What would Tarl Cabot do?
He'd enslave and bind every woman he met until she admitted she wanted nothing more than to be bound and enslaved by a man.
Via James Nicoll, Dark Horse is reprinting the Gor novels.
Uh-huh.
I remember reading the first eight or so before giving Norman up as a loony. I got through eight because it was planetary romance in an ...
No, screw it. Anything I could say would be far more apologia than these works deserve. Gor is a nightmare, John Norman is an irredeemable human being, and Dark Horse has just irreversibly damaged its reputation.
Update: Dark Horse contact page. Share your opinion.
Posted by Greg at July 26, 2007 11:25 AM
I direct everyone who just went "the what now?" to The Houseplants of Gor, so you can experience all the Gor-y goodness without actually having to get your brain dirty.
I read the Gor novels in my teen-age years, as they were released. I loved the giant bird mounts; I loved the insect-like sentients who communicated with scents.
I was utterly blind to the vile sexual politics.
A friend in college told me about a skit she and some friends put on at a science fiction convention: Buckets of Gor, in which a Gor slaver kidnaps from Earth a radical feminist, a hippie, and a self-defense teacher. Needless to say, it does not end well for the slaver.
Today I don't think I could even look at the cover of a Gor book without gagging.
A well-done planetary romance* (archetype: John Carter) is worth its weight in gold to a teenaged reader such as I was, and much as I remain.
I read up to the first DAW novel (eight, I think) before my better self woke up.
But I read the first eight or so. I'm not making it up when I say that Gor is a nightmare.
Since it lacks the historical and artistic significance that is the only justification for reprinting works that contain vile artifacts of the past (like racist caricatures), I think that publishing the novels represents irresponsibility on the part of Dark Horse, which is made the worse in my estimation by the irresponsibility being wholly unexpected.
*The fixed phrase "planetary romance" uses a somewhat archaic sense of "romance" roughly congruent with "adventure" but containing elements of the modern sense of "romance".
To whom do you think Dark Horse owes a responsibility?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Dark Horse owes a responsibility to the entire fucking rest of the planet, just like everyone else.
I'm surprised I have to explain this. Haven't you read superhero comics before?
I'm not sure I see what the big deal is. I never heard of Gor before I saw this thread, but from what I can tell via wikipedia, it's poorly written Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Ayn Rand meets Penthouse Forum. Not anything I want to read, mind you, but if putting poorly written philosophy porn on the market is the worst thing that Dark Horse ever does, then they're doing OK.
Greg: Dark Horse owes a responsibility to the rest of the planet not to publish Gor stories? Mein Kamph, The Bible, The Koran, Das Kapital and Sun Tzu are all still in print. The Anarchist Cookbook is still in print.
And you think it is irresponsible to publish the Gor novels?
Might I inquire as to why?
As for surprising you, don't overestimate me. My reading of superhero comics apparently hasn't been as close as others, or might have realized that ethos now applied in the real world and that due process and equal protection no longer applied.
Jason at #7: Well, there's a difference between putting bad stuff on the market and putting bad stuff back on the market. Hindsight makes it much more likely that the revivalist is, or should be, aware that the stuff is bad.
What's the POS American white-supremacist militia post-apocalyptic story that caused a few arguments on Usenet back in the day? I forget its name, but reprinting Gor is like reprinting that--a revival of something that we don't need to remember, that makes our society that much less perfect.
Me and Bennet and maybe Korvar have read Gor, and we say it's vile, far worse than "ERB meets Rand meets Penthouse". Is there a particular reason you don't believe us?
On the one hand I dig where you're coming from, Jason, but on the other I'm not a fan of the "Hey, there are worse things in the universe" defense.
Also, referencing "Penthouse Forum" in this instance is a grave injustice -- to Penthouse Forum. Gor is way, way more vile. In addition, Gor is like a temple devoted to worshiping the most shallow, immature, stereotypical, and embarrassing qualities the fantasy or sci-fi genres have ever produced or been accused of.
(When I put it like that, I'm surprised DC or Marvel isn't doing this.)
To a fan of those genres, it's disheartening to see Gor dredged up when it would be better left forgotten and ignored.
Mike at #8:
Go back and read #4 again. Is there anything in that comment that suggests I might claim grounds on which to distinguish the republication of Gor and the republication of Mein Kampf?
As to why, here's the breakdown. I start with the axiom that people should not do bad things. I assert that publishing a bad thing is itself a bad thing, because it provides the bad thing greater exposure and the opportunity to negatively influence people that it would not otherwise have. I assert that Gor is a bad thing, because it promotes a model for human sexuality and society that in reality would result in immense harm to many people. Finally, I assert that no circumstances mitigate the harm of its republication, because the work lacks historical significance and is of questionable artistic merit not counting its reprehensible sexual politics. Q.E.D.
It is, of course, possible to dispute the assertions.
For goodness sake, people! Don't you understand? These books are so awful Greg only had to read half of them before he realised! Isn't that ENOUGH?
I feel your pain, Greg - I still remember the day I finally noticed all those pictures of nude women Playboy keeps inexplicably sticking between the articles.
Man, I used to be rad at Wizard of Gor in the arcades when I was a kid.
Wait, that was Wizard of Wor. Sorry. Carry on.
I never heard of Gor before I saw this thread, but from what I can tell via wikipedia, it's poorly written Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Ayn Rand meets Penthouse Forum.
I've never read Gor either, but a friend of mine in high school read some of it, and described it to me. From what I can tell, your description leaves out one thing: Gor sounds mean, and your three ingredients aren't.
#12: Eight is a bit less than a third of them, I believe.
I never heard of Gor before I saw this thread, but from what I can tell via wikipedia, it's poorly written Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Ayn Rand meets Penthouse Forum.I've never read Gor either, but a friend of mine in high school read some of it, and described it to me. From what I can tell, your description leaves out one thing: Gor sounds mean, and your three ingredients aren't.
You've obviously never read any Ayn Rand.
Gor sounds like it's got a very misogynistic view of the proper role of the sexes and a preocupation with sex, but I find it hard to get worked up about the fact that a trashy pulp novel has an incredibly imbecillic worldview. Then again, I think the Batgirl threads of the last week establish that I have a much higher threshold than some of you before I get hysterical (no pun intended) over how make-believe women are treated in adolescent fantasy stories.
I don't think that'll do, Jason. Individual variation in offensensitivity? That sounds like communism to me. The Sentinels will arrive shortly to escort you to re-education.
You've obviously never read any Ayn Rand.
Actually, I've read more Ayn Rand than I've read of the other stuff mentioned, put together. Rand's stuff can be criticized on many grounds but it's not mean.
And the issue here is not necessarily limited to how fictional women are treated; there are people out there using the Gor novels as a blueprint for living. Obviously these people aren't Dark Horse's responsibility, but still, I don't think we want to encourage them.
Wait, that was Wizard of Wor.
And his scary metal...mustache?
(I totally didn't remember the mustache...)
I haven't read any Rand, but what I've encountered of Objectivism sure sounds like the basis of the "I've got mine, you're on your own" social politics of the Republican party, and those I would certainly characterize as mean.
there are people out there using the Gor novels as a blueprint for living
There are? Can you point to some of them?
I disagree with your precept, but, fine, even if you want to give Mein Kampf a pass, what about The Anarchist Cookbook?
As to why, here's the breakdown. I start with the axiom that people should not do bad things. I assert that publishing a bad thing is itself a bad thing, because it provides the bad thing greater exposure and the opportunity to negatively influence people that it would not otherwise have. I assert that Gor is a bad thing, because it promotes a model for human sexuality and society that in reality would result in immense harm to many people. Finally, I assert that no circumstances mitigate the harm of its republication, because the work lacks historical significance and is of questionable artistic merit not counting its reprehensible sexual politics. Q.E.D.
Gor is not a bad thing because it promotes x. Gor does not promote x at all. Gor portrays x. Had "fiction" written right on it. I'm surprised I have to explain this. Well, no, not really "surprised." More's the pity...
Btw, the notion of historical importance justifying publication is rather bizarre. These books have some historical significance because they've inspired actual death and warfare, and that makes them okay to publish. The Gor novels are just fictional portrayals of events you find offensive, and that makes them more vulnerable to shunning?
Awaiting the Dark Horse trial at the Hague....
Scav: E.g. this Salon article, Chain Gang.
I give you the followers of the Cult of Gor known as Kaotians
For an example of Ayn Rand's meaness, I invite you to read _For the new intellectual._
#22: Atlas Shrugged is also labeled as fiction. Would you hesitate to claim that it promoted the ideals of Objectivism?
There was also a sex-slavery group discovered in Britain last year that was based on Gor -- see here -- but my thought is that people who are into BDSM (or pretty much any other sexual practice, kinky or otherwise) don't need bad science-fiction to tell them what gets them off.
Matthew, as Greg points out Rand rejects any notion of altruism whatsoever in favor of an "every man for himself" philosophy. Your milage may vary -- obviously it does -- but I find Objectivism to be the very epitome of mean.
Thanks Greg.
Shurg.
Makes me thing of fellow SCAers who take things just a bit too seriously.
I disagree with your precept, but, fine, even if you want to give Mein Kampf a pass, what about The Anarchist Cookbook
When I was 18 and in college, I found that I was not allowed to purchase The Anarchist Cookbook at Half-Price books. I gave my RA a beer and he went down there and bought it for me. I've read it and I can't figure what your beef with it might be. The drug-making and the electronic surveillance stuff is early 1970s and thus mostly useless. Unarmed combat, weapons combat, and explosives and booby traps make a good read and are nice materials for Role Playing Games.
