Stranger in a Strange Land

“Well,” admitted Jubal, “so do I. But it is not a matter of free choice for me, nor for you—nor for Mike. All three of us are prisoners of our early indoctrinations, for it is hard, very nearly impossible, to shake off one’s earliest training. Duke, can you get it through your skull that if you had been born on Mars and brought up by Martians, you yourself would have exactly the same attitude toward eating and being eaten that Mike has?”

Duke considered it, then shook his head. “I won’t buy it, Jubal. Sure, about most things it’s just Mike’s hard luck that he wasn’t brought up in civilization—and my good luck that I was. I’m willing to make allowances for him. But this is different, this is an instinct.”

“‘Instinct,’ dreck!”

“But it is. I didn’t get any ‘training at my mother’s knee’ not to be a cannibal. Hell, I didn’t need it; I’ve always known it was a sin—a nasty one. Why, the mere thought of it makes my stomach do a flip-flop. It’s a basic instinct.”

Jubal groaned. “Duke, how could you learn so much about machinery and never learn anything about how you yourself tick? That nausea you feel—that’s not an instinct; that’s a conditioned reflex. Your mother didn’t have to say to you, ‘Mustn’t eat your playmates, dear; that’s not nice,’ because you soaked it up from our whole culture—and so did I. Jokes about cannibals and missionaries, cartoons, fairy tales, horror stories, endless little things. But it has nothing to do with instinct. Shucks, son, it couldn’t possibly be instinct… because cannibalism is historically one of the most widespread of human customs, extending through every branch of the human race. Your ancestors, my ancestors, everybody.”

“Your ancestors, maybe. Don’t bring mine into it.”

“Um. Duke, didn’t you tell me you had some Indian blood?”

“Huh? Yeah, an eighth. In the Army they used to call me ‘Chief.’ What of it? I’m not ashamed of it. I’m proud of it.”

“No reason to be ashamed—nor proud, either, for that matter. But, while both of us certainly have cannibals in our family trees, chances are that you are a good many generations closer to cannibals than I am, because—”

“Why, you bald-headed old—”

“Simmer down! You were going to listen; remember? Ritual cannibalism was a widespread custom among aboriginal American cultures. But don’t take my word for it; look it up. Besides that, both of us, simply as North Americans, stand a better than even chance of having a touch of the Congo in us without knowing it… and there you are again. But even if both of us were Simon-pure North European stock, certified by the American Kennel Club, (a silly notion, since the amount of casual bastardy among humans is far in excess of that ever admitted)—but even if we were, such ancestry would merely tell us which cannibals we are descended from… because every branch of the human race, without any exception, has practiced cannibalism in the course of its history. Duke, it’s silly to talk about a practice being ‘against instinct’ when hundreds of millions of human beings have followed that practice.”

“But—All right, all right, I should know better than to argue with you, Jubal; you can always twist things around your way. But suppose we all did come from savages who didn’t know any better—I’m not admitting it but just supposing. Suppose we did. What of it? We’re civilized now. Or at least I am.”

Jubal grinned cheerfully. “Implying that I am not. Son, quite aside from my own conditioned reflex against munching a roast haunch of—well, you, for example—quite aside from that trained-in emotional prejudice, for coldly practical reasons I regard our taboo against cannibalism as an excellent idea… because we are not civilized.”

“Huh?”

“Obvious. If we didn’t have a tribal taboo about the matter so strong that you honestly believed it was an instinct, I can think of a long list of people I wouldn’t trust with my back turned, not with the price of beef what it is today. Eh?”

Duke grudged a grin. “Maybe you’ve got something there. I wouldn’t want to take a chance on my ex-mother-in-law. She hates my guts.”

“You see? Or how about our charming neighbour on the south, who is so casual about other people’s fences and live stock during the hunting season? I wouldn’t want to bet that you and I wouldn’t wind up in his freezer if we didn’t have that taboo. But Mike I would trust utterly—because Mike is civilized.”

“Huh?”