Exchanging Pleasantries

[Kaden]

"I would agree and disagree with you," Kaden said after Deux had finished. "Isolation has proven to be quite an effective punishment. In fact, it's recognized as a form torture in many governments including the UIR. Prisons are not allowed to impose more than a week of solitary confinement or else they are breaking the law. While all individuals need time to themselves, we all need community as well. Like everything else, we need a balance."

Kaden took his military jacket off of the bedpost and began looking it over. He was wondering how he was going to clean it without any cleaning supplies but he was also thinking. "But I like the point you made about fearing not being a part of a community. Do you think that fear is separate from fear of isolation or the same?"

[Deux]

Deux shrugged slightly as he watched Kaden walk around his cell. He seemed less tired than before but still distracted. As Kaden looked over the now familiar jacket Deux found himself saying, “Do you need something?”

“I don’t believe so,” he tilted his head, “Isolation would mean possible inclusion at one point. Being kept separate robs you of even that interaction. Isolation as punishment includes a reason, an action that could have been avoided. Not being included doesn’t guarantee that same validation.”

[Kaden]

"But why?" Kaden didn't see the distinction but he was glad that Deux had posed a question he couldn't answer. He was starting to strike out on his own and not rely on the path Kaden laid for him. Of course that would mean Kaden had to pay closer attention to make sure they covered all of the area he hoped they would. But perhaps they wouldn't cover it all in a way Kaden expected or planned.

"Why would you fear permanent exclusion from a group unless you feared being alone? The underlying fear seems the same to me."

[Deux]

“Justification perhaps,” he suggested, “If you know your exile is a result of breaking a law it has a reason. However if you don’t know what you did to be excluded then you don’t know how to correct your behavior or even if you did anything wrong at all. You can create no connections within a group or through them to other groups. Fundamentally you are without any protection.”

“The underlying fear may be the same but the situations are different enough to affect the fear. A person may have a fear of heights but be fine in a ship like this one. How something is presented could impact how it is preserved.”

[Kaden]

"Interesting point," Kaden responded, trying to think through Deux's example. "However, a person is not afraid of heights, they are afraid of falling. There is no reason to fear falling in space, there is no down. But I'm not attacking your actual point, just thinking about your example. So you're saying that the way a fear may come to be fact may affect the way a person tries to avoid it?"

Kaden ran the material of his jacket between his fingers but he wasn't really thinking about the jacket, he was thinking of his home. On his planet community was sacred and the fear of being an exile was one he was quite in touch with. Would things have been different if he'd been sent off the planet without knowing why? He wasn't really sure, the effects were the same. And, if he'd been excluded without cause, he wouldn't have known that until it had happened, it would not have effected his behavior before the event. Then again, Deux was proposing a situation in which such exclusions were the norm and he would have lived under the constant fear of being excluded for no good reason.

"Arbitrariness," he said, looking up at Deux. "I think what you are describing is called arbitrariness. When things seem to happen for no reason. Humans like to find the causes of things so that they can understand the world around them, so that they can predict how it will move. I think we fear a lack of cause."

[Deux]

He could understand elements of what Kaden had to say. Fear of heights usually did usually coincide with the fear of falling. However there were occasions when safety was assured but the fear was still there. Maybe his example wasn’t the best, he still took some comfort in Kaden not being one hundred percent correct either.

“I didn’t say there wasn’t a reason, just one the person is unaware of the reason. Though, I suppose an individual could have a fear of not knowing. People can have an assortment of fears from practical to irrational.”

Deux stopped for a moment and looked off. “Kaden,” he started slowly, “do you have a fear?”

[Kaden]

"I-well of course Deux. I have plenty of fears. I am human after all. I fear dying without children, without family. I fear dishonoring my-" he had been about to say family but he didn't have one anymore. He corrected himself at the last minute, "service and the fleet. Mostly I fear an empty life, one lived without purpose and dying with no reason for anyone to remember me...and dogs. It isn't a fear exactly as much as a mutual dislike. I have never met a dog who I was able to bond with."

Kaden had gotten very distracted thinking about his own fears and wasn't sure where they had been in their conversation. In a moment he remembered the questions he'd had but he held off on them. It was odd for Deux to ask a personal question and he decided to see how far this track of conversation would go. "What about you Deux? What do you fear?"

[Deux]

Deux paused and noted the list of fears as well as the dislike. Like he had said previously they fell into the categories of rational and irrational. He wondered if the list would be useful later. It wasn’t likely he could exploit them or had a reason to yet. Were there even dogs on board?

“Uh,” he struggled to find an answer for the question, “disobeying an order is suppose…”

He continued considering a question when his head began to hurt. It wasn’t like when he tried controlling his powers but it was quickly approaching the same level of unpleasantness. Resting a hand on his head he tried regulating his breathing. It lacked structure but the images followed some path. Weakness, the sound of something splashing, which went along with being surrounded by what he assumed was water. He gasped for breath, when suddenly there was a weight on his head, pushing him back into the water. Stay down longer.

Deux sat up like he’d been slapped when it was over. He knew his memory wasn’t perfect, he forgot many things. Yet he’d forgotten having to hold his breath for minutes at a time, only to remember later? It was like watching it at the end of a tunnel, blurry, distant and he was sure he was missing something.

