies outside Melanesia, including the American Indian Ghost Dance, millennial movements in medieval Europe, and flying saucer cults in the contemporary USA [3]. In each of these cases, the social movement represents actions on the part of people who at some level feel marginalized or disempowered in relation to larger political and social structures. Thus, cargo cults are discourses in which people engage in a form of cultural critique. For the residents of New Hanover, the Johnson Cult was not really about obtaining Johnson, but was a way to enact a discourse of resistance in the context of colonial domination. As such, it represents a critique of the dominant political and social context that draws on an epistemological framework intentionally constructed as distinct from the one shaping the administrative schema of social dominance [11]. In this sense, cargo cults like the Johnson cult are similar to millennial movements in which groups posit an alternate reality where the human condition is idealized and good overcomes evil [12]. This raises an important point about cargo cults. As noted above, these behaviors in Melanesia were initially viewed as madness by Western observers–a mental disease that became a contagious cultural practice–and the term “cult” itself contains a pejorative connotation associated with assumptions about the irrational behaviors of primitive people or irrational behaviors that arise within a context of cultural collapse [13]. In many respects, this reading is undermined by the fact that it represents an application or imposition of Western cultural categories onto Melanesian behaviors that construct variables like mental health and social change in terms of an individuated concept of self, without recognizing the internal forces shaping how identity is being constructed by those involved in the context of social tension [13]. An alternate reading of the cargo cult phenomenon is that it represents, again not unlike millennial movements, not a strange (or diseased) reaction to social change and contact, but a reasoned response to an unsatisfactory status quo. In other words, the arrival of the odd “other” with its airplanes and presidents does not stimulate “primitive” behavior on the part of people who fail to understand what they are seeing, but, instead, stimulates a rather sophisticated response to the status quo of their own situation that represents an interpretation of another that is used to express dissatisfaction with the local context of experience. This is important for the discussion here, because it underscores the fact that these behaviors are not those of “primitive” peoples (and it should be noted that the idea of primitive and advanced was dropped in anthropology a long time ago), but is a logical means for manipulating an unsatisfactory social environment by dissatisfied groups within that environment. Therefore, such behaviors have the potential to occur in any social context where there are groups who feel marginalized or disenfranchised from the larger social order. This is the case on Earth
colonials and other outsiders; it is a story of how a long-term interpretive matrix emerged involving colonial officials, indigenous people, anthropologists, and military personnel in the context of dynamic dissatisfaction with the status quo by some groups living within that context. In this article, I am interested in using the idea of the cargo cult as a way of thinking about contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization and to consider what could happen as a result of an active SETI project developed by humans. This is an important topic from a policy perspective because, although active SETI is not part of governmental programs nor policies at present, there are a growing number of individuals and organizations interested in sending messages directed at imagined extraterrestrial civilizations, including individuals such as Bill Kitchen, who advocates and is working to send a “Noah's Ark” to the stars with the DNA sequences of all known species on Earth as well as the collective content of human cultural production [5]. Governments need to consider the potential consequences, both to Earth and to possible civilizations at the other end of a contact event, of individuals and groups engaging in active SETI. The cargo cult trope, as it has been widely used in anthropology and more generally in the public discourse on cultural contact, represents a useful tool in thinking about how contact with a civilization from another planet might unfold, particularly if we assume that there is some level of commonality in the epistemological frameworks guiding thoughts and behaviors on both sides [6]. Indeed, if those epistemological frameworks are radically different, it is unlikely that communication and understanding will be possible [7]. 2. The cargo cult It will be helpful to begin with an example of the cargo cult that received considerable attention in the 1960s, both among scholars and in the general public, as it was reported on in American newspapers. This particular example, known as the Johnson Cult, formed among a group of Pacific Islanders living in New Hanover, Papua New Guinea, who in 1964 managed to raise $1000 to send to President Johnson with the aim of enticing him to become their leader [4]. In 1964, 7000 people in New Hanover refused to follow balloting protocols, instead indicating that they wanted to vote for LBJ, a position that was largely stimulated by contact with American service personnel who, according to the story, were friendly, shared food and goods, and paid well [8]. The rise of the Johnson cult created minor cause for concern among colonial Australian administrators, who rebutted requests to send the money to Johnson in America with claims that he was busy with the Vietnam War and that the USA was far away. The people said they would wait and when tax-time arrived hundreds refused to pay their taxes, preferring to save the money to send to America to acquire Johnson as their leader. This led the Australian administration use the native police to make “demonstrations of strength” intended to change the behaviors of the locals–one person was shot, although fortunately not injured seriously [8]. Billings notes in her discussion of the Johnson Cult that there was little talk of the supernatural; cultists tended to believe that results would be achieved through practical action, as opposed to ritual performances attempting to enlist the powers of spirit-beings. There was no prophet nor significant actions on the part of individuals to lead, although some took advantage of the situation by preaching patience until Johnson came and collecting money from the people to send to America–one such individual, named Oliver, apparently was able to use this tactic to acquire a radio, wristwatch, and women [8]. Oliver's activities were not simply exploitation, but followed older practices of “big men” typical of the area and, thus, did not represent an attempt to take the locals in a new direction from a social or cultural perspective [8]. [9]. According to Billings, it is unlikely that most Hanoverians actually believed Johnson would ever come. Unlike in other cargo cults, they 2
