"Re-education"

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Malarbor recently mentioned Hyperborean "re-education camps". That's not exactly wrong, but the phrase is misleading, so I'll clarify exactly what's going on here.

Hyperboreans are not exactly racist per se, but they are culture-ist. They believe that people from different cultures act in different ways, and that some cultures produce people who act better than other cultures do. They would have no qualms whatsoever about dismissing a Babkhan as probably a lying criminal, just because he was Babkhan.

Naturally, the Hyperboreans think their own culture is the best, and are friendliest towards other Hyperboreans. They include as "other Hyperboreans" any people of foreign descent who were raised from childhood in a Hyperborean environment. They judge people from other cultures more positively the more Hyperboreanized they are. In this they would separate meaningless stuff like what foods you eat and what clothing you eat from the core of cultural identity. Hyperboreans consider it not racist or colonialist but a duty to help foreigners become more Hyperborean, in this core sense.

The Hyperboreans' first action in taking over a territory is to set up schools and temples. The schools are intended to inculcate Hyperborean culture and values in children. This doesn't happen in the traditional Communist slogan-chanting way. Quite commonly, it uses drugs. I've read some work about LSD and other psychedelics de-imprinting existing cultural imprints and allowing new ones to be formed. If you've ever read the part of Illuminatus where the Discordians spike the punch at a fundamentalist revival meeting with a chemical that causes everyone who drinks it to become open-minded and inquisitive, the drugs that the Hyperboreans use work sort of like that.

Hyperborean primary school curriculum, both on and off the Island, tends to center on reading, writing, logic, philosophy, and tuphsemionve. The idea is that if anyone has a specific interest or is moving towards a specific career path, they can pursue that on their own, but those five things are important for development into a full human being no matter what your personal interests.

"Tuphsemionve" involves awakening an appreciation of beauty, wonder, and compassion. Not in any specific way; nothing so crass as the 'art appreciation' courses you find at modern colleges. It's more of a free form attempt to throw images and thoughts at a person until some of them hit and take root. A typical tuphsemionve class could involve watching a movie, listening to a story, or going to an art museum. There's minimal explanation - the point of tuphsemionve isn't to gain the ability to talk about art, and the Hyperboreans would agree with the witticism that "talking about art is like dancing about architecture."

The reading, writing, and logic classes (with math being a part of logic) are presented similarly to the way they're done in schools around the world, with textbooks and lectures. Students study one module at a time (for example, "Subtraction"), and when they understand it, take a test to leave the module. Some students progress much more quickly than others, and this is allowed and encouraged. Teaching hours are then shifted away from the students at the top toward the students at the bottom as a feedback mechanism that partly evens out any discrepancies.

Philosophy classes are conducted as Socratic dialogues about a concept. Students are encouraged to challenge the teacher and come to their own conclusions. However, teachers are almost always much smarter and much better debaters than the students, allowing them to steer the classes' conclusion towards the "right" answer without ever pulling rank. This gives the students a healthy respect for logic and a belief that authority should never be respected merely for its own sake, while also leading them towards common Hyperborean ideals and the belief that authority should be respected because it's generally right. Many philosophical debates are done while all particpants are high on drugs that prevent bias and promote clear and logical thinking.

This primary schooling lasts about ten years, from when a child is seven or eight to when they're sixteen or so. There are some advanced courses that go beyond this age. When they're finished, they either get apprenticed to someone in a specific profession, take their vows as a Priest of Truth or Beauty, or go off and do their own thing.

In the case of "re-education", this curriculum is complicated by the differing stages of education of the conquered population. Reading and writing are usually done in the population's native language or a common language like Shirerithian. Logic and philosophy classes are usually put into high gear as a way of counteracting any undesirable philosophies from the conquered culture. Usually classes try to route around philosophical damage rather than remove it. For example, if a foreign culture has a different religion, instead of trying to prove their religion wrong, they'll try to prove that if their religion's god is good, He would genuinely support Hyperborean values. Those students who are assertive and intelligent enough to constantly challenge the teacher are quietly shifted out of philosophy classes into logic classes for a while, and then shifted back, on the hopes that either if they become more logical they'll acknowledge the superiority of Hyperborean philosophy, or at least that they'll be able to benefit from logic classes no matter what.

Hyperborean schools don't give degrees or grades, so there's no question of whether or not to pass a student who continues to disagree with the teachers. A person is given a job based not on his degree, but on whether he can impress his potential employer with his knowledge and intelligence. And people are not directly discriminated against for not stating their agreement with Hyperborean culture, but a lack of agreement with Hyperborean culture will probably cause them to act in ways that are distasteful to others, and thus lose them social standing.

Re-education for adults is more difficult. The government tends not to devote as many resources to them, dismissing them as lost causes. However, priests and priestesses still consider them important and feel a moral imperative to help as many as possible. The Priests of Truth fulfill their normal roles as librarians, amassing as many texts as possible in the native language. Both priesthoods also constantly hold classes. They often use tactics similar to those of Christian missionaries - opening soup kitchens for the poor, holding events where people can meet, and becoming centers of community life. Hyperborean government posts in occupied areas also go disproportionately to those who have been trained in Hyperborean culture. Nor are the Temples always above outright bribery, giving gifts to people who come to their classes. Finally, the Priesthood of Beauty is not above having its most attractive priestesses teach the lessons, in the hopes to draw some local men.

The general idea is that assimilation will take two or three generations, but ought to proceed as quickly and consistently as is tastefully possible. Usually, local religion and culture are permitted, but institutions promoting such culture are not. Everything is handled on a case-by-case basis, so that one local church that preaches tolerance and forgiveness is allowed to stay open, whereas another more militant church is closed.

Success stories of the Hyperborean assimilation system include Cimmeria, Hyfrost/Bjorngard, and parts of the Isle St. Jean. It is now being tried in northern Elwynn.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Thinking about this further:

There's also a class, especially in foreign populations, involving mind-body connection. Instructions on meditation, breath control, progressive muscle relaxation, yoga, and a lot of massage. This is done in conjunction with the philosophy and logic classes. There's no use telling someone a logical refutation of your philosophy if you can't work the emotional connections to it out of your system.

And the drugs are used in the tuphsemionve class as well. I imagine a teacher taking a class out to the middle of the forest on a starry night, giving them all something like Ecstasy, playing Ode to Joy really loud, and then saying something like "This is what the human spirit is capable of. Are you sure you want to spend the rest of your life reading celebrity gossip magazines?" Only, you know, more ritualized. Maybe that would be a good starting point for some of the re-education work.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Malarbor is well aware that two-bit dictators dress up terrible acts with pretty words, and that Hyperborea actually does not have anything to do with that kind of things. However, he is still honest, and despite the connotations found "re-education" to be the most correct word to use. Similarly, while "campaigns" could be mistaken for "camps" if read too quickly, that word too was pretty much the most correct one to use in the situation. It's not the fault of the words that they happen to have these connotations. There just hasn't been a real-world equivalent to a large-scale bloodless assimilative campaign that really is about enlightening people, but there's been a lot of forced labor camps and the like that do call themselves better things.

Malarbor demanded me to conclude by blaming Babkha for this mistake.

[Kaiser Loki III]

Acculturation camps?

[Aurangzeb Khan]