It's no worse than Steve Jackson Games' Killer, The Monkey Wrench Gang, or Twilight 2000. And it's much better than the translation of the CIA's Nicaraguan Sabotage Manual
"I haven't read any Rand, but what I've encountered of Objectivism sure sounds like the basis of the "I've got mine, you're on your own" social politics of the Republican party, and those I would certainly characterize as mean."
"For an example of Ayn Rand's meaness, I invite you to read _For the new intellectual._"
"Matthew, as Greg points out Rand rejects any notion of altruism whatsoever in favor of an "every man for himself" philosophy. Your milage may vary -- obviously it does -- but I find Objectivism to be the very epitome of mean."
This is so not the place to get into an argument about Ayn Rand. And I so wouldn't want to even if it was. So I'll restrict myself to clarifying my position.
Rand was confrontational and uncompromising in her style; her philosophy was not at all nice. The sex scenes in her novels were (to me) brutish and unpleasant. But her basic motivations were benevolent: she was trying to establish what was best for everybody. You may think she was wrong; I don't think you can establish that she was malicious. Nothing in any of her books suggests to me that she enjoyed anyone's suffering or, for example, relished the idea of a woman hanging from hooks through her nipples (a detail passed along to me by my friend in high school that sticks with me even now).
Whoa, who knew Wizard of Wor had a 'stache! Evil! (for the record, I forgot he did, too...hmmm...)
Greg: No, I wouldn't hesitate. I would immediately deny it because all the characters espousing those ideals are idiots so as a method of promoting ideals, it is slightly less effective than promoting birth control through an abstinence pledge. I concede that Rand probably thought she was promoting those ideals. After that book, she stopped writing novels and started writing the novels. And her philosophy books quote extensively from her novels.
But wait...
I wonder if any other philosophers write novels? How about John Lange at Queens College of the City of New York? He wrote the introduction to the web site for the Philosophy Department. And views of a former student seem to indicate that he tried to keep his philosophy separate from fiction, such as the Gor novels he wrote. In fact, he appears to teach history of philosophy and theory of knowledge.
Btw, if we are going to villify sf writers for their sexual politics, I suggest we start with Piers Anthony and Robert "Doorway into Summer" Heinlein.
It may be worth noting that John Norman also wrote a non-fiction book entitled Imaginative Sex, about how to enact Gor-like slavery scenarios in your own life. (And as Greg has noted, there are people who follow its recommendations.)
The Gor novels promote a factually incorrect and morally undesirable view of proper social relations and the nature of men and women, and they specifically reinforce problems rife in the comics world: that women really like being used, that they're just there to serve and entertainment men, and so on. And they do it without having any particular historical significance - Mein Kampf is worth reading to understand the outlook of a man who did, after all, play a big ol' part in the largest war of last century, and The Turner Diaries go far to explain a particular combination of fear, arrogance, and paranoia that started out on America's right-wing fringe and has been earning mainstream right respectability for some time. If Gor fandom ever makes a real mark on the world, I'll support reprinting the novels to examine the roots of the movement. In the meantime, this is selling trash to people who already have plenty.
It's not the biggest evil in the world. But it is one of hte most gratuitously, needlessly stupid moves Dark Horse has ever made. (It actually doesn't even make good economic sense, according to what I've read from people in the publishing industry about the publication history of prior editions.) If Dark Horse were to wish to reprint novels of interest to an audience that overlaps with their comics readership, there are literally dozens or hundreds of better choices, from Philip Wylie's Gladiator (one of the most direct inspirations for Superman) and William H. Shiras' Children of the Atom (a strong prototype of the X-Men) on. Even if pandering titillation were a high priority for Dark Horse, there are plenty of choices which allow women as well as men to have adventurous fun in battle and nookie, and are better written to boot.
It's dumb, in a time and in ways we just don't need a lot more dumb.
'ght s bt lss thn thrd f thm, blv.'
h ys, nd tht, lk, CMPLTL ngts th pnt ws mkng.
As someone who has actually published John Norman, I have to say that I think that Dark Horse's move is stupid rather than evil.
Norman was popular, during the period he was popular, because he was just about the only person publishing the type of thing he was publishing. His prose and plotting are of a certain level of competence--the first Gor novel got an "honorable mention" in a year-in-review essay in a Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss's Nebula Award Stories anthology. This set him apart from the pseudonymous airport bookstore b&d porn novelists; he was offering a real story with heavy doses of special sauce.
But Gor was at its height of popularity almost 30 years ago. While it is true that Daw Books stopped promoting his novels years before they stopped publishing them, it's also true that sales were steadily declining on the novels through the last few. Norman's attempt to re-start his career with a second, Gor-like, series was an utter commercial failure. Now that John Norman no longer has the monopoly on b&d fantasy novels, he no longer has an audience. And that's why it's stupid for Dark Horse to be republishing him; there isn't a huge potential readership waiting to discover John Norman, because there's nothing John Normal has to offer a new reader that isn't better served by better writers.
And yes, I agree with Greg's stance that this whole republication project is a shanda fur die goyim for the comics community as a whole. So, shame on Dark Horse for this.
On the question of portrayal versus advocacy: As pointed out, Norman's non-fiction book Imaginative Sex indicates that his view of entertaining sex practices very closely paralleled the sex scenes in his novels; his philosophical writings about sex, and his speeches and public appearances at sf conventions, indicate that the sexual politics expressed in his novels are in accord with his actual view of human sexuality. The fact that there are people who started Gor b&d groups makes it hard to ignore the fact that people took from the novels exactly what Norman was trying to express.
Finally, But [Ayn Rand's] basic motivations were benevolent: she was trying to establish what was best for everybody. The same is true of John Norman. It is very hard to not reach the conclusion that Norman believes that in his expressed ideal society, everyone is happier. He argues that women are happier when they are treated like chattel with no agency. He's wrong, but he believes he is not malevolent.
The Gor novels promote a factually incorrect and morally undesirable view of proper social relations and the nature of men and women, and they specifically reinforce problems rife in the comics world: that women really like being used, that they're just there to serve and entertainment men, and so on.
The Gor novels I read didn't make anyone come across well, men or women. I hate being in a position where it seems to outsiders that I am defending the Gor novels. I think the Gor novels were so bad that they became a metric when I reviewed things, though they were still better than the later Gor novels.
However, they are not morally repugnant. They are just bad. I think it's a bit tricky to say that books should not be published sdimply because they portray or even promote a lifestyle or concepts that people do not like. What about these people who think Harry Potter promotes witchcraft? Why shouldn't their opinions matter? As I understand it, Norman's sex book talked about activities between consenting adults. If people think the Gor novels are promoting slavery, well, I think they are idiots. If they think they are promoting bondage and so forth, then I wonder what the big deal is. If consenting adults wish to engage in bondage, it's none of my business.
As for the people who try to implement Norman's Gor novels as a lifestyle, well, people do all kinds of unpleasant things with various input. Charles Manson and the beatles? I read and like the first Gor novel. I think everything after three was pretty inane. I have not, however, tried to enslave anyone.
And yes, I agree with Greg's stance that this whole republication project is a shanda fur die goyim for the comics community as a whole. So, shame on Dark Horse for this.
Kevin, can you expand on why you think this? Without quite knowing how to phrase this, I would have thought you'd be slightly more open minded on the sexual politics involved, so I assume your stance is based on something else?
I am open-minded about sex. In fact, I am a free-love libertine. I think that any two or more consenting humans who want to have sex together should feel little more hesitancy than they would about having dinner together. Please note the most important word in that sentence: "consenting". ("Adult" is implicit in consent; children do not have enough experience to handle the physical downsides of sex.)
John Norman, on the other hand, advocates the dehumanization of women. He believes they should be denied humanity and treated as things. Moreover, he believes that this is not only right and just, but that it will make the women happier than having agency--that in fact women crave to be denied agency.
So, yeah, my views on sex are very sympathetic to Norman's, except for being absolutely diametrically opposed.
The specific reason that I think this is a shanda for the comics community is that right now, comic books have a shameful history of treating women as barely human and lacking in agency. We don't need one of the biggest publishers going out and republishing one of the most prominent works of fiction that advocates one of our biggest sins.
Mike, I know you think there's a deep pattern of institutional racism in the comics industry--both in the treatment of black creators and in the depiction of black characters--and I think you're right. Given that, do you think it would be a good idea for Dark Horse to publish a new edition of The Turner Diaries? Not "do they have the right"--of course they do*, but "would it be a good idea" and "would it reflect well on comics"?
*It appears that the author of The Turner Diaries has put the book into the public domain. If so, anyone can publish their own edition. So it's unlikely that Dark Horse would make any money republishing that book, but it's unlikely they'll make much republishing Gor, either.
Kevin, does not Norman think women should subjugate themselves voluntarily, however? (This is not a unique theory in psychologiy, btw.)
As to The Turner Diaries.. There are a couple levels to that question.
I think everyone should be required to read hate literature as part of the basic school curiculum. I think that the KKK should be able to march frely and everyone should wach. That sort of hatred and bigotry should be on display for everyone, because, if not, it is hidden in plain sight. The Turner Diaries? Amateur stuff compared to the Gospel of John and The Merchant of Venice.
As to the notion that this reflects badly on comics...
There exists a rather bizarre notion that the general public outside of comics is aware of comics as an industry or an entity of its own. I do not think this is the case. I think comics are viewed as magazines or graphic novels by the outside world when it thinks of comics at all.
