Arkady Strugatsky - Tale of the Troika

“Second nature!” the bedbug said sarcastically. “The third element, the fourth kingdom, the fifth estate, the sixth wonder of the world. A wise human could have asked what you need a second nature for. You’ve ruined one, and now you’re trying to replace it with another. I’ve said it before, Fedya: a second nature is a cripple’s crutches. As for reason, it’s not for you to talk or for me to listen. For a hundred centuries these skins stuffed with a nourishing mixture have been mouthing off about reason, and they still can’t agree what it is they’re talking about! They agree only on one point: no one but they themselves has reason. That’s really amazing! If a creature is small, if it’s easy to poison with some chemical or simply to squash with a finger, then they look down at it. Such a creature naturally has nothing more than instinct, a primitive irritability, the lowest form of nervous activity. Typical world view of conceited imbeciles. But, after all, they are rational and they have to establish a foundation for everything, so that they can squash insects without guilt pangs.

“And look, Fedya, at their rationalization. Let’s say that a digger wasp lays her eggs in her nest burrow and goes off to look for food for her future young. What do those bandits do? The barbarians steal the eggs and then, reveling in idiotic pleasure, they watch the wretched mother cement up the empty hole. Therefore, the mother is stupid, does not see what she is doing, and therefore she only has instincts, blind instinct, you understand, and not reason—and if necessary, she can be squashed. Do you see how this is vile juggling with terminology? The a priori assumption is that the wasp’s main goal in life is to reproduce and protect her young, and therefore if she is incapable of fulfilling her major goal, then what is she worth? They, humans, they have the cosmos-shmosmos and photosynthesis-shmynthesis and the pathetic wasp has nothing but reproduction, and that only on a primitive instinctual level. Those mammals can’t even imagine that the wasp has a rich spiritual life, that in the short span of her life she wants to succeed in science and in art, those warm-blooded beasts can’t see that she simply doesn’t have the time or the desire to look back at her young, particularly since they are only senseless eggs.

“Of course, wasps have their laws, their behavioral norms, their morals. Since wasps are rather thoughtless by nature when it comes to propagating their kind, the law, of course, stipulates certain punishments for not fulfilling parental obligations. Every decent wasp must follow a prescribed sequence of behavior. She must dig a pit, lay her eggs, bring back a number of paralyzed caterpillars, and block off the hole. This is inspected by silent observers, and a wasp must always assume that an inspector may be lurking behind the nearest rock. Of course, the wasp sees that the eggs have been stolen or that her food stores have been depleted. But she can’t lay the eggs over again and she has no desire to waste time gathering more food. Fully realizing the incongruity of her actions, she makes believe that she has noticed nothing and finishes the program to the very end, because the last thing she wants to do is make the rounds of the nine departments of the Committee for the Preservation of Appearances.

“Fedya, picture a highway, smooth and flat from horizon to horizon. Some experimenter sets up a roadblock with a detour sign. Visibility is fine, and the driver sees that there is nothing threatening him on the other side of the roadblock. He even suspects that it’s a foolish practical joke, but he follows the rules and regulations like a decent driver, he turns off onto the disgusting side road, and gets shaken and jolted, splashed with mud, and wastes a lot of time and energy to get back on the same highway two hundred yards down the road. Why? For the same reasons: he’s law-abiding, and he doesn’t want to be hauled to traffic court, all the more because like the wasp, he has reason to suspect that it’s a trap and that behind those bushes there is a cop on a motorcycle. And now let us suppose that the invisible experimenter sets up the experiment to gauge man’s intellect and that the experimenter is a conceited fool like the one who destroyed the nest. Ha, ha, ha! What conclusion do you think he would come to?” Gabby slapped the table in ecstasy with all his legs.

“No,” said Fedya. “Somehow you oversimplify things, Gabby. Of course, a man can’t shine intellectually when he’s driving.”

“No more so than a wasp laying eggs,” the crafty bedbug interrupted. “You know, that’s no time for intellect.”

“Wait a minute, Gabby, you keep interrupting me. I want to say … Now, see, I forgot what I was about to say. Oh yes! In order to enjoy the grandeur of human reason you have to peruse all the edifices of that reason, all the achievements of science, all the achievements of literature and art. You scoffed at the cosmos, yet the sputniks and rockets are a great step forward—they’re amazing, and you must agree that not a single arthropod is capable of doing it.”

The flea wiggled his antennae in disgust.

“I could argue by saying that arthropods have no need for the cosmos,” he said. “But people don’t need it either, and therefore we will not discuss it. You don’t understand the simplest things, Fedya. Every species has its own dream, historically formed and passed down from generation to generation. The realization of such a dream is what is usually termed a great achievement. Humans have had two such dreams: one was to fly, arising from their envy of insects, and the other to travel to the sun, arising from their ignorance of the distance to the sun. But it cannot be expected that different species, not to mention different classes and phyla, should have the same Great Idea. It would be absurd to imagine that flies dream from generation to generation of free flight, that octopuses dream of the ocean depths, and that we bedbugs— Cimex lectularius —dream of the sun, which we cannot tolerate. Everyone dreams of an unattainable goal that promises pleasure. The hereditary dream of the octopus, as everyone knows, is to travel freely on dry land. And the octopuses spend a lot of time thinking about it in their briny homes. The hereditary and evil dream of viruses is absolute control of the world, and even though their methods are deplorable, you must give them credit for perseverance, inventiveness, and the capability of self-sacrifice for a greater goal.

“And how about the inspired dream of the spiders? Many millions of years ago they rashly climbed out of the sea, and since then they have been struggling to get back into their native element. You should hear their songs and ballads about the sea! Your heart would bleed with pity and compassion. By comparison the heroic myth of Daedalus and Icarus is a joke. And what of it? They’ve made some headway, and in very clever ways, I might add, since arthropods in general are given to ingenious solutions. They’re getting what they want by creating new species. First they created water spiders, then diving spiders, and now they’re going full speed ahead on a water-breathing spider.

“I’m not even talking about us bedbugs. We achieved our dream long ago—back when these skins with nourishing mixture in the veins first appeared. Do you follow me, Fedya? Each species has its own dream. Don’t brag about your achievements before your planetary neighbors. You risk seeming foolish. Those to whom your dreams are foreign will think you stupid, and those who have realized their dreams will think you pathetic boasters.”

“I cannot answer you, Gabby,” Fedya said, “but I must admit that I don’t enjoy listening to you. First of all I don’t like it when crafty casuistry is used to disprove self-evident facts, and secondly, I too am human.”