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communicate, meaning that it consists of a “civilization” that involves social relationships among its members and some sort of cultural context that shapes behavior; 2) said civilization is not a monolithic whole, but consists of various individuals and groups with varied, and conflicting, ideas; and 3) receipt of a message from humans will be met with analysis and interpretation and will be used to achieve some sort of ends on the part of those doing the analysis and interpretation. Those ends, of course, are beyond our capacity to know and will happen far removed from our frame of experience. If we take these three assumptions together, it becomes possible at least tentatively to speculate on how receipt of a message could influence the civilization at the other end. One potentiality is that not much will happen at all. The beings at the other end might display some interest, talk about contact in their forms of media, debate the implications, and simply decide that the distances and time-lag in communication are too great to be worth bothering with, and, thus, interest could wane quickly. We have some evidence for this type of response here on Earth from the late 19th Century, when Percival Lowell popularized the idea of Martian canals and a Martian civilization. There was a public discourse, but it eventually subsided in part because it became increasingly clear that a civilization was unlikely on Mars. That said, there were some informative moments related to how individuals and groups responded to the Martian canal trope, such as the mild “panic” that ensued during the Orson Welles' broadcast of The War of the Worlds in the 1930s [15]. Although the idea of a widespread panic related to the broadcast has been debunked [16], the broadcast did have something of an impact that was not simply related to worry about Martian attack, but reflected more general fear of the looming onset of war right here on Earth that was intensified in the context of social upheaval during the Great Depression [17,18]. In other words, reactions of concern were as much a reflection of the local political and economic environments as they were about fear over a Martian invasion. By the 1950s it was clear among scientists that no civilization existed on Mars [19], but interest remained among the public, and people still talked about the canals on Mars well into the 1960s while popular science fiction stories such as Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles imagined Martian civilization—and Bradbury's work was made into a TV mini-series with Rock Hudson as late as 1980—and even into the present some believe that there was a civilization on the Red Planet in the past. The Orson Welles' broadcast is instructive in showing that at least pockets of the public were sufficiently convinced by the broadcast that they called radio and police stations to see if something was happening that posed a threat. If we take this a step further and imagine that some of those pockets among Americans were dissatisfied with the social status quo, it is not terribly difficult to think nascent millennial movements that might have formed following the broadcast. Now, if we imagine this in a different context—that of another world receiving a transmission from Earth—perhaps pockets of beings on the receiving world dissatisfied with the social conditions of their society and their position within the power hierarchies they inhabit would generate a cargo cult style of millennial movement in response to the message. Members of groups who feel disenfranchised or marginalized might find ways to use contact with Earth to establish and promote a form of cultural critique via the ideas—and even invent mythologies—that might become associated with the formation of a cargo cult. Perhaps information from Earth could somehow change their status within their own society and disrupt what is viewed as an oppressive social and political environment. Were this movement to gain steam, it ultimately could become destabilizing to the status quo on Planet X and could lead to uprisings and violence. We have no way of knowing what the outcome might be. The only evidence we have for contact with outsiders comes from our own world, and the cargo cult process is one in which we can clearly see the role of contact in relation to the critique of societies with disenfranchised groups who wish to challenge the status quo. Again, the cargo cult is not
and it is reasonable to assume that it may be the case on other planets, as well. 3. Cargo cults and active SETI This brings me to the key point that I want to focus on throughout the remainder of this article. Cargo cults are not the fantasies of “primitives;” they are reasoned and reasonable reactions to contexts in which people feel disempowered. As such, they make sense, and they are certainly not something “civilized” societies have somehow left behind. We find examples of the cargo cult mindset in Feynman's cargo cult sciences like the search for UFOs or the numerous examples of millennialism. The cargo cult metaphor informs our understanding of the potential power contact with an alien other can have for a group of people facing issues in their own context. Contact itself is not neutral, it can–and most likely will–be used by people on both sides to achieve desired political and social ends. This is the policy and ethical point that we need to take away when thinking about the cargo cult metaphor in relation to active SETI. Contact is not simply about a communicative moment between two “civilizations” nor between scientists at the opposite ends of interstellar transmitters. Rather, assuming that the people at the other side are anything like us–and that's a very large assumption–it is something that will be interpreted and used by people in each context to achieve desired ends. This is where the idea of the cargo cult becomes quite useful in thinking about active SETI—and SETI more generally. In terms of SETI, one need only look to the SETI Institute website FAQ page to see a clear example of the cargo cult mindset entering into the discussion about the justification for SETI research: “If we could understand any signal that we detect, there's always the possibility that it would contain enormously valuable knowledge. It's likely that any civilization we discover will be far more advanced than ours, and might help us to join a galactic network of intelligent beings.” [14] This statement has remarkable similarities to scholarly descriptions of the cargo cult, in which participants hope that benefits will come as a result of contact with an alien outsider who appears to have superior technological capabilities. In this case, the cargo is not so much goods, but knowledge and salvation for humanity through entrance into an imagined galactic civilization. These types of assumptions betray the hopes of the highly educated human scientists who wrote them and also their dissatisfaction with the status quo here on Earth–someone at the SETI Institute clearly thinks that humans need saving. 4. Active SETI and the cargo cult problem Let us step back for a moment and review three key points from the preceding discussion. First, cargo cults are not the fantasies of “primitives” who fail to understand technology. Instead, they are reasoned responses to an unacceptable status quo or to changing social environments and typically respond to social crises stimulated by contact with an outside power. Second, cargo cults often take the form of a (perhaps mythologized) cultural critique in a context where overt and open cultural critique is either not permitted or is perceived as not being permitted. In other words, it is a response of disempowered people to those in power. Third, the cargo cult pattern is not limited to people living in non-industrial contexts. The same basic patterns of behavior can be found in contemporary millennial movements in industrial and post-industrial societies—an excellent example is the Aum Shinrikyô cult that gassed the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s—and can even be found in the activities of scientists engaged in research like SETI when they justify their work on the basis of help—cargo—that humanity might receive from an imagined benevolent alien civilization. If we turn this around and think about what might happen at the other end of a message sent, the cargo cult metaphor is useful in contemplating the ethics of active SETI, particularly if we start from three basic assumptions: 1) ET is enough like humans that we can actually 3