So no, I don't think it reflects badly on comics because I don't think anyone outside comics thinks of comics in that sort of uniform way.
As to whether it is a good idea. No, but I could be wrong. I don't think the Gor novels are morally repugnant, remember. I think they are bad. I don't think they will sell. Additionally, they were quite popular at a time when print runs were enormous, so I think it likely that anyone who is interested in them already owns a copy or can trivially find one used. As to whether publishing them is a good idea in some moral sense, I don't hink that is a comprehensible way of faming the question. I see publishing them as morally neutral.
Kevin nails it precisely, I find as I open up and prepare to write a bit more comment myself. So, first of all, "What he said."
Norman thinks women are happiest being used for men's pleasure, and that plays a larger and larger part in the books. And comics fandom is already home to a lot of guys who think that, or would like to get away with thinking it without feeling guilty about it.
I would be a lot less bugged if Norman had some weird view about bimetallism, or alternative tunings for harpiscords, or the calculation of carrying capacity for geographically small regions, or even radial velocities in the Zodiacal dust cloud, precisely because none of those is a big issue for many of the real people who read comics. But real women get handed more crap than they should, and real guys hand out more crap than they should, over issues of proper sex roles, what women want, and stuff like that.
Now me personally, I've solved the problem of not wanting to be around that stuff so much by dropping out. I buy almost no superhero comics, I stay away from virtually all supers fannish stuff. I'm no longer in any very meaningful sense part of the market; I'm just a guy hanging around the edges and very occasionally reaching back in. But I would really like it if the supers market had more cool stuff and less of the crap, and I would really like it if publishers like Dark Horse could at least refrain from feeding the beast even if they won't do very much to help improve things.
Mike asks,
Kevin, does not Norman think women should subjugate themselves voluntarily, however?
Yes. That would be why I said "Moreover, he believes that this is not only right and just, but that it will make the women happier than having agency--that in fact women crave to be denied agency"--in the comment to which you were responding. What Norman actively advocates is a world in which women have precisely one role--chattel slave. I find descriptions of the world which narrowly circumscribe the roles available to people for the accidents of [their birth to be morally repugnant].
Further, Mike, for many years you've been saying claptrap like "[The Turner Diaries are a]mateur stuff compared to the Gospel of John and The Merchant of Venice."
But you're wrong. The Gospel of John was written by a pissed-off ex-Jew who blamed the Jews for banning Messianic Jesus-worshippers from the synagogues, and laughing at their misfortunes. While it was used as part of the justification of the supression of Jews for literally millennia, it doesn't actually advocate hunting them down and killing them. The Turner Diaries actively advocates hunting down and killing Jews, and blacks, and everyone who isn't white, and every white who is insufficiently vigorous in the hunting down and killing. The Turner Diaries is a young work, but it's got an audience who are not shy of working towards its goals--people have been killed because of its teachings already and it doesn't even have the fiel of religion propelling it.
And The Merchant of Venice? Pfah. It has a sympathetic Jewish character in it--Jessica--who is given a happy ending with her true love. You'd never see something like that in The Turner Diaries.
Whoops, I left out several words.
"I find descriptions of the world which narrowly circumscribe the roles available to people for the accidents of"
. . . their birth to be morally repugnant.
[Edited into the original--gpm]
I said:
Kevin, does not Norman think women should subjugate themselves voluntarily, however?
The brilliant Mr. Maroney then wrote;
Yes. That would be why I said "Moreover, he believes that this is not only right and just, but that it will make the women happier than having agency--that in fact women crave to be denied agency"--in the comment to which you were responding.
I respond, thus:
Yes, I did rather notice that. You also said "I am open-minded about sex. In fact, I am a free-love libertine. I think that any two or more consenting humans who want to have sex together should feel little more hesitancy than they would about having dinner together. Please note the most important word in that sentence: "consenting"."
So, my question then, sir, is this: If he is advocating
voluntary behavior, then he is advocating behavior amongst
consenting adults, so what's your problem with it?
Mr. Maroney then says: What Norman actively advocates is a world in which women have precisely one role--chattel slave.
I say: Yes, perhaps, but voluntary. Now, you might have some principle of natural law in mind wherein people may not volunteer for slavery, but that's just one point of view. One I happen to agree with, but still just one point of view.
Kevin: I find descriptions of the world which narrowly
circumscribe the roles available to people for the accidents of [their birth to be morally repugnant].
Me: Indeed? So what about Hinduism and its decendents, and for that matter Islam, Judaism and Calvinist Christianity?
Kevin: Further, Mike, for many years you've been saying
claptrap like "[The Turner Diaries are a]mateur stuff compared to the Gospel of John and The Merchant of Venice."
Me: Well, for values of "claptrap" equal to "an educated
opinion based on years of scholarship and a lifetime of
discussion of the topic of bigotry with one of the founders of Holocaust studies." (Though lately we've mostly been talking baseball.)
And I wouldn't have to repeat myself, if people would think
before responding. You have spent years not doing that. You are a very intelligent man, but because of that, you never stop to think "I might be the one who is wrong." I always consider that. I am not always right, but I always try to consider the other point of view. That's why I sometimes state things with what might be considered a more strident tone than is palatable. I have already thought "Well, what if this is not true?"
Kevin: But you're wrong. The Gospel of John was written by a pissed-off ex-Jew who blamed the Jews for banning Messianic Jesus-worshippers from the synagogues, and laughing at their misfortunes. While it was used as part of the justification of the supression of Jews for literally millennia, it doesn't actually advocate hunting them down and killing them. The Turner Diaries actively advocates hunting down and killing Jews, and blacks, and everyone who isn't white, and every white who is insufficiently vigorous in the hunting down and killing. The Turner Diaries is a young work, but it's got an audience who are not shy of working towards its goals--people have been killed because of its teachings already and it doesn't even have the fiel of religion propelling it.
Me: Which is why the Turner Diairies are amateur stuff. They are not as effective. The Gospel of John is a touch more subtle. It managed to get annointed as the word of God. Every other chapter ends "for fear of the Jews." And it manages to blame the Jews for the death of God. It doesn't advocate the killing of the jews. No. Instead it invites the reader to come to his own conclusion to kill the Jews. So, what's more effective? Some ham-handed "kill these people approach" or a more subtle work which allows people to decide on their own to kill people, and was responsible for everything from the expulsion from Spain to the Dreyfus Affair.
Kevin: And The Merchant of Venice? Pfah. It has a sympathetic Jewish character in it--Jessica--who is given a happy ending with her true love. You'd never see something like that in The Turner Diaries.
Me: I assume you are joking here, so I beg you not to take this as directed at yourself, but rather at someone who might not have realized you were joking.
This is why I always tread carefully and give reasons when
dealing with sexism or anti-black bigotry. I realize that I
might not always recognize what a particular group finds
offensive. However, the level of sensory deprivation it would take not to recognize the blood libel that is "The Merchant of Venice" as anti-semitic beggars the mind.
Jessica is sympathetic? Okay, we'll put that in one column,
despite the fact that her marriage to a Christian might not be enough to save her from eternal damnation.
Then we'll put Shylock, who is cheated, insulted, and forced to convert to Christianity in the other column.Shylock, whose name has become a byword for usury and unfair money lending. The people who claim that Jews control the banking industry and the money? It's Shylock they are thinking of, and they were taught it in high school. Oh, and Shylock's conversion to Christianity was meant to be a happy ending to the Shakespearian audience.
By the way, I note that you did not actually respond to my
comments on the comics industry and whether publishing Gor
novels reflacts poorly on the comics industry.
Oh, and for Greg, Fox News actually pointed out the Mary Jane statue at the comicon. Page Hopkins said it was cute. However given the amount of leg she typically shows, I'm sure the anti-statue contingent wouldn't take her seriously. The guy on site did say it was nice that Mary Jane still washing Pete's costume.
Mike: Norman is not advocating consensual behavior in the conventional sense. As I noted at the very top of the post, it's fair to say that he advocates enslaving and binding every woman until she admits she wants to be bound and enslaved. The first part occurs prior to consent many, many times.
It's pretty likely that, yes, Kevin disapproves of the Hindu caste system, the more so the more rigid it is. Most freedom-loving people would be disapproving. I'm not sure why you think he'd be inconsistent about that.
Finally, you realize that if Fox News said gravity was running normally today, I'd start preparing to live on the ceiling, right? Their regarding the statue to be innocuous simply makes it more likely that it is in fact a dire threat to the American Dream.
No, Greg, that is what Norman portrays in Gor, not what he advocates. Again, fiction. I mean, do you think Robert Heinlein was an actual pedophile because of _Doorway into Summer?_
I don't think Kevin would be inconsistent about that, however, Kevin never struck me as intolerant of the religious practices of others, so i am trying to explore the contradiction.
So...no matter what Fox news says, you just disagree with it?
OK, fine, let's move the goalposts again. First, I claim that authors can advocate in works of fiction; you concur, as noted in #32.
Second, I claim that Norman is advocating his view of sexual politics in Gor, on a basis which should be apparent to any widely-read person with a mote of critical faculty who reads Gor, e.g. being stated repeatedly, being stated by the POV character in his moral authority, and being stated to be natural, proper, and superior to other ways of doing things, and in particular superior to the reader's broader culture's way of doing things.
Third, I dismiss the aside about Heinlein as of no relevance to the question of whether Norman is advocating his view of sexual politics in Gor.
Paragraph 2: Calling Gorean practice a religion strikes me as purely tactical. In any case, there is no contradiction between holding a libertine belief based on consensuality and opposing the advocacy of a non-consensual way of life.
