Martian society/social order

[Killraven]

What someone mentioned in another thread (Topaz I think made me think - does anyone have any views as to the social structure of the invaders, either during their tenure on Earth or back home on Mars?

My view is that they didn't have any particular social hierarchy within their own species, nor have any particular 'job specification' - I have assumed that they all worked cooperatively at whatever tasks were required. Their vast intelligence would negate the need for specialisms - ie no 'scientists', 'soldiers' or 'tv presenters' Was Wells suggesting that the martians had, unlike us, evolved beyond a social order, and become much more efficient as a result? And if so - on a more flippant note - who in this case would they get to take out the rubbish?? Were the spongy bipeds used as slaves as well as a food supply?

However, JW suggests something more in his CD Rom game - for example, in the martian intro, the telepathic execution of one of the elders - was this a group decision by the 'cabinet' that the 'prime minister' needed to be got rid of due to his disastrous management of the public services?? ;D

[quaderni]

From Wells's brief comments, it seems that there is a social / 'racial' hierarchy on Mars, which closely parallels Wells's vision of Earth in the _Time Machine_. In this case, the Eloi/Morlock relationship has, in some ways, been reversed. On Mars, the humanoids have degenerated into an "uber-mensch" type brain and they cannibalize upon weak, sponge-like bipeds, possibly slaves.

Many scholars believe that the _Time Machine_ and _The War_ are different stagings of the same problem: the evolutionary future of man. In TM, a man journeys from the present into the future and sees the consequences of Darwinian natural selection; in TWOTW, the future inexplicably bursts into the present and shows us another evolutionary scenario, in the guise of an advanced race of Martians, in the here and now (in this case, the future travels across space, rather than across time, if that makes any sense).

I hope I'm being somewhat coherent!!!

[Topaz]

Hmmm. That's a good one. I always saw the bipeds pretty much as cattle, handled and 'farmed' much as the Artilleryman described his expectations of the treatment of humans under Martian rule. I would think the bipeds might have a fairly high potential for intelligence, but if the Martians really treated them like cattle they'd have no way to benefit from it, lacking any education or even much chance for an oral history. When you're eaten just after reaching maturity, how do you pass on culture and knowledge to the next generation?

I guess I just assumed the Martians in the landing party would be soldiers, since that's what they did here on Earth. Maybe a hasty assumption!

For what it's worth, I remember that in The First Men in the Moon, Wells gives the Selenites an extremely specialized social order, to the point that their bodies were modified to suit their preordained jobs. As you say, Wells seemed to have explored all sorts of future societies.

[Charles]

Knowing what we do about Wells' desire for a classless society at the time, the Martians represent the embodiment of Marxists or Saint-Simonians. Beyond this, not only are they ruthlessly efficient, they are motivated by self-preservation. They are one race, one mind, and one mission. No command or control structure necessary. Everyone knows what has to be done, and they all do the same job - for the benefit of all. No crowns, pips, collar tabs or salutes necessary.

“The Time Machine” deals with the notion of artificial selection - like the Martians represent here. Eloi and Morlocks represent artificial and societal evolution in extremis and represent the end product of thousands of years of human complacency. This complacency is the strongest link between “Machine” and “Worlds.”

[Topaz]

"...My view is that they didn't have any particular social hierarchy within their own species, nor have any particular 'job specification' - I have assumed that they all worked cooperatively at whatever tasks were required. Their vast intelligence would negate the need for specialisms - ie no 'scientists', 'soldiers' or 'tv presenters' "

"... Beyond this, not only are they ruthlessly efficient, they are motivated by self-preservation. They are one race, one mind, and one mission. No command or control structure necessary. Everyone knows what has to be done, and they all do the same job - for the benefit of all. No crowns, pips, collar tabs or salutes necessary."

Nicely put, both of you. I like that idea.

[quaderni]

Topaz said:

I guess I just assumed the Martians in the landing party would be soldiers, since that's what they did here on Earth. Maybe a hasty assumption!

Interesting, but Wells does say that the Martians have evolved into mere brains that simply wear other 'bodies' - fighting machines or handling machines. Presumably, on Mars, they would don other mechanical bodies as well. Technology has rendered the organic body unnecessary.

Topaz said:

For what it's worth, I remember that in The First Men in the Moon, Wells gives the Selenites an extremely specialized social order, to the point that their bodies were modified to suit their preordained jobs. As you say, Wells seemed to have explored all sorts of future societies.