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given organism is well adapted to its particular environment at a given point in time [23]. The idea that ET will be benevolent or altruistic is based on a notion that cultural evolution leads to a particular end and works from assumptions about what constitutes “advanced” vs. “primitive” or as is often used in SETI literature “adolescent” society and an assumption that technological advancement correlates with moral and social improvement. There is no evidence on our own planet that this is the case—it would be quite challenging to argue that our society is morally advanced as compared to tribal societies [24]. We are certainly different and our forms of social organization are more complex, but there is little or no evidence that we are better from a moral standpoint. This is not to say that theoretical frameworks related to cultural evolution are useless, nor that there is any reason to think cultural patterns fail to change in relation to physical and social environments with potentially identifiable principles that guide the process of change [25]. The issue is that conceptualizing change in terms of progress and improvement belies a very 19th Century approach to thinking about cultural change that is not supported by our current understanding based on ethnographic evidence. Furthermore, notions like progress and advancement are not universal—they, themselves, are cultural constructs that are not conceptualized in the same way across different social contexts. An idea like progress, thought of as an improvement in the human condition, makes very little sense within the framework of Buddhism, which constructs change as non-directional and cyclical rather than directional and linear and views suffering as the human condition [26,27]. For SETI, this means that there is little we can assume about the nature of an extraterrestrial civilization, but what we can say is that based on our experience here on Earth, there is no good reason to believe that technological advancement correlates with moral or social progress. Some, such as Steven Pinker [28], have argued that there exists strong evidence that over centuries the process of cultural evolution has led to a reduction in violence and, thus, represents evidence of (moral) progress. Unfortunately, many of Pinker's claims are based on spurious comparisons, such as homicide rates in Western Europe and non-state societies such as the !Kung bushmen in Africa and claims that in the 1200s the averages for non-state societies were considerably higher than for contemporary Western Europe. Given the unlikely probability that data on homicides from the 1200s in non-state societies, or for that matter Western European societies, is reliable, it seems to be a significant leap of faith to claim comparative improvement. This also assumes that non-state societies are on an evolutionary trajectory that leads to (improved) Western European societies, which is an idea right out of the cultural evolution theories of the 19th Century—an idea that decades of ethnographic research have shown to be incorrect. There are quite a few additional reasons to doubt Pinker's claims and I have discussed these elsewhere [18], but it is difficult to see how the fire-bombing of Tokyo during World War II in which 100,000 people were killed in a single night, the ongoing problem of genocide, or events like the constant mass shootings in the U.S. represent a comparative reduction in violence and evidence of moral improvement over our ancestors. And, of course, much of this depends on how one defines the scope of violence—would domestic violence have been measured, or even conceptualized as something to measure, in 1500? Furthermore, history tends to show cycles of violence in particular societies; it is difficult to interpret a situation like Japan's history in terms of progressive changes in violence levels, in which decades of civil war were followed by over 200 years of peace (1600 to the mid 1800s), that was then replaced by the rise of authoritarianism and empire accompanied by significant violence and atrocities committed in the country's colonies. If we actually could measure the amount of violence in a society—and I'm not at all convinced that we can—it would seem that Japan experienced a decrease followed by a significant increase over time, which has again decreased following the defeat in World War II. Again, much of this depends on one's definition of violence. Homicide rates in Japan have dropped since 2000, with the exception of 2008,
a simplistic response to an advanced external other, but a sophisticated response to a cultural and social climate that is perceived as being in some way disempowering and in need of change. The context of contact on Planet X could be strategically used by those who perceive themselves as oppressed and a cargo cult style movement could represent a symbolic medium through which to express views that are difficult or impossible to openly state, much like the way cargo cults in Melanesia were “attempts to resist colonial oppression by obtaining Western material goods.” [20]. 5. Cultural evolution and SETI Elsewhere, I have argued that when we consider the moral implications of active SETI, we need to give much more thought and attention to the potential implications for beings at the other end of the communicative context [4]. Evidence from our own planet has shown, repeatedly, that contact between societies with differential levels of technology often goes poorly for the one with the less developed technological culture. But contact has an influence on both sides of the context of communication. When it comes to sending messages to ETI, the potential influence on a receiving society is unpredictable, but it does seem reasonable to assume that if the recipient civilization is like ours and, thus, has individuals and groups with diverse and complex political and social interests, receipt of a message from humans has the potential to become a destabilizing force, particularly if some of those members perceive themselves as disenfranchised or disempowered [21]. This raises an important point. When SETI scientists talk about ET, they often do so using broad sweeps, such as referring to the alien “civilization” with which our “civilization” comes into contact as though either our side or their side represents a unified and coherent social whole in which there is general agreement on social norms and political interests are homogeneous. This mindset is a product of a misguided application of theories related to cultural evolution that formed in the 19th Century and were widely debunked among anthropologists by the mid-20th Century on the grounds that these theories are not only empirically inaccurate but are racist. Unfortunately, these ideas continue to linger in parts of the academic discourse and clearly have a significant influence in some areas of SETI writing that speculate on the nature of extraterrestrial intelligence and the idea that any civilization with which we come in contact will be a “long L” civilization and, therefore, will be technologically and morally vastly superior to our own. For example, SETI researchers such as Jill Tarter argue that the kind of long-lived alien civilization capable of sending or receiving signals we might encounter has also figured out how to stabilize its society allowing them to survive for an exceptionally long time. Tarter thinks that such a society might have outgrown aggressive and belligerent behaviors, replacing those tendencies with benevolence and altruism [22]. Part of the problem with the cultural evolution approach is that it is inevitably tied to ideas about progress and a sense that humans are evolving along a linear track leading to some sort of ideal—or idealized—“advanced” civilization in which people largely have homogeneous viewpoints, are benevolent, and are altruistic. When applied to ETI, this idea assumes that there will be few differences in educational levels among members of the alien civilization and that universal social structures among contemporary humans, like social stratification, will not exist for ET. This idea, which I have called the Star Trek Imaginary, reflects neither our understanding of biological evolution nor cultural evolution, in which there is no necessary direction beyond the parameters set by prior changes [18]. Evolution, whether cultural or biological, is a process of change, but there is no necessary or even predictable outcome or target of that change. It is just change that reflects the ways in which different organisms adapt to a given environmental context that, itself, is constantly changing—increased complexity does not necessarily mean better or more advanced. It simply means that a 4
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where there was a peak, and are comparatively low in relation to other industrial societies. However, suicide rates in Japan are historically quite high in comparison to other industrial societies–hence, while violence against others is low in Japan, violence against self is high [29,30].