Paragraph 3: Yes, I'm just that unsophisticated. No, of course not. It is merely the case that Fox's agenda is so prevalent in its programming and so counter to my own beliefs that the first thing you do in response to something from Fox is to identify places where the agenda could be influencing the report. Say your agenda is weakening, marginalizing, and demonizing liberals. Feminism is an important liberal cause, so you put feminism in a bad light. Since feminists are pissed off about the MJ statue, you approve of the MJ statue. QED.
I don't think I moved the goal posts. The world portrayed in Gor is not the world Norman is seeking to establish on Earth. He might think it is the world that should exist, in the same way that Plato thought the Republic should exist or that Augstine thought the City of God should exist, but so far he has not tried to establish a colony for like minded Goreans, and we know it would be possible because some people have, in fact, tried to do so.
So your reading of his books as a counter to his actual real world actions seems at best silly and at worst willfully bizarre. Yes, I have critical falculties and i have read a few of the Gor books. They portray both men and women being subjugated and treated in dehumanizing manners. I have not read all the Gor novels because the Gor novels are really quite bad, and I speak as a former book critic. (Meaning not that people should accept my word on the subject, but rather meaning that I have had to read some really hideously bad books in the course of my former career. The Gor books and the Marshak and Culbreath Star Trek novels make me regret the existence of moveable type.) My critical faculty thus informs me that the Gor novels a) do not advocate anything because Norman has not tried to implement anything despite the ready avaialbility of both the funds and the volunteers and b) that the Gor novels do not even portray what you claim.
Also, the standards you attribute to Gor novels if applied to other authors would make Thomas Harris a proponent of cannibalism, Michael Crichton a proponent of cloning and Isaac Asimov a proponent of...well, it's actually kind of hard to tell whether Asimov was serious and what he actually thought he was doing at a given time. In any event, you don't like the Heinlein example, there are a couple more.
Just because a writer writes something does not mean he is advocating it. Norman thinks this is what people should want. His philosophy is normative, but also involves volition. The Gor novels do not. That is an important distinction.
I am not calling the Gorean stuff relgiious. I am calling Buddhism, Hinduism and Calvinist Christianity religious, and only to see if Kevin finds them morally repugnant on the same basis. Many people do find them morally repugnant, chiefly adherrents of other relgiions. I'm a Christian, and I find much of the Bible repugnant. I find the Hindu practice of burning widows repugnant.
It's not "tactical." I don't see conversation as an agonistic process. I merely seek to understand.
And the only reason I brought up the Fox News thing is that you thought she was washing the costume, and so did the Fox guy, and I found that interesting because it was a data point from someone outside of comics. And bringing it up here is the only way to communicate that to you, so ramp back on the defensiveness.
I'm joining in this conversation rather late, but I only stumbled on its origins on the Die Wachen blog & that of Tamora Pierce quite recently, & followed a link to this thread.
I'm afraid that you -- & most of the other posters to this thread -- have missed a great deal in reading the Gor series, although you're far from alone in that, sadly.
Norman draws heavily on ancient myths, e.g., Theseus & Perseus; on ancient, medieval & Renaissance literature ranging from ancient epics to the Graeco-Roman novels & New Comedy; to Ovid, Nonnus & other erotic elegists; to centuries of travel literature, from Herodotus to Marco Polo to Sir Richard Burton & contemporaries, to cite just a few sources.
Captive of Gor is a secularized re-working of one of the great themes of the Western canon: the felix culpa, or the "fortunate fall." Slave Girl interweaves the myths of Perseus & Andromeda with that of Cupid & Psyche, as well the traditional exemplum of Patient Griselda. Hunters draws on The Odyssey, the myth of Theseus & Andromache, Arrian's Anabasis Alexandri, & Xenophon's Anabasis. Marauders is rooted in Beowulf, the Icelandic Sagas, & the Prose & Poetic Eddas.
Norman is clearly indebted to Nietzsche, borrowing his tropes of master/slave moralities & 'eternal recurrence,' but Norman's virtue ethics are more Aristotelian & Stoic, tempered by the Pragmatism of Clarence Irving Lewis, & Augustine's quod vis fac by way of Rabelais & Huxley. Norman's political philosophy is far more indebted to Plato, Aristotle, Lewis & Mill. In Blood Brothers Norman responds to Nietzsche's perspectivism with the Pragmatism of Lewis & Charles Sanders Peirce, even allowing for the possibility of the Divine: God may not be dead, after all. In Renegades Norman's parsing of "pity" & "compassion," & his explication of the duty of an individual to his society in several volumes distances him from Nietzsche on many critical points, especially the so-called "darker portions."
Steven Saylor, the critically-acclaimed author of the Roma Sub Rosa mysteries, opined in his 1996 introduction to Outlaw that the Gor novels are "allegories": he's correct, although they're often Swiftian, skewering the equation by early radical gender feminists of "marriage" to "slavery," "intercourse" to "rape," & "wives" to "property" (I'll be posting illustrative quotes & further discussion on my own blog in the next few days). To grasp the range & depth of Norman's writing, though, it's essential to understand his pervasive use of traditional rhetorical devices such as paranomasia, antiphrasis, antanaclasis, hyperbole, etc., especially the frequently heavy irony in his use of "rape," as well as the Ovidian nature of his puns.
Norman's gravest misjudgement as an author, though, IMO, has been his optimism that a significant portion of his audience would eventually learn to read his novels beyond the surface adventure & erotica, although that would require an erudition & Classical background approaching his own to be able to do so fully, not to mention an open mind.
There's so much more to say in response here, but as the annual observance of Banned Books Week approaches, I'll close with extracts from the joint statement of the A.L.A. & the Association of American Publishers that bear directly on this suppression campaign against Dark Horse:
The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression....
...1. It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority...
...2. Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict with
the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should be
published or circulated....3. It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author.
...4 There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers to achieve artistic expression...
...5. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their standards or tastes upon the community at large...
...6. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, they can demonstrate that the answer to a "bad" book is a good one, the answer to a "bad" idea is a good one.
When the exercise of Free Speech crosses the line from mere criticism to taking actions to suppress publication, it constitutes 'private censorship.'
One last thought for the moment:
In his book Free Speech for Me--But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, Nat Hentoff writes that "the lust to suppress can come from any direction." He quotes Phil Kerby, a former editor of the Los Angeles Times, as saying, "Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second."
Charlotte @ 48:
You may be right about the underlying system of sophisticated allusion in Gor novels. I am a fairly widely read man--certainly more widely read than the average, though certainly not as widely read as those who read widely professionally--and I didn't recognize any of them, or at least not to the extent that they defeated the surface text.
That is, from my perspective, the putative merits of Norman's prose are overwhelmed by his advocacy of chattel slavery for and denial of agency to women. I think it's analogous to bending Wagnerian opera in service to the aggrandizement of German nationalism with the practical effect of the extermination of the Jews: Simple evocation of a great and important work does not excuse evil ends.
As far as censorship goes, I believe that to this point I am still engaging in criticism of Dark Horse's decision to republish; the suggestion that one express one's opinion to Dark Horse made in the main post is also in support of criticism, and I think does not rise to actual censorship.
I am a First Amendment absolutist, and I will defend with full vehemence DH's right to publish things I disagree with, even as I attempt to convince them not to with reasoned argument.
As I've noted in various places in the comment thread, there are certainly vile works that nonetheless merit republishing because of their historical or artistic significance, and I maintain that Gor does not meet that standard. Even if individual Gor novels are sophisticated comments on a wide range of philosophy and myth, that commentary is effectively defeated by their overt advocacy for insupportable, dehumanizing sexual politics.
You can make all the punning allusions to Ovid you want, but if you're doing so to say that women are better off without the power to make their own decisions, you're wrong, you're hurting people, and your cleverness doesn't excuse you, in my opinion.
Hi, Greg,
Thank you again for permitting me to participate in this thread & to share my views in greater depth with you & anyone else who might be open to considering them.
I've been thinking all day about how best to do that as economically as possible, without trying anyone's patience unduly, but there are several different aspects of the novels & Norman's views that I'll necessarily have to touch on in order to explain my position cogently, which may take two or three separate posts to do. I hope you'll bear with me, in that case, especially if I at times may state things that may already be obvious to you & many others here, but I'll do so in the hope of remaining comprehensible, too, to any other readers to whom they might not.
One of the first things to consider when reading a piece of philosophical fiction is whether the story is told by an omniscient third-person narrator who is an alter ego for the author, or whether it's narrated in the first person by one of its characters, as all the Gor novels are. The reason that choice by Norman was so important is that a first person narrator is an unsuitable alter ego for an author because a realistic first person narrator will necessarily lack insight into himself, his own motives & actions, & certainly will lack insight at least at times into the motives & actions of other characters. The author may have the first person narrator "try" to present himself in a better light than he deserves or to "justify" himself to the reader, as real human beings do. He will therefore almost certainly be inherently unreliable.
