Alternate History scenarios often require the people of the cultures ‘alternated’ to act or respond in ways their prototypes would have found strange and unacceptable. A simple example being La Grande Armee cheerfully climbing into those horribly unseaworthy landing craft to cross the English Channel and arrive in a fit state to conduct the military campaign Napoleon envisaged. A large number of the invasion forces in much more sophisticated landing craft in 1944 arrived in too poor a condition to carry out their tasks. In AH propositions these factors and the state of mind of the people involved often have to be completely discounted to get the alternate schemes to work.
It’s widely recognized that training people from technically unsophisticated societies entails a psychological resistance in the trainees that’s very hard to overcome. I found that in the North African oilfields in the 60s whenever local personnel were faced with new and unfamiliar jobs to do. The trainees might absorb and understand 25 - 50% of the information they were initially given, but any attempt to make up the rest would be repulsed by impatience, anger, and “I know” even though they didn’t.
Recently talking with a military staff college officer who has been involved with instructing young African Union officers, I see the problem still occurs there with those who have been selected to lead their fellows in new technologies. A few excel, but a larger number find it impossible to immerse themselves in the challenge of the new system. It’s a complicated mix of lack of confidence and the fear of appearing inadequate. To learn one must first admit to not knowing anything about the material to be learned. People from undeveloped societies, likely with a history of colonialism, seem to have an innate inability to open themselves to the possibility of failure that learning something new entails.
As a writer of alternate world fiction that involves introducing anachronistic technologies into an earlier world than ours I have to wonder if I should allow for the effect here as well. In this fictional situation the people to be taught have never been beaten down by colonialism, and have their self confidence undiminished because they’ve never been compared unfavorably to other contemporary cultures. But would individuals also exhibit the tendency to defend their egos against the possibility of failure? Would they have the same huge obstacles to overcome before they could become successful trainees? Is there an advantage to being the first trainees ever exposed to new technology – a feeling that whatever they achieve will constitute a record?
What do others think?
It’s widely recognized that training people from technically unsophisticated societies entails a psychological resistance in the trainees that’s very hard to overcome. I found that in the North African oilfields in the 60s whenever local personnel were faced with new and unfamiliar jobs to do. The trainees might absorb and understand 25 - 50% of the information they were initially given, but any attempt to make up the rest would be repulsed by impatience, anger, and “I know” even though they didn’t.
Recently talking with a military staff college officer who has been involved with instructing young African Union officers, I see the problem still occurs there with those who have been selected to lead their fellows in new technologies. A few excel, but a larger number find it impossible to immerse themselves in the challenge of the new system. It’s a complicated mix of lack of confidence and the fear of appearing inadequate. To learn one must first admit to not knowing anything about the material to be learned. People from undeveloped societies, likely with a history of colonialism, seem to have an innate inability to open themselves to the possibility of failure that learning something new entails.
As a writer of alternate world fiction that involves introducing anachronistic technologies into an earlier world than ours I have to wonder if I should allow for the effect here as well. In this fictional situation the people to be taught have never been beaten down by colonialism, and have their self confidence undiminished because they’ve never been compared unfavorably to other contemporary cultures. But would individuals also exhibit the tendency to defend their egos against the possibility of failure? Would they have the same huge obstacles to overcome before they could become successful trainees? Is there an advantage to being the first trainees ever exposed to new technology – a feeling that whatever they achieve will constitute a record?
What do others think?