“I,” he looked at the ground, “I think I used to be afraid of water.” The statement came out sounding more like a question. Deux started picking at his sleeve.

[Kaden]

Kaden narrowed his eyes at Deux's answer. Watching the boy a second earlier he could have sworn...he put it out of his mind. He had already figured out that there was more to Deux than was apparent at first look but he doubted more questions would lead to any useful answers and it may actual hurt Deux if this reaction was anything to go off of. He knew when to push and when to stay quiet so he just nodded and tried to get them back on track.

"So, fears. Even if a community had a reason for excluding an individual, if they didn't let the person know what it was then that person has no recourse, no way to appeal their decision. If a community makes a common practice of this what would happen? If you had to walk down the hallway with the knowledge that, at any time for no reason you could possibly divine, Greg would throw you out of an airlock, how would this affect you? How would it affect the entire crew if they lived under the same conditions?"

[Deux]

Keeping his eyes on the ground he tapped his thumb against his left wrist. He sounded , “I’ve read that in times of epidemics villages will seal off their gates and not let anyone in. This continues until the threat of infection is over. If a person didn’t know about the situation then it could cause them discomfort.”

“I’d be dead,” Deux said finally looked at Kaden and his voice returned to normal, “If he threw me out of the airlock. Unless we were docked, even then my safety is not ensured. Having the knowledge that could happen, I’d avoid being near an airlock. I’d suppose the crew would be upset by this. Much like they would be if Archer was killing other members of the crew and the Captain did nothing.”

[Kaden]

"Yes, it is similar to the case of Archer. And I'm going to suggest that the same thing would happen as in Archer's case. The community would dissolve, fall apart because of the uncertainty of their lives. They could not know if they were going to die tomorrow, or if they would be punished at the whim of Greg without knowing the reason why. I think this speaks to two things. The first is that humans need predictability. Being able to predict how our environment will change is essential to our survival and our ability to reason and identify patterns was a significant step in our evolution and makes us a very successful species."

"In order to achieve this predictability we look for patterns, but we have also developed our own patterns. Created laws to make our lives more stable. One of them is that we will live in groups, another is that we will not kill and I think a third is that our actions must be fair. This is something else I have gotten from our talks, that we fear arbitrariness and seek fairness, knowing that there are reasons that we can understand for why things happen. An action is considered fair if it can be explained..." Kaden trailed off. He was realizing he had stepped into a much larger topic than he'd wanted, one that could distract them endlessly from their actual purpose. Philosophers had been trying to understand the nature of fairness for ages, he could not hope to answer the question in one day.

"Let me go back. First, what do you think of the first part of what I said, that we seek predictability and try to create that predictability with law?"

[Deux]

“I’ve noticed patterns among the crew. They have shifts which they have to attend and create some structure. Some also like meeting others at certain times, to eat or talk. They like knowing things that happened in the past will occur again,” he thought of all the times he’d seen such meetings in the mess hall. Being there every day had it’s advantages.

“If a law meant that you could predict you weren’t likely to be murdered it would give some relief to the population,” Deux stopped pulling at his sleeve and continued. “If other laws served a similar purpose then predictability would be helpful in keeping a community together.”

[Kaden]

"So we've now found two ways to help us identify laws. To stuff thousands of years of legal theory into a few sentences, law is split into two categories, natural law and man made law. Natural law can be said to arise from the things we discussed earlier, our fears and desires. These types of laws are seen as universal, meaning they will be found in every human community and we have always sought to understand why. Every human community will have laws against murder, though they may define murder differently. Natural law arises from natural inclinations we have that help us survive as a species."

"Then there is man made law. Man made law seeks to fill in and build on the structure of natural law. Natural law may say, "don't murder," but man made law defines what is and what is not murder. Killing to defend yourself may not be classified as murder, but killing for honor is, or isn't. The thing about man made law is it is unique to the culture it comes from."

"Man made law tries to create predictability in the lives of those it governs. Natural law enforces positive survival patterns. We can identify natural law by trying to figure out what we fear, what would be detrimental to our survival, and what we desire, what helps further the chances of our survival. Man made law can be found by looking at the patterns people themselves make."

"Can you give me an example of a man made law?"

[Deux]

“Would payment and it’s regulation count?” Deux offered, “Credit in exchange for goods. It doesn’t sound like something that would come from nature.”

The thought of money gave him pause when he remembered that he was working for the Captain now. He had never been employed before but he assumed that he was getting paid now. Or perhaps his passage was payment enough. However once he got off the ship he wasn’t sure what he was going to do for money. He would have to ask the Captain about it sometime. Preferably when he wasn’t busy or in front of Kaden. It didn’t seem like a conversation to have around him.

[Kaden]

"Mostly, yes. The collection of resources is a natural tendency. We must have resources to live, such as food, even land. The collection of resources is not man-made, but the system by which we do it is. Money, credit, these are man-made things." Kaden stopped to think about what he'd said. "I would go so far as to say that all man-made law has natural law roots."

Kaden tried to figure out how to get them started on a path that would lead back to their original purpose. "If natural law reinforces successful survival patterns and man-made law tries to perfect and define natural law I would say that man-made law shares a purpose with natural law. It too tries to reinforce patterns a group believes are successful. As such, both types of law are essential to our success as a species. Would you agree?"