Tarl, as many of you must have noticed, regularly proves to be very unreliable in observing important details (e.g., in Outlaw he erroneously assumes that Dina of Turia has only fortuitously tripped in front of the guardsmen pursuing him, although an attentive reader would have recognized from the clues given that she'd recognized him, correctly assessed the situation & had deliberately intervened to protect him). However, it's also essential to evaluate Tarls' viewpoint with a critical eye for inherent biases, just as we would evaluate that of any real life narrator, & in that regard Tarl cannot escape the effects of his personal history: the betrayal by his beloved former Free Companion Talena, succeeded by the betrayal by his once-beloved "free woman" Telima, succeeded yet again by his betrayal by his once-beloved Vella, who vengefully consigns him to likely death in the salt mine of Klima. Tarl has loved & lost repeatedly &, although he bears considerable responsibility for the destruction of at least two of those relationships, he is, by the end of Hunters, an emotionally scarred man who will apparently never again risk having anything less than total control over a woman, which reflects his warped viewpoint of them (even by Gorean standards, as practiced) & of the Gorean institution of slavery (at the adventure-romantic-sexual-fantasy level) to at least some degree. Remember, too, that despite Tarl's repeated insistence that "all women are naturally slaves," he periodically lets slip the rather large contradiction that only one in forty or fifty Gorean women is, in fact, enslaved.
He is an inherently unreliable narrator.
The next main thing to consider, to quote the philosopher Mortimer Adler & his co-author Charles van Doren, is that,
"Because of their radically diverse aims, [expository and imaginative literature] necessarily
use language differently. The imaginative writer tries to maximize the latent ambiguities of
words, in order thereby to gain all the richness and force of what is inherent in their multiple
meanings. He uses metaphors as the units of his construction just as the logical writer uses
words sharpened to a single meaning. What Dante said of The Divine Comedy, that it
must be read as having several distinct though related meanings, generally applies to poetry
and fiction. The logic of expository writing aims at an ideal of unambiguous explicitness.
Nothing should be left between the lines. Everything that is relevant and statable should be
said as explicitly and clearly as possible. In contrast, imaginative writing relies as much
upon what is implied as upon what is said. The multiplication of metaphors puts almost
more content between the lines than in the words that compose them. The whole poem or
story says something that none of its words can say."
(How to Read a Book, p. 206)
The third thing to bear in mind is that philosophers often employ a "root metaphor" with which they illustrate the various facets of their theses: the trope of the master/slave relationship is a venerable root metaphor in philosophy, dating back to the former Roman slave & Stoic philosopher Epictetus, from whom Nietzsche had borrowed it in order to formulate his own conceptions of "master morality" & "slave morality," & from whom, in turn, it is my carefully considered opinion that Norman has borrowed it in turn, although Norman transforms its use for his own purposes as much as Nietzsche had transformed the metaphor for his own. In that regard, I ask you to read the following brief excerpts & to consider their implications in the context of the allegories that even Steven Saylor had recognized the Gor series to be while I try to finish pulling together another few brief, illustrative quotes that I think are essential for anyone to read in order to properly evaluate what Norman's real (multiple) purposes are in using the master/slave trope concerning women. I'll also try to provide you with more analysis of how these are illustrated -- often paradoxically -- in the novels.
Norman has mentioned in interviews & elsewhere that The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius was the first philosophical work he ever read as an adolescent, & it greatly influenced his pursuit of philosophy as a vocation. Marcus Aurelius had himself been deeply influenced by Epictetus:
From Book IV, Chapter 1 of The Discourses: About Freedom, by Epictetus:
"I must die. But must I die groaning? I must be imprisoned. But must I whine as well? I
must suffer exile. Can anyone then hinder me from going with a smile, and a good courage,
and at peace? "Tell the secret." I refuse to tell, for this is in my power. "But I will chain
you." What say you, fellow? Chain me? My leg you will chain -- yes, but my will -- no,
not even Zeus can conquer that. "I will imprison you." My bit of a body, you mean."
...............
"He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to
hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain
their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid. Who, then, chooses to
live in error? No man. Who chooses to live deceived, liable to mistake, unjust, unrestrained,
discontented, mean? No man. Not one then of the bad lives as he wishes; nor is he, then, free.
And who chooses to live in sorrow, fear, envy, pity, desiring and failing in his desires,
attempting to avoid something and falling into it? Not one. Do we then find any of the bad
free from sorrow, free from fear, who does not fall into that which he would avoid, and does
not obtain that which he wishes? Not one; nor then do we find any bad man free. If, then, a
man who has been twice consul should hear this, if you add, "But you are a wise man; this is
nothing to you": he will pardon you. But if you tell him the truth, and say, "You differ not at
all from those who have been thrice sold as to being yourself not a slave," what else ought
you to expect than blows? For he says, "What, I a slave, I whose father was free, whose
mother was free, I whom no man can purchase: I am also of senatorial rank, and a friend of
Caesar, and I have been a consul, and I own many slaves." In the first place, most excellent
senatorial man, perhaps your father also was a slave in the same kind of servitude, and your
mother, and your grandfather and all your ancestors in an ascending series. But even if they
were as free as it is possible, what is this to you? What if they were of a noble nature, and
you of a mean nature; if they were fearless, and you a coward; if they had the power of self-
restraint, and you are not able to exercise it."
..............
"Does freedom seem to you to be something great and noble and valuable? "How should it
not seem so?" Is it possible, then, when a man obtains anything, so great and valuable and
noble to be mean? "It is not possible." When, then, you see any man subject to another, or
flattering him contrary to his own opinion, confidently affirm that this man also is not free;
and not only if he do this for a bit of supper, but also if he does it for a government or a
consulship: and call these men "little slaves" who for the sake of little matters do these
things, and those who do so for the sake of great things call "great slaves," as they deserve to
be."
...............
"What, then, is that which makes a man free from hindrance and makes him his own master?
For wealth does not do it, nor consulship, nor provincial government, nor royal power; but
something else must be discovered. What then is that which, when we write, makes us free
from hindrance and unimpeded? "The knowledge of the art of writing." What, then, is it in
playing the lute? "The science of playing the lute." Therefore in life also it is the science of
life."
***************
From Beyond Good and Evil, Part 9, Chapter 260, by Friedrich Nietzsche:
"There are master morality and slave morality - I add immediately that in all the higher and
more mixed cultures there also appear attempts at mediation between these two moralities,
and yet more often the interpretation and mutual misunderstanding of both, and at times they
occur directly alongside each other-even in the same human being, with a single soul.
The moral discrimination of values has originated either among a ruling group whose
consciousness of its difference from the ruled group was accompanied by delight-or among
the ruled, the slaves and dependents of every degree."
***************
From Marauders, pp. 7-9:
The Goreans have very different notions of morality from those of Earth.
Yet who is to say who is the more correct?
I envy sometimes the simplicities of those of Earth, and those of Gor, who, creatures of
their conditioning, are untroubled by such matters, but I would not be as either of them. If
either should be correct it is for them no more than a lucky coincidence. They would have
fallen into truth, but to take truth for granted is not to know it. Truth not won is not
possessed. We are not entitled to truths for which we have not fought.
Do we not learn to live by doing, as we learn to speak by speaking, to paint by painting,
to build by building?
Those who know best how to live, sometimes it seems to me, are those least likely to be
articulate in such skills. It is not that they have not learned but, having learned, they find
they cannot tell what they know, for only words can be told, and what is learned in living is
more than words, other than words, beyond words. We can say, "This building is beautiful,"
but we do not learn the beauty of the building from the words; the building it is which
teaches us its beauty; and how can one speak the beauty of the building, as it is? Does one
say that it has so many pillars, that it has a roof of a certain type, and such? Can one simply
say, "The building is beautiful?" Yes, one can say that but what one learns when one sees
the beauty of the building cannot be spoken; it is not words; it is the building's beauty.
The morality of Earth, from the Gorean point of view, is a morality which would be
viewed as more appropriate to slaves than free men. It would be seen in terms of the envy
and resentment of inferiors for their superiors. It lays great stress on equalities and being
humble and being pleasant and avoiding friction and being ingratiating and small. It is a
morality in the best interest of slaves, who would be only too eager to be regarded as the
equals of others. We are all the same. That is the hope of slaves; that is what it is in their
interest to convince others of. The Gorean morality on the other hand is more one of
inequalities, based on the assumption that individuals are not the same, but quite different in
many ways. It might be said to be, though this is oversimple, a morality of masters. Guilt is
almost unknown in Gorean morality, though shame and anger are not. Many Earth
moralities encourage resignation and accommodation; Gorean morality is bent more toward
conquest and defiance; many Earth moralities encourage tenderness, pity and gentleness,
sweetness; Gorean morality encourages honor, courage, hardness and strength. To Gorean
morality many Earth moralities might ask, "Why so hard?" To these Earth moralities, the
Gorean ethos might ask, "Why so soft?"
I have sometimes thought that the Goreans might do well to learn something of
tenderness, and, perhaps, that those of Earth might do well to learn something of hardness.
But I do not know how to live. I have sought the answers, but I have not found them. The
morality of slaves says, "You are equal to me; we are both the same"; the morality of
masters says, "We are not equal; we are not the same; become equal to me; then we will be
the same." The morality of slaves reduces all to bondage; the morality of masters
encourages all to attain, if they can, the heights of freedom. I know of no prouder, more self-
reliant, more magnificent creature than the free Gorean, male or female; they are often
touchy, and viciously tempered, but they are seldom petty or small; moreover they do not
hate and fear their bodies or their instincts; when they restrain themselves it is a victory over
titanic forces; not the consequence of a slow metabolism; but sometimes they do not restrain
themselves; they do not assume that their instincts and blood are enemies and spies;
saboteurs in the house of themselves; they know them and welcome them as part of their
persons; they are as little suspicious of them as the cat of its cruelty, or the lion of its hunger;
their desire for vengeance, their will to speak out and defend themselves, their lust, they
regard as intrinsically and gloriously a portion of themselves as their hearing and their
thinking. Many Earth moralities make people little; the object of Gorean morality, for all its
faults, is to make people free and great. These objectives are quite different it is clear to see.