Yes, you are very right and that's an excellent observation. In the martian case, presumably, they didn't have to adapt, physically, for specialised forms of labor, because their machines could do that type of work. The evolved into brains, quite simply, because they didn't need to specialise, biologically, in any other fashion. Martians could do any job they wanted to, so specialisation was unnecessary (if that makes any sense). No 'niche' adaptation.

Obviously, Wells was very Lamarckian in his take on the evolutionary future, his adherence to Darwinism notwithstanding.

[Topaz]

So War... and First Men... are potentially different views of Wells' expectations for humanity? That is, one in which technology provides the specialization to beings that have become the supreme generalists - and therefore all equal - and another in which the class structure is taken to the extreme of preordained jobs and modification of the body and mind to suit the task decreed by the State?

Crafty, this English writer!

[quaderni]

Topaz said:

So War... and First Men... are potentially different views of Wells' expectations for humanity? That is, one in which technology provides the specialization to beings that have become the supreme generalists - and therefore all equal - and another in which the class structure is taken to the extreme of preordained jobs and modification of the body and mind to suit the task decreed by the State?

I think you are very correct. The Martians were once human[oid], as Wells tells us. _First Men_, _The Time Machine_, _Island of Dr. Moreau_, and _The War_ are all, as some critics have argued, evolutionary parables: they explain our possible evolutionary future and contain a lesson in each. All of these novels show a very young pessimistic Wells. He would later change, of course, and embrace technology, world government, socialist technocracy, and such; he would then also reject 'art for art's sake' and emphasise the fundamental utility (if not didactic aims) of artistic endeavor. But in the 1890s he was still a sceptic - and a great artist.

I like your characterisation of the Martian as 'generalist' - but a very, very, very advanced generalist or jack-of-all-trades indeed.

I suspect that the Martian abolition of sexuality helped them 'evolve', in Wells's view, into a cohesive, interdependent, and efficient society (like the Utopian socialists, Wells saw sexual tension as the prime cause of all human strife).

[Charles]

To put a fine point on things, Wells does not have the Narrator say the Martians were once human, only that “it is quite credible that the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike ourselves…” Wells was a confirmed Darwinian - the memory of holding the door for Darwin’s bulldog T.H.Huxley one morning at the Normal School still being fresh in his mind, and he understood that evolution on two different planets would surely not take the same path. The ‘direction’ of an organism’s evolution depends on the changing conditions of environment and how best to adapt to these conditions – and Martian artificial selection depends on these factors as well. We can speculate that the Martians and their bipedal food represent two similar branches of Mars’ evolutionary tree and that the Martians represent the ‘superior’ branch, but neither is human.

Wells (and I) would argue he was not a pessimist. There was some argument a few decades back about him being bitterly pessimistic at the end of his life, but a statement by his son Gip on the notion put it to bed for a good many Wellsians. Generally he believed in the potential of scientific advancement and evolving technologies to help humanity, but he knew it had to be administered responsibly - with thoughtful and reasonable controls. He had no illusions that scientific advancement wasn’t without grave dangers, and illustrating these dangers are a focus of his early scientific romances. We can say his perception of science and scientists and their potential for good and/or evil, at least according to these early works, is ambiguous, but not pessimistic.

Your point about Wells' didactic approach to novel writing is very true. He did reject the 'art for art sake' perception of the novel and had a nasty row with Henry James over the subject.

[quaderni]

Charles said:

To put a fine point on things....

Wells (and I) would argue he was not a pessimist...

Hi Charles,

Thanks for the interesting comments. I'd pry, very respectfully, on several points. Wells, of course, ambiguously states that the Martians were descended from a being somewhat like ourselves, but I'd wager we're suppsoed to see ourselves - the human species - in this parable. My understanding is that Wells hoped to show how us one scenario of our evolutionary future - much as he did in the Time Machine, for instance. I'd also wonder about taking him _too_ literally_ on this parable, as well. For Wells adds elements of the supernatural to this story: the Martians are not cannibals (as in the Time Machine, or even in Dr. Moreau), but rather appear as vampires - bloodsuckers with telepathic vision.

On another level, even as a committed Darwinian - yes, he studied under Huxley and even wrote a short textbook on basic biology - Wells's evolutionary vision itself drew upon elements of neo-Lamarckianism. This in itself is not surprising: Darwin himself subscribed to a modified version of 'soft inheritance', and most other biologists of the time - from a vulgariser like Spencer to serious men of science like Huxley - believed in some form of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The implications of Weismann's discovery of the germ plasm (1885) had not yet been digested in biological communities. At the same time, many biologists were also more interested in adaptation and embryological development (à la Ernst Haeckel), something that historian Peter Bowler has called the 'non Darwinian' revolution. In any case, Wells was part of this general cultural environment, and was very interested in adaptation under specific habitat conditions. This shows up quite a bit in both _The War_ and _First Men_, for example (as Topaz correctly points out).