p. 291. [4] L. Lindstrom, Cargo Cult: Strange Stories of Desire from Melanesia and beyond, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1993. [5] Kitchen, B. Why Humanity Should be Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelilgence. n.d.; Available from: http://www.setileague.org/editor/whymeti.htm. [6] J.W. Traphagan, Do No Harm? Cultural imperialism and the ethics of active SETI, J. Br. Interplanet. Soc. (JBIS) 70 (2017) 219–224. [7] J.W. Traphagan, Culture and communication with extraterrestrial intelligence, in: D.A. Vakoch (Ed.), Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication, NASA, Washington, DC, 2014, pp. 161–174. [8] D.K. Billings, The Johnson cult of new hanover, Oceania 40 (1) (1969) 13–19. [9] A. Strathern, The Rope of Moka: Big-men and Ceremonial Exchange in Mount Hagen New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975. [10] R. Wagner, The Invention of Culutre, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975. [11] D. Dalton, Cargo and cult: the mimetic critique of capitalist culture, in: H. Jebens (Ed.), Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2004, pp. 187–208. [12] M.S. Lee, Herbert, millenarianism and violence: origins and expression, J. S. Radical. 1 (2) (2007) 107–127. [13] S.C. Leavitt, From “cult” to religious conviction: the case for making cargo personal, in: H. Jebens (Ed.), Cargo, Cult and Culture Critique, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2004, pp. 170–186. [14] Institute, S. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). [cited 2018 19 February]; Available from: https://www.seti.org/faq-obs2. [15] Weinstock, J.A., Mars attacks! Wells, Welles, and radio panic: or, the story of the Century, In Ordinar Reactions to Extraordinary Events, R.B.N. Browne, Arthur G., Editor., Bowling Green State University Popular Press: Bowling Green. pp. 210–221. [16] S.J. Dick, History, discovery, analogy: three approaches to the impact of discovering life beyond Earth, in: S.J. Dick (Ed.), The Impoact of Discovering Life beyond Earth, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2015, pp. 38–54. [17] M.D. Lane, Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2010. [18] J.W. Traphagan, Culture, Science, and the Searth for Life on Other Worlds, Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2016. [19] G. Cocconi, P. Morrison, Searching for interstellar communications, Nature 184 (1959) 844. [20] H. Jebens, Introduction: cargo, cult, and culture critique, in: H. Jebens (Ed.), Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2004. [21] S.J. Dick, Cultural evolution, the postbiological universe, and SETI, Int. J. Astrobiol. 2 (1) (2003) 65–74. [22] J. Tarter, Should We Fear Space Aliens? (2010) [cited 2018 2/21]; Available from: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/27/tarter.space.life.fears/index.html. [23] J.W. Traphagan, Extraterrestrial intelligence and human inagination: SETI at the intersection of science, religion, and culture, in: D.A. Vakoch (Ed.), Space and Society, Springer, New York, 2015. [24] J. Traphagan, Science, Culture and the Search for Life on Other Worlds, Springer Science+Business Media, New York, NY, 2016 (pages cm). [25] A.W. Mesoudi, Andrew, Laland, N. Kevin, Towards a unified science of cultural evolution, Behav. Brain Sci. 29 (4) (2006) 329–347. [26] J.W. Traphagan, The Practice of Concern: Ritual, Well-being, and Aging in Rural Japan, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, 2004. [27] S. Klien, Shinto ritual practice in miyagi prefecture after the great east Japan earthquake the case of the ogatsu Hōin Kagura, Asian Ethnol. 75 (2) (2016) 359–376. [28] S. Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Penguin Books, London, 2011. [29] J. Chen, et al., Those who are left behind: an estimate of the number of family members of suicide victims in Japan, Soc. Indicat. Res. 94 (3) (2009) 535–544. [30] J.W. Traphagan, Interpretations of elder suicide, stress, and dependency among rural Japanese, Ethnology 43 (4) (2004) 315–329.
6. Conclusion In short, without a good understanding of how a directed message might influence another society on another world, we are treading on some very thin moral ice should we send messages actively. Would receipt of the message be ignored, vilified, cheered? Would it generate cargo cults in a fractured, but technologically advanced society (in other words, a society similar to our own)? There is no way to be certain. As such, we need to be extremely careful about moving forward with active SETI projects. From a policy perspective informed by thinking about the ethics of active SETI in light of our understanding of colonialism and contact on Earth, it seems that it would be prudent to hold-off on pursuing active SETI projects until we have a better understanding about what the implications of contact might be for a society that intercepts our message. Given the fact that we have not made contact with extraterrestrials, that means deeply exploring our own history of contact and social conflict–looking carefully at phenomena like the cargo cult–as a means of creating reasonable speculative frameworks about the possible influence of contact on our extraterrestrial interlocutors and doing so without tacit reliance upon highly problematic theoretical frameworks such as the 19th Century version of cultural evolution. At the very least, we should have a strong and sophisticated moral discourse related to policy that explores the potential implications of active SETI, not only for our own world, but for the world at the other end of a message sent. What examples like the cargo cult show is that SETI scientists, and those concerned with space policy in general, need to be careful about thinking through the potential implications of contact for an extraterrestrial society before moving forward with projects that aim to send messages into the cosmos. Acknowledgements This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. References [1] R.P. Feynman, Cargo cult science, Eng. Sci. 37 (7) (1974) 10–13. [2] G. Huggan, (Post)Colonialism, anthropology, and the magic of mimesis, Cult. Critiq. 38 (1997) 91–106. [3] P. Lawrence, Road Belong Cargo; a Study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District, New Guinea xvi Manchester University Press., Manchester, 1964,
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Space Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spacepol
Cargo cults and the ethics of active SETI John W. Traphagan Department of Religious Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2505 University Ave. A3700, Austin, TX, 78712, USA
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Active SETI Cargo cults Ethics Anthropology Astrobiology
The story of the cargo cult is one of contact between different groups of people with different types of technologies who interpret and construct a framework of interaction and communication that involves colonial officials, indigenous people, anthropologists, and military personnel. In this article, I use the idea of the cargo cult as a way of thinking about contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. The cargo cult idea represents a useful tool in thinking about how contact with a civilization from another planet might unfold, particularly if we assume that there is some level of commonality in the epistemological frameworks guiding thoughts and behaviors on both sides. I conclude that careful consideration of the cargo cult phenomenon suggests that from a policy perspective groups interested in active SETI should be cautious about both the construction and sending of interstellar messages and that from a moral perspective it may be prudent to refrain from active SETI for the time being. Given the fact that a variety of groups and individuals are undertaking active SETI projects, this is a topic that needs to enter the radar of government organizations.