Accordingly, one would expect that the implementing moralities would, also, be
considerably different."
*************
In 1969, John Lange's first scholarly book, Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics -- a collection of lectures & papers by the philosopher Clarence I. Lewis, a member of the "Cambridge Pragmatists," whose ranks had included the renowned William James & Charles Peirce -- was published by Stanford University Press. Lange had studied under Lewis & had been deeply influenced by him in his own work as a philosopher & in the Introduction to the book he described briefly not only Lewis's impact on him personally & intellectually, but also his view that Lewis "was a great philosopher, and a great man, and I think there are very few people about, of any philosophical or political persuasion, of whom this can be truly said." N.1
Lange wrote that "...Lewis, like Hume and Kant, will be a philosopher whom men who consider the issues of our discipline will, generation after generation...return to visit" N.2 because "[t]he right and the good were as significant and real for Lewis, and as much a part of life and its meaning, as hunger or thirst or kindness or shelter, or any of the economic and human realities that condition what men are and may become." N.3 Lange contended that "if Lewis is right in what he says, and I think he may be, at least in large outline, then we are indebted to him for his critique, and perhaps can even acknowledge the justice of his ferocity." (emphasis in the original) N.4
In the first lecture of four comprising the Foundations of Ethics, Lewis had stated:
"...A human being with no group to which he belongs would be an anomaly if not a
contradiction. And a human group with no mores which it preserves and inculcates would
likewise be imaginary if not impossible. Man himself is a creature of his social organization:
without it, he hardly could have survived as a species, and certainly could not have achieved
the position of dominance he occupies, regarding this small planet on which he lives as his
property, to be administered by him and for the benefit of humankind. Nor could he have
attained that level at which his life may now be lived without the complex social structure
which distinguishes his species. This social order, in all departments of it, depends upon the
continuing social memory and the inheritance of ideas, by which whatever is learned and
proves to be of profit for purposes men hold in common is preserved and handed on from one
generation to the next. The cumulative traditions so perpetuated -- of the sciences, of each art
and craft, of political institutions and the law, of economic organization for the division of
labor and the exchange of goods - such are the social instrumentalities without which man
could not have become what he is, and the progressive character of the civilization he creates
would never have been possible.
And the ethics of any group is the cement which holds it together, that part of its continuing
tradition which concerns the sanctioned and supported practices by which its cooperation is
preserved and made effective. Upon that, all the rest depends. The ethos is the mother of
civilization, and the precondition of that progress which the history of man alone among the
animals exhibits. The moral tradition is the informing matrix of this historic process, and
remains as the arbiter and critique which alone can hold it steady in the direction it is to take.
Any ethic may itself alter, develop, and progress, along with that civilization it serves to
guide; but if man should ever outgrow his basic sense of mutual obligation in relations to his
fellows, then he will stand in danger of destroying all he has achieved and returning to the
dust from which he sprang.
For the individual, ethics is among the most important of all modes of learning because it
addresses itself to the most frequent and the most exigent of his problems -- to the problem,
namely, of what he should choose to do. That question is universal to all men and to all
occasions on which what they may decide will make any real difference. The only other
manner of inquiry which is thus all-pervasive of our living is the question of fact or justified
belief. And this second question, of the commitment of belief to be taken, is already involved
in the question of our doing. There can be no occasion on which what one should choose to
do is independent of the circumstances of the case, and of that which, in these circumstances
to be met, the action considered will bring about. To act, in the human sense of action, is
impossible without reference to what lies within our cognizance -- to what we take to be the
fact and what we can expect. Whatever is done in the sense of choosing to do is something
determined in the light of what we think and believe; it is done deliberately. And without that
root of it in our thinking, anything we might be said to do will lack the significance of an act:
it will be attributable to us only in that same sense in which we also say the flowers bloom
and the wind blows and a compass points to the north. Without our thought and
determination behind it, it may be our behavior, but it is not our will which is made manifest.
In turn, however, the significance which attaches to our thinking is one to be fully realized
only in what we do. Whatever we may think and come to believe, if our thinking should
have no influence on any decision of action and never eventuate in anything we do, then that
thinking would be inconsequential -- literally. Doing without thinking is blind, but thinking
without doing is idle. It is only the combination of the two -- in what we do by reason of our
thinking -- that we are in any wise effective. What a man may do deliberately is all that lies
within his power to control or influence; it represents his total impact on the world he lives
in. Except for his encumbering the earth, it is all he counts for, all the difference he will ever
make." N. 5
----------------------
Note 1. Lewis, Clarence I. Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics. Ed. John Lange. (Stanford: Stanford U. Press, 1969) Introduction, ix.
Note 2. Ibid. Lange xii.
Note 3. Ibid. Lange xiv.
Note 4. Ibid. Lange xiii.
Note 5. Ibid. Lewis 3-5.
*********************
From Values and Imperatives: Studies in Ethics, "The Meaning of Liberty," pp. 146-8:
"Liberty is the rational creature's ownership of himself. It consists in the exercise by the individual of his natural capacity for deliberate decision and self-determined action, subject only to restraints which find a sanction in that rationality which all men claim in common. As such, liberty is essential to personality. Man is born free in the sense that he discovers himself as an individual in discovering himself as an individual in discovering that this ability to act by deliberate decision belongs to his nature. He maintains his individuality only through the exercise of this capacity. He cannot renounce that privilege, and to deprive him of it it to deny him the right of existence as a person.
The concept of liberty cannot, however, be separated from its reference to rationality, as the capacity of the individual to understand the consequences of his own acts and hence to govern them by reference to what is good, and his acknowledgement of an imperative to do. Deliberate decision would be unmeaning apart from the distinction of desirable from undesirable; and the possibility of self-determined action would be pointless where there should be no recognition that what is desirable has an imperative significance for action. Self-conscious personality requires such understanding and acceptance of responsibility for what one does; and the presence of this capacity in another is a condition of our recognition of him as a fellow human being.
The questions of liberty can arise only amongst men and in their relations to other men. We may say of another animal that it is free, meaning only that it is able to behave in accordance with the dictates of its own nature without other hindrances than those which are natural and usual to its environment; or that it is not free when circumstances whish are artificial or abnormal prevent such behavior. But this vague conception of animal freedom is not that of liberty. Man also may find that the natural environment leaves open the way to his desire, or that the laws and circumstances of nature defeat his purposes, but he does not consider that his liberty is affected by such conditions unless they arise from the deliberate acts of other men.
Liberty, then, is not to be identified with the absence of impediments to what we wish, or human freedom with attainment of our purposes. Even if such purposes stand as comprehensive and perennial goals of human endeavor, it is at most the pursuit of these, and not their assurance, which could be accounted a liberty of the individual or regarded as a right.
Furthermore, the liberty of man distinguishes itself from the merely physical freedom of the animal to behave according to its compulsive drives by the human recognition of imperatives. Man's deliberation in action has reference to the government of his momentary impulses by consideration of their foreseeable consequences, and his acceptance of responsibility for these. Any restriction of action which is implicit in such rationality cannot be accounted a curtailment of the liberty of the individual since it springs from an imperative of his own nature.
The first such dictate is the imperative so to act that he will not later regret his decision and be sorry for what he has done or for what he might have done but failed to do. Without the possibility of such self-approval or self-condemnation, and the recognition of some kind of rightness or wrongness in actions done or contemplated, there would be no self-consciousness of personality. If it should be asked what ground this imperative has, then there can be other answer than this: that it belongs to human nature to be thus concerned for the future and not merely for the present, and to blame ourselves for weakness of will if we allow our actions to be governed by impulse or by present satisfaction or dissatisfaction, without respect to future consequences. To attribute the imperative so recognized to rationality is not to postulate some inscrutable and separate facility in man, but merely to name a pervasive and familiar feature of human living and doing by an appropriate and traditional name. To lack such concern for the future, or feel no imperative to govern one's conduct by reference to it, is to lack a prime requirement of human personality. If any being have no sense of these, then there can be no ground on which we could commend such critique of conscience to him; merely we should have to refuse him recognition as a fellow human, and be obliged to defend ourselves from unhappy consequences of his behavior as best we may, including the use of force if necessary."
*****************
Augustine, In Ioannis epistulam ad Parthos tractatus X, 7.8. PL 35.2033:
Dilige, et quod vid fac. [Love God, and do as you will]
*****************
From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book I:
"All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will
and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink,
labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it and were disposed for it. None did awake them,
none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had
Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one
clause to be observed,
Do What Thou Wilt;
because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have
naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws
them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and
constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by
which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude
wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long
after things forbidden and to desire what is denied us."
**********************
From Marauders, p. 20:
"How should one live?
In the codes of the warriors, there is a saying: "Be strong, and do as you will. The swords of others will set you your limits."
***********
I ask you to reflect, in light of these quotations, on the ethical natures of the vast majority of the men & women who are enslaved in the Gor novels -- literally & metaphorically. It's my view that we are to understand that Elinor, of Captive, already wore moral & psychological chains -- as a human being, quite apart from the sexual issues -- before she was ever brought to Gor, collared & branded, & that it is only toward the end of Captive, when she refuses to poison Bosk in order to save Rask's life that she attains "master morality" at last. Further consider that IMO Norman intends us to understand that Tarl is never so enslaved in the novels as he is at the end of Hunters when he wallows in envy, resentment & self-pity: the hallmarks of "slave morality."