What drove this particular consciousness, particularly amongst men and women of science, was a widespread fear of degeneracy and decline in the West. There was a pressing feeling that human habitat had become completely unhinged, and it was driving physical and moral degeneration of the species. Wells's work was deeply rooted in this context, and his scientific romances explored this theme of evolution under pathological habitat conditions. My understanding is that the early Wells, the Wells of scientific romance, was deeply concerned about this possible future and wrote extensively about it. He was not only ambiguous about this future, but he was also decidely pessimistic. At least, this is the thesis of people such as Bergonzi and McConnell, who see a shift in Wells's attitudes after 1906. This approach has, most recently, been amplified in the excellent studies Peter Morton _The Vital Science_ and Daniel Pick's brilliant _Faces of Degeneration_. There might have been a recent shift in consensus, though: I honestly don't know.

In any case, there should be some serious work on Wells's notions of inheritance, not just his Darwinian view of natural selection. His views of life in the future, the Moon, and Mars, certainly suggests a belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics and shows how inheritance and adaptation are closely related. Obviously, at the time of writing, Wells lacked the neo-Mendelian interpretation of genetics in order to explain variability and selection. He later carefully distinguished between the neo-Lamarckian and Darwinian models of evolution (1930s), and saw neo-Lamarackianism as a kind of socialist fantasy of a dubious kind.

I look forward to your response!

Cheers and best wishes,
Quaderni

[Charles]

Well said, Quaderni.

There is no doubt Wells intended for us to see ourselves in the Martians and he suggests this most notably in "What We Saw From the Ruined House." Indeed, the Martians are not cannibals, as they are not descended from homo sapiens. You’re right, the Martians are more like vampires; a point made quite well by Leon Stover – and used to further his interesting political/ideological dissection of the novel.

Bergonzi believed the overall tone of his early scientific romances was pessimistic. Though there is some room for argument, his assessment has some merit at least as far as Wells’ scientific romances might reflect Huxley’s philosophical “cosmic pessimism,” which the young, rebellious and idealistic Wells would have found appealing. But in the broadest sense Wells is best described as a skeptic. After all, what good is a pessimistic futurist?

In terms of Wells shifting away from scientific romances, there was a definite break after 1906 and “In the Days of the Comet.” But we could argue a philosophical break happened even earlier, in 1901 with the publication of “Anticipations” (and after “The First Men in the Moon”). After this came more didactic and forward-looking works like “Discovery of the Future,” “Mankind in the Making,” “A Modern Utopia,” etc.

Peter Bowler – excellent. As for the influence of Lamarck on Wells, I don’t know. Since Darwin refused to break with Lamarckism I can imagine Wells being ‘a bit’ influenced by JPL and his “spontaneous generation” in one way or another. Perhaps you are just the person to deal with this angle further!

[Topaz]

It seems that Wells was deliberately pushing his visions of possible evolutionary futures to extremes, which is a useful logical tool. Each was also a study in the implications of these societies without (at least in his earlier works) necessarily a 'moral' being involved. They seem to be commercial expressions of his own ruminations on the future(s) of mankind:

- The contemporary class system taken to an uncontrolled extreme in Time Machine, at the cost of a viable, vital humanity. The Eloi and Morlocks are each lack a 'wholeness' of humanity about them. Almost a Jekyl and Hyde duality.

- Technology supplants the physical body with the Martians, at the cost of 'visceral pleasures' such as 'normal' eating and sex.

- Adjustment of the body and mind to suit the needs of society in First Men in the Moon, at the cost of individuality. In some ways, this is the complete opposite of the situation in TWOTW.

It's interesting to note that, as he moves along from story to story (I've listed them in published order), he moves farther and farther away from the contemporary system - first into a technological option, then into one involving (what we would call) genetic manipulation.

He doesn't really seem to get 'preachy' about it until Island of Dr. Moreau, IMO, which is explicitly about modifying the genetics of living things. All the earlier works appear to be an almost clinical examinations, to my mind.

[Charles]

Excellent, Topaz. Well said.

"Dr. Moreau" was the third scientific romance he published, after "The Time Machine" and "The Wonderful Visit," so we have to admit he had an element of the "preachy" from very early on. True, it got 'worse' a couple decades later.

[quaderni]

Topaz said:

It seems that Wells was deliberately pushing his visions of possible evolutionary futures to extremes, which is a useful logical tool.

(...)

All the earlier works appear to be an almost clinical examinations, to my mind.