1. Introduction Natural scientists may be familiar with the term “cargo cult” as a result of Richard Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement address in which he used it metaphorically in reference to pseudo-science. Feynman notes that cargo cults are historical practices among some Melanesian peoples that follow contact with more technologically advanced societies [1]. In certain cases, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and particularly during the time of social upheaval surrounding World War II, groups would engage in ritualized behaviors such as building models of airplanes or runways in hopes that it would result in the acquisition of material or other rewards. Feynman appropriates this idea and applies it to pseudo-science on the grounds that the products of these ritualized practices in Melanesia might be accurate in form, but are lacking in content. In other words, they don't work. He calls pseudo-sciences like UFOlogy and ESP studies Cargo Cult Science, because they follow the forms and precepts of scientific investigation, but they lack content–empirical evidence and a theoretical framework based on that evidence–and as a result they represent empty attempts at scientific investigation. Feynman drew on a widely described practice from the post-World War II anthropological literature that explores issues of mimesis and mimicry related to contact within colonial and imperialistic contexts of dominance [2]. A particularly notable example of the work in this area is Peter Lawrence's classic study Road Belong Cargo that explores ways in which indigenous people in New Guinea used forms of religious
experimentation to respond to colonial domination [3]. Lindstrom notes that the term cargo cult is not simply descriptive of mimicry that arises in contact situations, but is a politicized concept that emerged in print as a “discursive grenade” used by missionaries, colonial administrators, and settlers who observed religious and ritual responses among indigenous people to the collapse of the colonial order following the Japanese invasion of the islands and the ultimate surrender of the Japanese, leading to several years of administrative and social disorder. Initially called Vailala Madness in official descriptions of social movements dating back to the 1920s that responded to contact with colonial administrators and missionaries, the concept of cargo cult was often viewed like an infectious disease that would hit indigenous groups, spreading like a pandemic unless kept under the firm control of colonial powers [4]. The story of the cargo cult is one of contact between different groups of people with different types of technologies who interact, interpret, and construct a framework of interaction and communication. On the surface, the process looks fairly clear: 1) Society A encounters an external society (Society B) with superior technology or at least the ability to provide goods that are desired; 2) Society A reasons, perhaps predictably, that by reaching out to Society B (the seemingly superior one) they may gain benefits of material goods that might alleviate problems they have such as food shortages; 3) Society A creates ritual and mythological frameworks in an attempt to gain access to the goods possessed by Society B. However, the example of the cargo cult is not simply a story of technologically inferior natives mimicking superior
E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.04.001 Received 21 February 2018; Received in revised form 26 March 2018; Accepted 6 April 2018 0265-9646/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Traphagan, J.W., Space Policy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.04.001
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did not build warehouses or air strips, and the behaviors may have been more the result of a necessity to believe in something—to have some source of hope—in the face of a context of domination by a colonial power. Another way to think about this is to view it as a way to articulate dissatisfaction with the status quo–the cargo cult represents a form of cultural generation, as anthropologist Roy Wagner has put it, in which members of a particular society attempt to substantiate and confirm an epistemological paradigm, or in this case to contest a paradigm, as a way to invent a particular reality by objectifying ideas and values associated with an existing or new social paradigm [10]. The Johnson Cult is an example of behavior based on ideas that abundant European or American goods (cargo)–ships, aircraft, guns, or presidents—can be obtained, usually from a divine source, and in the case of the Johnson Cult functioned from a social perspective as a framework for engaging in social critique. Exposure to an external and technologically superior society tends to have a disruptive influence on the indigenous society as individuals and groups attempt to cope with outsiders, particularly when indigenous groups find their own identity and status within the larger and changing social context unpalatable. The Johnson Cult, like other Melanesian cargo cults, is an example from a colonial context, but the basic pattern of behavior has counterparts in many societies outside Melanesia, including the American Indian Ghost Dance, millennial movements in medieval Europe, and flying saucer cults in the contemporary USA [3]. In each of these cases, the social movement represents actions on the part of people who at some level feel marginalized or disempowered in relation to larger political and social structures. Thus, cargo cults are discourses in which people engage in a form of cultural critique. For the residents of New Hanover, the Johnson Cult was not really about obtaining Johnson, but was a way to enact a discourse of resistance in the context of colonial domination. As such, it represents a critique of the dominant political and social context that draws on an epistemological framework intentionally constructed as distinct from the one shaping the administrative schema of social dominance [11]. In this sense, cargo cults like the Johnson cult are similar to millennial movements in which groups posit an alternate reality where the human condition is idealized and good overcomes evil [12]. This raises an important point about cargo cults. As noted above, these behaviors in Melanesia were initially viewed as madness by Western observers–a mental disease that became a contagious cultural practice–and the term “cult” itself contains a pejorative connotation associated with assumptions about the irrational behaviors of primitive people or irrational behaviors that arise within a context of cultural collapse [13]. In many respects, this reading is undermined by the fact that it represents an application or imposition of Western cultural categories onto Melanesian behaviors that construct variables like mental health and social change in terms of an individuated concept of self, without recognizing the internal forces shaping how identity is being constructed by those involved in the context of social tension [13]. An alternate reading of the cargo cult phenomenon is that it represents, again not unlike millennial movements, not a strange (or diseased) reaction to social change and contact, but a reasoned response to an unsatisfactory status quo. In other words, the arrival of the odd “other” with its airplanes and presidents does not stimulate “primitive” behavior on the part of people who fail to understand what they are seeing, but, instead, stimulates a rather sophisticated response to the status quo of their own situation that represents an interpretation of another that is used to express dissatisfaction with the local context of experience. This is important for the discussion here, because it underscores the fact that these behaviors are not those of “primitive” peoples (and it should be noted that the idea of primitive and advanced was dropped in anthropology a long time ago), but is a logical means for manipulating an unsatisfactory social environment by dissatisfied groups within that environment. Therefore, such behaviors have the potential to occur in any social context where there are groups who feel marginalized or disenfranchised from the larger social order. This is the case on Earth
colonials and other outsiders; it is a story of how a long-term interpretive matrix emerged involving colonial officials, indigenous people, anthropologists, and military personnel in the context of dynamic dissatisfaction with the status quo by some groups living within that context. In this article, I am interested in using the idea of the cargo cult as a way of thinking about contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization and to consider what could happen as a result of an active SETI project developed by humans. This is an important topic from a policy perspective because, although active SETI is not part of governmental programs nor policies at present, there are a growing number of individuals and organizations interested in sending messages directed at imagined extraterrestrial civilizations, including individuals such as Bill Kitchen, who advocates and is working to send a “Noah's Ark” to the stars with the DNA sequences of all known species on Earth as well as the collective content of human cultural production [5]. Governments need to consider the potential consequences, both to Earth and to possible civilizations at the other end of a contact event, of individuals and groups engaging in active SETI. The cargo cult trope, as it has been widely used in anthropology and more generally in the public discourse on cultural contact, represents a useful tool in thinking about how contact with a civilization from another planet might unfold, particularly if we assume that there is some level of commonality in the epistemological frameworks guiding thoughts and behaviors on both sides [6]. Indeed, if those epistemological frameworks are radically different, it is unlikely that communication and understanding will be possible [7]. 