Be well,
Charlotte
Hi, Greg,
You wrote, in part:
"That is, from my perspective, the putative merits of Norman's prose are overwhelmed by his advocacy of chattel slavery for and denial of agency to women. I think it's analogous to bending Wagnerian opera in service to the aggrandizement of German nationalism with the practical effect of the extermination of the Jews: Simple evocation of a great and important work does not excuse evil ends.......Even if individual Gor novels are sophisticated comments on a wide range of philosophy and myth, that commentary is effectively defeated by their overt advocacy for insupportable, dehumanizing sexual politics.
You can make all the punning allusions to Ovid you want, but if you're doing so to say that women are better off without the power to make their own decisions, you're wrong, you're hurting people, and your cleverness doesn't excuse you, in my opinion."
I believe that you've misread Norman's intentions as well as his use of the M/s trope in two critical ways: (a) you've read his prose literally, as if it were expository, rather than metaphorical & imaginative, which is how philosophical literature should be read, & (b) you've further misinterpreted it as being intended entirely straightforwardly rather than as quite often highly ironical, even savagely satiric at times.
Have you ever read Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents, or the Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick? Swift's 1729 "proposal" was one of genocide: for poor Irish parents to sell their infants to the gentry as food. The infants' nutritional value was discussed "seriously," the narrator even recommending specific methods for best cooking them. http://www.unh.edu/english/swift/2003/higgins.htm As with most of Swift's other satires, many of his readers had believed his Modest Proposal to be a perfectly serious, forthright one: they'd completely misconstrued his irony, which is what I believe you & the majority of Norman's readers have also done with the Gor series.
It's not at all difficult to see exactly who & what Norman was skewering at at least one level in the Gor novels if one takes into account the historical context of the increasingly strident early radical gender feminist rhetoric of the 60s, 70s, & 80s in which Norman was writing most of the series, rhetoric which began provoking widespread furor in the U.S. only a few years before Tarnsman was first published (read some of the 1960s articles about radical feminism in The New York Times, such as the report about the activists who in the mid-60s had picketed a bridal fashion show chanting "Here come the slaves/off to their graves"). Betty Friedan's first salvo, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, had devoted several pages to characterizing the "happy homemaker" as a "waste of human self" "enslaved" in the "comfortable concentration camp" of American suburbia, while portraying herself as one of its stifled inmates. Even more extreme claims followed, which were widely publicized by the media:
"The married woman knows that love is, at its best, an inadequate reward for her unnecessary and bizarre heritage of oppression." (Beverly Jones and Judith Brown, Toward a Female Liberation Movement, Gainesville, Florida, June 1968, p. 23)"The institution of marriage is the chief vehicle for the perpetuation of the oppression of women; it is through the role of wife that the subjugation of women is maintained. In a very real way the role of wife has been the genesis of women's rebellion throughout history." (Marlene Dixon, Why Women's Liberation? Racism and Male Supremacy (1969))
"Marriage is a form of slavery." (Sheila Cronan, in Radical Feminism - "Marriage" (1970), Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., HarperCollins, 1973, p. 216)
"It became increasingly clear to us that the institution of marriage `protects' women in the same way that the institution of slavery was said to `protect' blacks--that is, that the word `protection' in this case is simply a euphemism for oppression." (Sheila Cronan, in Radical Feminism - "Marriage" (1970), Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., HarperCollins, 1973, p. 214)
"Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the Women's Movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage." (Sheila Cronan, in Radical Feminism - "Marriage" (1970), Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., HarperCollins, 1973, p. 219)
"And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual [male], it may be mainly a quantitative difference." (Susan Griffin, Rape: The All-American Crime Ramparts 10, September 1971, pp. 26-35)
"Marriage has existed for the benefit of men and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women.... Male society has sold us the idea of marriage.... Now we know it is the institution that has failed us and we must work to destroy it.... The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore, it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men." (Nancy Lehmann and Helen Sullinger, Declaration of Feminism, 1971)
"I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire." (Robin Morgan, Going too Far: The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist - Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape, Random House, 1974)
"All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women... All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey." (Marilyn French, The Women's Room, Summit Books, 1977)
"Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes." (Marilyn French, The Women's Room, Summit Books, 1977)
"There are no boundaries between affectionate sex and slavery in (the male) world. Distinctions between pleasure and danger are academic; the dirty-laundry list of 'sex acts'...includes rape, foot binding, fellatio, intercourse, auto eroticism, incest, anal intercourse, use and production of pornography, cunnilingus, sexual harassment, and murder. All sex must stop before male supremacy will be defeated: ... We know of no exception to male supremacist sex. ... We therefore name intercourse, penetration, and all other sex acts as integral parts of the male gender construction, which is sex; and we criticise them as oppressive to women. We name orgasm as the epistemological mark of the sexual, and we therefore criticise it too as oppressive to women. ... If it doesn't subordinate women, it's not sex." (Judith Levine commenting on a document from Women Against Sex: A Southern Women's Writing Collective - Sex Resistance in Heterosexual Arrangements,
1987)"Politically, I call it rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated. You might think that's too broad. I'm not talking about sending all of you men to jail for that." (Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses of Life and Law - A Rally Against Rape, Harvard University Press, 1987)
"Feminism stresses the indistinguishability of prostitution, marriage, and sexual harassment." (Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses of Life and Law - A Rally Against Rape, Harvard University Press, 1987, p. 81)"The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist." (National Organization of Women publication, 1988)
"One of the differences between marriage and prostitution is that in marriage you only have to make a deal with one man." (Andrea Dworkin, Letters From a War Zone, Dutton Publishing, 1989)
"Marriage . . . is a legal license to rape." (Andrea Dworkin, Letters From a War Zone, Dutton Publishing, 1989)"Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership." (Andrea Dworkin, Letters From a War Zone, Dutton Publishing, 1989)
"Rape is the primary heterosexual model for sexual relating. Rape is the primary emblem of romantic love. Rape is the means by which a woman is initiated into her womanhood as it is defined by men." (Andrea Dworkin, Letters >From a War Zone, Dutton Publishing, 1989)
"Like prostitution, marriage is an institution that is extremely oppressive and dangerous for women." (Andrea Dworkin, Letters From a War Zone - Feminism: An Agenda (1983), Dutton Publishing, 1989, p. 146)
"The family is the primary site of female subjection, which is achieved largely through sexuality: women are indoctrinated into their supposed 'natural state' by male control of their sexuality in the family." (Marilyn French, The War Against Women, Ballantine Books, 1992, p. 53)
"All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey; many also learn that the men who supposedly cherish them are the worst offenders. They learn that 'love' is about power and they are the powerless..." (Marilyn French, The War Against Women, Ballantine Books, 1992, p. 196)
What themes do you see expressed in the radical gender feminist position, above? The equation of "marriage" to "slavery," of "intercourse" to "rape," of "wives" to "chattel property" & of "orgasm" to "oppression."
Norman, in fact, is a very strong believer in marriage:
"Affairs are delicious, and doubtless, once in a while, they are not altogether out of order, particularly in the unimaginative, dismal marriages that seem to be the statistical rule in our rather grim and loveless world. On the other hand, to put my cards on the table. I am rather stick-in-the-muddish, and am sold on the institution of marriage, as it might be if not as it is. This does not mean, of course, that I am opposed to having affairs. I am highly in favor of it. I am particularly in favor of having them with one's wife, but real affairs, not pretend affairs.Later in this book I will explain the strategy of having an affair with one's wife.
Indeed, later in this book, I will describe and detail a remarkable variety of delicious love games and love episodes which a husband and wife might not only share, but which,
ideally in my opinion, are to be shared by a husband and wife. Other lovers are possibilities, particularly if both are unmarried, but the husband-and-wife relationship, the partnership of long standing, the durable and mutually respecting and understanding relationship, supplies, it seems, a desirable framework for these remarkable exploitations of human sexual capacity." (Imaginative Sex, p. 15)
He's also adamantly opposed to rape in real life:
"The fact, of course, that rape is a common sexual fantasy of women does not indicate that women, in any general sense, wish to be raped. They would surely, at the very least, wish to choose the time and the place and the circumstances and the man. Rape, as a sociological reality, is commonly an ugly, brutal, unpleasant, sickening, horrifying, vicious act. It degrades the man and doesn't do the woman much good either. Not only does she receive little or no pleasure, but the whole affair has no more intrinsic worth than a mugging. Further, sadly, she is likely to be brutalized and, at the least, intimidated. This is to take advantage of a weaker creature, who cannot adequately, in most cases, defend herself. The rapist, unless there are some extenuating factors, such as severe mental illness, scarcely comes up to scratch for a human being. To pick on a woman because she is smaller and weaker, is much the same thing as to pick on a child or animal; or it is much the same as a young man striking an old man; or a large, strong man, beating a small, weak man; it is just not something that is worthy to do. It is not that it needs to be a "sick" thing to do, though doubtless in some cases it is; it is rather that there is just no manhood in it." (Imaginative Sex, pp 52-3)"If man's natural role is that of hunter and captor and woman's is that of game and captive, our instinctual sexual fantasies would be precisely what they are. We are, of course, or should be, far from the jungle. Rape, real rape, even if we are naturally inclined to do it, is not to be done. Our rights to self-expression end where the other person's feelings begin. Civilization, as Freud recognized, requires restraint. All things considered, civilization is better than the jungle, and it is a fragile and delicate set of relationships. We have lost it many times, and we must try not to do so again.