Hi Topaz,

'Clinical' studies is a BRILLIANT way of conceptualising these pieces. Frank McConnell insists that we view them as 'parables', which I find a very useful way of thinking about them, too - but Wells seems to make use of a reductio ad absurdum in all these evolutionary scenarios.

If you get a chance, the Morton and Pick books are very good and really help put Wells into a broader cultural and scientific context, particularly about decline and degeneracy - although their analyses are very brief. To my knowledge, no one has done this same analysis with _The War_ - but I don't totally keep up with the secondary literature on him (as they say, 'not entirely my field'!). Charles, do you know?

Best,
Quaderni

[quaderni]

Charles said:

Well said, Quaderni.

You’re right, the Martians are more like vampires; a point made quite well by Leon Stover – and used to further his interesting political/ideological dissection of the novel.

I don't know Leon Stover's work. THanks for pointing that out. Article or book? If could pass it along (you don't have to post it, you can just send it) that would be great - much obliged and much appreciated!

All best wishes,
Q

[Charles]

Stover's annotated edition was published in 1998 by McFarland & Co. Its pricey - like most scholarly editions, but worth it.

See McFarland's website: www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-0780-8

[alabaster]

Forgive me if I'm speaking out of ignorance, but I can't see how Wells's views, as expressed in WotW, are Lamarkian.

As a species mankind has changed since it acquired technology. Our lifestyle has weakened our physical bodies perceptibly; our bones have thinned, our muscles have weakened, and our eyes have become increasingly myopic since the introduction of glasses. By the same token, medicine has meant that our height and lifespans have increased. These are all profound changes, yet none have anything to do with genetics.

However, as genetic engineering becomes more common, it seems quite probable that our physical forms will alter dramatically in the next few millennia. Already we live in a society where mental power is preferred over physical power, and that is likely to be even more the case in the future. With the advent of caesarean section, (at least one the mother can survive) the initial limit on our brain size, the size of the mother's birth canal, has effectively become irrellevant. As our knowledge of how the brain functions becomes deeper, it is easy to imagine people genetically augmenting their intelligence and brain function to perform better in a society that makes ever more stringent mental demands on its citizens. As technology supplants ever more physical activity, our bodies will become useless appendages; either we will consciously atrphy them with genetic engineering or they will simply be selected out over tens of thousands of years.

I may be seeing this wrong, but I don't see any Lamarkism there.

[quaderni]

alabaster said:

As a species mankind has changed since it acquired technology. Our lifestyle has weakened our physical bodies perceptibly; our bones have thinned, our muscles have weakened, and our eyes have become increasingly myopic since the introduction of glasses. By the same token, medicine has meant that our height and lifespans have increased. These are all profound changes, yet none have anything to do with genetics.

Yes, you are very correct in all these observations. Just for point of discussion, though, Wells points to the Martian body/social order as the consequences of a long evolution, not so much a conscious genetic engineering (odd, now that I think about it, in that he leaves eugenics completely out of the formula here).

In any case, Lamarckianism presupposes an established symbiosis with habitat, and that any changes in this milieu - such as changes in use/disuse or need - causes subsequent adaptations in organic structure (both on morphological and physiological levels). As we now know, natural selection operates on existing variations (including mutations) within a given population -- apes and human share a common ancester, we are not _evolved_ from apes -- but Wells suggests, at least to my mind, that the Martians are transformed from an earlier humanoid type, repeating the Lamarckian fallacy. Though Wells officially rejected Lamarckianism is clear, (that is stated in his textbook and writings on biology), but he still holds on to some of these key assumptions, especially on the point of purposeful adaptation -- something that Topaz points out in _First Men in the Moon_. The lurking Lamarckianism is not surprising: Darwin himself ascribed to a modified version of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, but he was adamant that environmental adapation was not the driving force in evolution. But I may be speaking way out of line here; Charles, I gather, is the Wells scholar here.

[alabaster]

I'm afraid I still don't see it. (Sorry, I'm a stubborn bugger; I need to wrestle ideas to the ground before I get them).

Evolution since the dawn of time has operated in an environment that demanded physical exertion. In a society where physical exertion is unknown, of what use is a body? Even without evolution, our bodies would waste away and atrophy if we did not use them. I think, once bodies become useless wastes of energy, it seems very likely that evolution would start to select those with fewer and smaller physical appendages, until such time as they disappear altogether. As our bodies disappear and our brains expand, I can imagine our forms becoming as Wells speculated.

[Gerkinman]

I always pictured the Martians alot like ants, except without a queen. They just did what they knew they had to do.