2. The cargo cult It will be helpful to begin with an example of the cargo cult that received considerable attention in the 1960s, both among scholars and in the general public, as it was reported on in American newspapers. This particular example, known as the Johnson Cult, formed among a group of Pacific Islanders living in New Hanover, Papua New Guinea, who in 1964 managed to raise $1000 to send to President Johnson with the aim of enticing him to become their leader [4]. In 1964, 7000 people in New Hanover refused to follow balloting protocols, instead indicating that they wanted to vote for LBJ, a position that was largely stimulated by contact with American service personnel who, according to the story, were friendly, shared food and goods, and paid well [8]. The rise of the Johnson cult created minor cause for concern among colonial Australian administrators, who rebutted requests to send the money to Johnson in America with claims that he was busy with the Vietnam War and that the USA was far away. The people said they would wait and when tax-time arrived hundreds refused to pay their taxes, preferring to save the money to send to America to acquire Johnson as their leader. This led the Australian administration use the native police to make “demonstrations of strength” intended to change the behaviors of the locals–one person was shot, although fortunately not injured seriously [8]. Billings notes in her discussion of the Johnson Cult that there was little talk of the supernatural; cultists tended to believe that results would be achieved through practical action, as opposed to ritual performances attempting to enlist the powers of spirit-beings. There was no prophet nor significant actions on the part of individuals to lead, although some took advantage of the situation by preaching patience until Johnson came and collecting money from the people to send to America–one such individual, named Oliver, apparently was able to use this tactic to acquire a radio, wristwatch, and women [8]. Oliver's activities were not simply exploitation, but followed older practices of “big men” typical of the area and, thus, did not represent an attempt to take the locals in a new direction from a social or cultural perspective [8]. [9]. According to Billings, it is unlikely that most Hanoverians actually believed Johnson would ever come. Unlike in other cargo cults, they 2
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communicate, meaning that it consists of a “civilization” that involves social relationships among its members and some sort of cultural context that shapes behavior; 2) said civilization is not a monolithic whole, but consists of various individuals and groups with varied, and conflicting, ideas; and 3) receipt of a message from humans will be met with analysis and interpretation and will be used to achieve some sort of ends on the part of those doing the analysis and interpretation. Those ends, of course, are beyond our capacity to know and will happen far removed from our frame of experience. If we take these three assumptions together, it becomes possible at least tentatively to speculate on how receipt of a message could influence the civilization at the other end. One potentiality is that not much will happen at all. The beings at the other end might display some interest, talk about contact in their forms of media, debate the implications, and simply decide that the distances and time-lag in communication are too great to be worth bothering with, and, thus, interest could wane quickly. We have some evidence for this type of response here on Earth from the late 19th Century, when Percival Lowell popularized the idea of Martian canals and a Martian civilization. There was a public discourse, but it eventually subsided in part because it became increasingly clear that a civilization was unlikely on Mars. That said, there were some informative moments related to how individuals and groups responded to the Martian canal trope, such as the mild “panic” that ensued during the Orson Welles' broadcast of The War of the Worlds in the 1930s [15]. Although the idea of a widespread panic related to the broadcast has been debunked [16], the broadcast did have something of an impact that was not simply related to worry about Martian attack, but reflected more general fear of the looming onset of war right here on Earth that was intensified in the context of social upheaval during the Great Depression [17,18]. In other words, reactions of concern were as much a reflection of the local political and economic environments as they were about fear over a Martian invasion. By the 1950s it was clear among scientists that no civilization existed on Mars [19], but interest remained among the public, and people still talked about the canals on Mars well into the 1960s while popular science fiction stories such as Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles imagined Martian civilization—and Bradbury's work was made into a TV mini-series with Rock Hudson as late as 1980—and even into the present some believe that there was a civilization on the Red Planet in the past. The Orson Welles' broadcast is instructive in showing that at least pockets of the public were sufficiently convinced by the broadcast that they called radio and police stations to see if something was happening that posed a threat. If we take this a step further and imagine that some of those pockets among Americans were dissatisfied with the social status quo, it is not terribly difficult to think nascent millennial movements that might have formed following the broadcast. Now, if we imagine this in a different context—that of another world receiving a transmission from Earth—perhaps pockets of beings on the receiving world dissatisfied with the social conditions of their society and their position within the power hierarchies they inhabit would generate a cargo cult style of millennial movement in response to the message. Members of groups who feel disenfranchised or marginalized might find ways to use contact with Earth to establish and promote a form of cultural critique via the ideas—and even invent mythologies—that might become associated with the formation of a cargo cult. Perhaps information from Earth could somehow change their status within their own society and disrupt what is viewed as an oppressive social and political environment. Were this movement to gain steam, it ultimately could become destabilizing to the status quo on Planet X and could lead to uprisings and violence. We have no way of knowing what the outcome might be. The only evidence we have for contact with outsiders comes from our own world, and the cargo cult process is one in which we can clearly see the role of contact in relation to the critique of societies with disenfranchised groups who wish to challenge the status quo. Again, the cargo cult is not
and it is reasonable to assume that it may be the case on other planets, as well. 3. Cargo cults and active SETI This brings me to the key point that I want to focus on throughout the remainder of this article. Cargo cults are not the fantasies of “primitives;” they are reasoned and reasonable reactions to contexts in which people feel disempowered. As such, they make sense, and they are certainly not something “civilized” societies have somehow left behind. We find examples of the cargo cult mindset in Feynman's cargo cult sciences like the search for UFOs or the numerous examples of millennialism. The cargo cult metaphor informs our understanding of the potential power contact with an alien other can have for a group of people facing issues in their own context. Contact itself is not neutral, it can–and most likely will–be used by people on both sides to achieve desired political and social ends. This is the policy and ethical point that we need to take away when thinking about the cargo cult metaphor in relation to active SETI. Contact is not simply about a communicative moment between two “civilizations” nor between scientists at the opposite ends of interstellar transmitters. Rather, assuming that the people at the other side are anything like us–and that's a very large assumption–it is something that will be interpreted and used by people in each context to achieve desired ends. This is where the idea of the cargo cult becomes quite useful in thinking about active SETI—and SETI more generally. In terms of SETI, one need only look to the SETI Institute website FAQ page to see a clear example of the cargo cult mindset entering into the discussion about the justification for SETI research: “If we could understand any signal that we detect, there's always the possibility that it would contain enormously valuable knowledge. It's likely that any civilization we discover will be far more advanced than ours, and might help us to join a galactic network of intelligent beings.” [14] This statement has remarkable similarities to scholarly descriptions of the cargo cult, in which participants hope that benefits will come as a result of contact with an alien outsider who appears to have superior technological capabilities. In this case, the cargo is not so much goods, but knowledge and salvation for humanity through entrance into an imagined galactic civilization. These types of assumptions betray the hopes of the highly educated human scientists who wrote them and also their dissatisfaction with the status quo here on Earth–someone at the SETI Institute clearly thinks that humans need saving. 4. Active SETI and the cargo cult problem Let us step back for a moment and review three key points from the preceding discussion. First, cargo cults are not the fantasies of “primitives” who fail to understand technology. Instead, they are reasoned responses to an unacceptable status quo or to changing social environments and typically respond to social crises stimulated by contact with an outside power. Second, cargo cults often take the form of a (perhaps mythologized) cultural critique in a context where overt and open cultural critique is either not permitted or is perceived as not being permitted. In other words, it is a response of disempowered people to those in power. Third, the cargo cult pattern is not limited to people living in non-industrial contexts. The same basic patterns of behavior can be found in contemporary millennial movements in industrial and post-industrial societies—an excellent example is the Aum Shinrikyô cult that gassed the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s—and can even be found in the activities of scientists engaged in research like SETI when they justify their work on the basis of help—cargo—that humanity might receive from an imagined benevolent alien civilization. If we turn this around and think about what might happen at the other end of a message sent, the cargo cult metaphor is useful in contemplating the ethics of active SETI, particularly if we start from three basic assumptions: 1) ET is enough like humans that we can actually 3
