Victorians as aliens

Here is an interesting idea from a source not famed for interesting ideas:

“I have said this elsewhere: it would be a moment of significant horror for Western progressives if, upon being visited by an advanced alien civilization, the aliens were discovered to be not only believers in a single, divine deity, but their general values and practices put a premium on chasteness, modesty, thrift, hard work, and the freedom and liberty of the individual, vs. the collective.”

https://twitter.com/BradRTorgersen/status/1657035315939360776

Imagine you were a society of people and a more technologically advanced society arrive where you lived on vessels that can travel distances beyond anything your society could imagine. This technologically advanced society is monotheistic and the dominant ideology claims that the individual can advance themselves via hard work, and clean living. That sounds…vaguely familiar.

Let’s think of a name for those aliens, let’s call them The Brotosh Umpire because they come from the planet of Broton and they also like cricket. Their titular leader is Queen Voctorium. Honestly, I have to agree with Mr Torgersen, I would be very worried when these aliens arrive with their mutton-chop facial hair, alien pith helmets and starchy puddings. My main concern would be their belief in “the freedom and liberty of the individual” would exclude “humans” (in this case) from counting as “individuals”, at least until we’d been sufficiently civilised and/or genocided out of existence.

I assume the emphasis on monotheism rests on the idea that terrestrial monotheists would find common cause and religious sympathy from the alien monotheists. Of course, these are imaginary aliens and maybe peaceful and respectful of cultural differences. However, among humans, monotheistic societies interacting with each other does not show across our history that monotheism leads to mutual respect of religious differences.

The point of the original argument is that the advanced technology of the alien society would be seen as a validation of the religion and cultural values of that society. I agree, some people probably would react that way. One way that religious beliefs have disseminated in history (other than conquest) has been through this kind of cultural admiration.

I wonder in this scenario how many people would adopt the culture of the aliens even if they weren’t belligerently trying to impose it? Probably quite a lot, which would be greeted with some dismay by (human) religious traditionalists. Assuming the aliens were not Victorian-style conquerors, how would human Christians (Muslims et al) feel about alien missionaries attempting to convert people to the more “advanced” form of monotheism of the aliens? Would the more dogmatic right-wing Christian even accept that the alien god is the same unitary divinity as the Christian god? I suspect some would not and instead insist that the alien god was either made up or satanic.