Superiority and inferiority
When people of our civilisation have encountered other human beings, they've treated them as inferiors. From Neanderthals to aboriginals, they've been at best noble savages. beautiful children too naive to take care of themselves, certainly in our advanced world. On the other hand, science fiction abounds with sentient extraterrestrials with superior intellectual or technology to ours. Such beings are in some if not all ways more advanced and often dangerous, as they are inclined to disregard us as we have disregarded and enslaved people in colonies or even annihilate us (and we've done that, too). Is this a mere reversal, putting the shoe on the other foot or do we actually see ourselves as an in-between species (or civilisation), halfway between the primitive and the truly dominant? Because one thing seems certain: even against superior aliens, our ultimate goal is to win and often conquer.
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