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given organism is well adapted to its particular environment at a given point in time [23]. The idea that ET will be benevolent or altruistic is based on a notion that cultural evolution leads to a particular end and works from assumptions about what constitutes “advanced” vs. “primitive” or as is often used in SETI literature “adolescent” society and an assumption that technological advancement correlates with moral and social improvement. There is no evidence on our own planet that this is the case—it would be quite challenging to argue that our society is morally advanced as compared to tribal societies [24]. We are certainly different and our forms of social organization are more complex, but there is little or no evidence that we are better from a moral standpoint. This is not to say that theoretical frameworks related to cultural evolution are useless, nor that there is any reason to think cultural patterns fail to change in relation to physical and social environments with potentially identifiable principles that guide the process of change [25]. The issue is that conceptualizing change in terms of progress and improvement belies a very 19th Century approach to thinking about cultural change that is not supported by our current understanding based on ethnographic evidence. Furthermore, notions like progress and advancement are not universal—they, themselves, are cultural constructs that are not conceptualized in the same way across different social contexts. An idea like progress, thought of as an improvement in the human condition, makes very little sense within the framework of Buddhism, which constructs change as non-directional and cyclical rather than directional and linear and views suffering as the human condition [26,27]. For SETI, this means that there is little we can assume about the nature of an extraterrestrial civilization, but what we can say is that based on our experience here on Earth, there is no good reason to believe that technological advancement correlates with moral or social progress. Some, such as Steven Pinker [28], have argued that there exists strong evidence that over centuries the process of cultural evolution has led to a reduction in violence and, thus, represents evidence of (moral) progress. Unfortunately, many of Pinker's claims are based on spurious comparisons, such as homicide rates in Western Europe and non-state societies such as the !Kung bushmen in Africa and claims that in the 1200s the averages for non-state societies were considerably higher than for contemporary Western Europe. Given the unlikely probability that data on homicides from the 1200s in non-state societies, or for that matter Western European societies, is reliable, it seems to be a significant leap of faith to claim comparative improvement. This also assumes that non-state societies are on an evolutionary trajectory that leads to (improved) Western European societies, which is an idea right out of the cultural evolution theories of the 19th Century—an idea that decades of ethnographic research have shown to be incorrect. There are quite a few additional reasons to doubt Pinker's claims and I have discussed these elsewhere [18], but it is difficult to see how the fire-bombing of Tokyo during World War II in which 100,000 people were killed in a single night, the ongoing problem of genocide, or events like the constant mass shootings in the U.S. represent a comparative reduction in violence and evidence of moral improvement over our ancestors. And, of course, much of this depends on how one defines the scope of violence—would domestic violence have been measured, or even conceptualized as something to measure, in 1500? Furthermore, history tends to show cycles of violence in particular societies; it is difficult to interpret a situation like Japan's history in terms of progressive changes in violence levels, in which decades of civil war were followed by over 200 years of peace (1600 to the mid 1800s), that was then replaced by the rise of authoritarianism and empire accompanied by significant violence and atrocities committed in the country's colonies. If we actually could measure the amount of violence in a society—and I'm not at all convinced that we can—it would seem that Japan experienced a decrease followed by a significant increase over time, which has again decreased following the defeat in World War II. Again, much of this depends on one's definition of violence. Homicide rates in Japan have dropped since 2000, with the exception of 2008,
a simplistic response to an advanced external other, but a sophisticated response to a cultural and social climate that is perceived as being in some way disempowering and in need of change. The context of contact on Planet X could be strategically used by those who perceive themselves as oppressed and a cargo cult style movement could represent a symbolic medium through which to express views that are difficult or impossible to openly state, much like the way cargo cults in Melanesia were “attempts to resist colonial oppression by obtaining Western material goods.” [20]. 5. Cultural evolution and SETI Elsewhere, I have argued that when we consider the moral implications of active SETI, we need to give much more thought and attention to the potential implications for beings at the other end of the communicative context [4]. Evidence from our own planet has shown, repeatedly, that contact between societies with differential levels of technology often goes poorly for the one with the less developed technological culture. But contact has an influence on both sides of the context of communication. When it comes to sending messages to ETI, the potential influence on a receiving society is unpredictable, but it does seem reasonable to assume that if the recipient civilization is like ours and, thus, has individuals and groups with diverse and complex political and social interests, receipt of a message from humans has the potential to become a destabilizing force, particularly if some of those members perceive themselves as disenfranchised or disempowered [21]. This raises an important point. When SETI scientists talk about ET, they often do so using broad sweeps, such as referring to the alien “civilization” with which our “civilization” comes into contact as though either our side or their side represents a unified and coherent social whole in which there is general agreement on social norms and political interests are homogeneous. This mindset is a product of a misguided application of theories related to cultural evolution that formed in the 19th Century and were widely debunked among anthropologists by the mid-20th Century on the grounds that these theories are not only empirically inaccurate but are racist. Unfortunately, these ideas continue to linger in parts of the academic discourse and clearly have a significant influence in some areas of SETI writing that speculate on the nature of extraterrestrial intelligence and the idea that any civilization with which we come in contact will be a “long L” civilization and, therefore, will be technologically and morally vastly superior to our own. For example, SETI researchers such as Jill Tarter argue that the kind of long-lived alien civilization capable of sending or receiving signals we might encounter has also figured out how to stabilize its society allowing them to survive for an exceptionally long time. Tarter thinks that such a society might have outgrown aggressive and belligerent behaviors, replacing those tendencies with benevolence and altruism [22]. Part of the problem with the cultural evolution approach is that it is inevitably tied to ideas about progress and a sense that humans are evolving along a linear track leading to some sort of ideal—or idealized—“advanced” civilization in which people largely have homogeneous viewpoints, are benevolent, and are altruistic. When applied to ETI, this idea assumes that there will be few differences in educational levels among members of the alien civilization and that universal social structures among contemporary humans, like social stratification, will not exist for ET. This idea, which I have called the Star Trek Imaginary, reflects neither our understanding of biological evolution nor cultural evolution, in which there is no necessary direction beyond the parameters set by prior changes [18]. Evolution, whether cultural or biological, is a process of change, but there is no necessary or even predictable outcome or target of that change. It is just change that reflects the ways in which different organisms adapt to a given environmental context that, itself, is constantly changing—increased complexity does not necessarily mean better or more advanced. It simply means that a 4
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where there was a peak, and are comparatively low in relation to other industrial societies. However, suicide rates in Japan are historically quite high in comparison to other industrial societies–hence, while violence against others is low in Japan, violence against self is high [29,30].
p. 291. [4] L. Lindstrom, Cargo Cult: Strange Stories of Desire from Melanesia and beyond, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1993. [5] Kitchen, B. Why Humanity Should be Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelilgence. n.d.; Available from: http://www.setileague.org/editor/whymeti.htm. [6] J.W. Traphagan, Do No Harm? Cultural imperialism and the ethics of active SETI, J. Br. Interplanet. Soc. (JBIS) 70 (2017) 219–224. [7] J.W. Traphagan, Culture and communication with extraterrestrial intelligence, in: D.A. Vakoch (Ed.), Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication, NASA, Washington, DC, 2014, pp. 161–174. [8] D.K. Billings, The Johnson cult of new hanover, Oceania 40 (1) (1969) 13–19. [9] A. Strathern, The Rope of Moka: Big-men and Ceremonial Exchange in Mount Hagen New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975. [10] R. Wagner, The Invention of Culutre, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975. [11] D. Dalton, Cargo and cult: the mimetic critique of capitalist culture, in: H. Jebens (Ed.), Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2004, pp. 187–208. [12] M.S. Lee, Herbert, millenarianism and violence: origins and expression, J. S. Radical. 1 (2) (2007) 107–127. [13] S.C. Leavitt, From “cult” to religious conviction: the case for making cargo personal, in: H. Jebens (Ed.), Cargo, Cult and Culture Critique, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2004, pp. 170–186. [14] Institute, S. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). [cited 2018 19 February]; Available from: https://www.seti.org/faq-obs2. [15] Weinstock, J.A., Mars attacks! Wells, Welles, and radio panic: or, the story of the Century, In Ordinar Reactions to Extraordinary Events, R.B.N. Browne, Arthur G., Editor., Bowling Green State University Popular Press: Bowling Green. pp. 210–221. [16] S.J. Dick, History, discovery, analogy: three approaches to the impact of discovering life beyond Earth, in: S.J. Dick (Ed.), The Impoact of Discovering Life beyond Earth, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2015, pp. 38–54. [17] M.D. Lane, Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2010. [18] J.W. Traphagan, Culture, Science, and the Searth for Life on Other Worlds, Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2016. [19] G. Cocconi, P. Morrison, Searching for interstellar communications, Nature 184 (1959) 844. [20] H. Jebens, Introduction: cargo, cult, and culture critique, in: H. Jebens (Ed.), Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2004. [21] S.J. Dick, Cultural evolution, the postbiological universe, and SETI, Int. J. Astrobiol. 2 (1) (2003) 65–74. [22] J. Tarter, Should We Fear Space Aliens? (2010) [cited 2018 2/21]; Available from: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/27/tarter.space.life.fears/index.html. [23] J.W. Traphagan, Extraterrestrial intelligence and human inagination: SETI at the intersection of science, religion, and culture, in: D.A. Vakoch (Ed.), Space and Society, Springer, New York, 2015. [24] J. Traphagan, Science, Culture and the Search for Life on Other Worlds, Springer Science+Business Media, New York, NY, 2016 (pages cm). [25] A.W. Mesoudi, Andrew, Laland, N. Kevin, Towards a unified science of cultural evolution, Behav. Brain Sci. 29 (4) (2006) 329–347. [26] J.W. Traphagan, The Practice of Concern: Ritual, Well-being, and Aging in Rural Japan, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, 2004. [27] S. Klien, Shinto ritual practice in miyagi prefecture after the great east Japan earthquake the case of the ogatsu Hōin Kagura, Asian Ethnol. 75 (2) (2016) 359–376. [28] S. Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Penguin Books, London, 2011. [29] J. Chen, et al., Those who are left behind: an estimate of the number of family members of suicide victims in Japan, Soc. Indicat. Res. 94 (3) (2009) 535–544. [30] J.W. Traphagan, Interpretations of elder suicide, stress, and dependency among rural Japanese, Ethnology 43 (4) (2004) 315–329.
6. Conclusion In short, without a good understanding of how a directed message might influence another society on another world, we are treading on some very thin moral ice should we send messages actively. Would receipt of the message be ignored, vilified, cheered? Would it generate cargo cults in a fractured, but technologically advanced society (in other words, a society similar to our own)? There is no way to be certain. As such, we need to be extremely careful about moving forward with active SETI projects. From a policy perspective informed by thinking about the ethics of active SETI in light of our understanding of colonialism and contact on Earth, it seems that it would be prudent to hold-off on pursuing active SETI projects until we have a better understanding about what the implications of contact might be for a society that intercepts our message. Given the fact that we have not made contact with extraterrestrials, that means deeply exploring our own history of contact and social conflict–looking carefully at phenomena like the cargo cult–as a means of creating reasonable speculative frameworks about the possible influence of contact on our extraterrestrial interlocutors and doing so without tacit reliance upon highly problematic theoretical frameworks such as the 19th Century version of cultural evolution. At the very least, we should have a strong and sophisticated moral discourse related to policy that explores the potential implications of active SETI, not only for our own world, but for the world at the other end of a message sent. What examples like the cargo cult show is that SETI scientists, and those concerned with space policy in general, need to be careful about thinking through the potential implications of contact for an extraterrestrial society before moving forward with projects that aim to send messages into the cosmos. Acknowledgements This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. References [1] R.P. Feynman, Cargo cult science, Eng. Sci. 37 (7) (1974) 10–13. [2] G. Huggan, (Post)Colonialism, anthropology, and the magic of mimesis, Cult. Critiq. 38 (1997) 91–106. [3] P. Lawrence, Road Belong Cargo; a Study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District, New Guinea xvi Manchester University Press., Manchester, 1964,
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