In short, a true man, one with normal aggressions and fully operating glands, presumably desires to rape, but also, having a hard-won manhood, does not in fact rape. This is not particularly because he does not wish to agitate the precinct detectives, but rather because, when the chips are down, if he really had the choice, he would not want to hurt or intimidate a woman. He might desire to do so, but, on the genuine level of humanity, he just would refuse to do so. It is not a humanly good or worthy thing to do. From a woman's point of view a man who wishes to rape her but does not, because he gives her her due as a human being, is probably more interesting to her as a male than either one who does not wish to rape her, who does not find her worth the fantasy, or one who catches her by accident in a dark alley and does in fact penetrate her, ejaculate and dash off. The first man excites her; the second two, in their different ways, are bores."
(Imaginative Sex, pp 53-4)
And a little further on in the book, after describing one of the fantasies that involves whipping, he emphasizes:
"Obviously, in the fantasy, the woman may not be struck with a whip. It would hurt her to do so. Acting, however, as though she is being beaten can be sexually stimulating to her. Really being beaten, besides being immoral, would just make her miserable. You wish to give her pleasure. Pain is not pleasure. If she should really desire you to hurt her, you should get her to a doctor. Assuming that a whip is not available, and there is no reason one should be available, the male may simply, sharply, clap his hands, and the woman reacts as though struck. The beating is completely symbolic, as it should be. Fantasy is fantasy." (Imaginative Sex, pp. 84-85)
While he recognizes the power & pleasure of submissive fantasy for women in the metaphorical bedroom (which Nancy Friday had documented, along with the pervasiveness of women's 'rape fantasies', in her watershed 1974 book My Secret Garden), he also acknowledges that women aren't one-note gender stereotypes, & again draws a very hard line between fantasy & reality:
"A Rites-of-Submission Fantasy can be a powerful fantasy. It is well to remember, of course, that it is only a fantasy. There is something in a woman that wants to surrender herself to a strong, desirable male. In a sense, sexually, a woman does frequently wish to be dominated. The I-am-his-slave fantasy, so to speak, is a common one for the female. >bIt is, of course, only one side of the complex, marvelous creatures that are women. There is also a side that desires and deserves independence. Women are gloriously complicated. They are part companion, part slave girl. A man is very lucky to have both. If he has only one, I think he has been short changed."(Imaginative Sex, p. 91)
And regarding women's dominance over men, he adds,
" ...it is good for them to be dominant. It helps them to think better of themselves. It releases suppressed emotions and ventilates often-bottled hostility and aggression. It gives them more self-respect and helps them to be freer, happier human beings. There are pleasures in being the leader, the commander. These pleasures should be open to the woman as well as the man." (Imaginative Sex, p. 97)
And, further,
" ...most women, regardless of their ideology, have excellent reasons, at least from time to time, for resenting men and their dominance. Men do, in effect, run society and women, rightfully or wrongfully, desirably or undesirably, tend to occupy, statistically, less prestigious positions. The woman, just in standing before a man, is immediately classed with all other women as a certain kind of object, to be accorded certain kinds of treatment. She is seen as a "kind" of thing, pretty, weak, vulnerable, at the mercy of men. She is classified as prize, as sexual quarry. One cannot blame a woman for not, upon occasion, resenting this immediate classification of her as a "form" of life with a certain sexual destiny. There are times when a woman wants to be seen by a man as his object, and his prize, but there are other times when she resents, and justifiably, her nature as the always-weaker, the always-hunted. There are times when she wishes she had power, that she might look on men as they look on her, that she might own and command them, as they do her, that it might be she, she, who is dominant!" (Imaginative Sex, p. 110)
Imaginative Sex is particularly helpful in delineating Norman's third use of the M/s metaphor, i.e. as representing the intimate erotic relationship between a man & a woman, while using the "Free Companionship" to represent the domestic partnership in which children are raised & through which a couple's commitment to the larger society is anchored. As I pointed out in my prior post, Tarl repeatedly lets slip the fact that on Gor, in fact, only a tiny minority of women -- 2-3% -- are enslaved at any time:
"I know now, of course, as I did not earlier, that there are many free women on Gor, and, indeed, that most women on Gor are free." (Witness, p. 102)"Are most Gorean women slaves?" she asked.
"No," I said. "Indeed, statistically, in those parts of Gor with which I am familiar, very few. Commonly only one woman in, say, forty or fifty is a slave. This varies somewhat of course, from city to city." (Beasts, p. 246)"Normally only about one in forty or so Gorean women in the cities is enslaved. Free Gorean women, incidentally, enjoy a prestige and status which, it seems to me, is higher than that of the normal Earth woman." (Explorers, p.757)
The free women who constitute 97-98% of the female population are depicted as having a high degree of "agency," especially when one takes into account the fact that Gor is composed of transplanted ancient & medieval civilizations. Work, motherhood, & Companionship are not mutually exclusive & a woman might do all or some depending upon the events & periods of her life. Free women have freedom from reproduction requirements except when agreed to in a Companionship. Birth control on Gor is safe, painless, non-invasive, non-interruptive, completely foolproof to take, 100% effective & completely reversible on demand. Aging and disease are almost totally conquered; the form of marriage (Free Companionship) such that both parties could chose to end the relationship in the case of desire, abandonment, or enslavement (something useful with lives that spanned centuries).
While slaves enjoyed the most complete unrestrained sexual responsiveness, even free women were permitted to participate in sexual activity with free men as desired and it was expected that sexuality was normal, healthy & to be enjoyed.
"Goreans, in their simplistic fashion, often contend, categorically, that man is naturally free and woman is naturally slave. But even for them the issues are more complex than these simple formulations would suggest. For example, there is no higher person, nor one more respected, than the Gorean free woman. Even a slaver who has captured a free woman often treats her with great solicitude until she is branded." (Hunters, p. 311)"I inclined my head. "Lady," said I, acknowledging the introduction. To a free woman considerable deference is due, particularly to one such as the Lady Rowena, one obviously, at least hitherto, of high station." (Players, p. 12)
"A free woman's name, of course, tends to remain constant. A Gorean free woman does not change her name in the ceremony of the Free Companionship. She remains who she was. In such a ceremony two free individuals have elected to become companions. The Earth woman, as a consequence of certain mating ceremonials, may change her last name. The first and other names, however, tend to remain constant. From the Gorean point of view the wife of Earth occupies a status which is higher than that of the slave but lower than that of the Free Companion." (Explorers, pp. 595-6)
"I had, almost from the first in Kamchak's wagon, been truly fond of Dina, and I think she of me. She was truly a fine, spirited girl, quick-witted, warm-hearted, intelligent and brave. I admired her and feared for her. I knew, though I did not speak of it with her, that she was willingly risking her life to shelter me in her native city. Indeed, it is possible I might have died the first night in Turia had it not been that Dina had seen me, followed me and in my time of need boldly stood forth as my ally. In thinking of her I realized how foolish are certain of the Gorean prejudices with respect to the matter of caste. The Caste of Bakers is not regarded as a high caste, to which one looks for nobility and such; and yet her father and her brothers, outnumbered, had fought and died for their tiny shop; and this courageous girl, with a valor I might not have expected of many warriors, weaponless, alone and friendless, had immediately, asking nothing in return, leaped to my aid, giving me the protection of her home, and her silence, placing at my disposal her knowledge of the city and whatever resources might be hers to command." (Nomads, p. 239)
"Will there be many who will work with you?" I asked, remembering the dangers of his research, the enmity of the Initiates.
"Some," said Flaminius. "Already some eight, of skill and repute, have pledged themselves my aids in this undertaking." He looked at me. "And the first, who gave courage to them all," said he, "was a woman of the Caste of Physicians, once of Treve."
"A woman named Vika?" I asked.
"Yes," said he, "do you know her?"
"Once," said I.
"She stands high among the Physicians of the city," he said.
"You will find her, I think," I said, "brilliantly worthy as a colleague in your work."" (Assassin, p.398)"Did you know," he asked, "that Vika was the female Mul who drove away the Golden Beetles when Sarm sent them against the forces of Misk?"
"No," I said, "I did not know."
"A fine, brave girl," said Parp.
"I know," I said. "She is truly a great and beautiful woman."
It seemed to please Parp that I had said this.
"Yes," he said, "I believe she is." And he added, rather sadly I thought, "And such was her mother." (Priest-Kings, p. 289)
Gorean free women are depicted as ruling cities, commanding armies, serving on city councils, owning businesses (even as slave traders themselves) & even, on occasion, fighting beside their men:
"To be Ubara of Ar was the most glorious thing to which a woman might aspire. It meant that she would be the richest and most powerful woman on Gor, that armies and navies, and tarn cavalries, could move upon her very word, that the taxes of an empire the wealthiest on Gor could be laid at her feet, that the most precious of gems and jewels might be hers, that she would be the most envied woman on the planet." (Hunters, p. 479)"I saw one invader climbing down the ladder to the lower levels.
Then he cried out and slipped to the level beneath, his hands off the rungs.
I saw Telima's head in the opening. In her teeth was the dagger I had seen. In her right hand, bloody, was the admiral's sword I had discarded.
"Go back!" I cried to her.
I saw Luma and Vina climbing up behind her. They picked up stones from the roof of the keep, and ran to the walls, to hurl them at point-blank range against the men climbing.
Telima, wildly, her two hands on the sword, struck a man from behind in the neck and he fell away from the blade.
Then she had lost the blade, as an invader struck it from her hand. He raised his own to strike her but I had my steel beneath his left shoulder blade and had turned again before
he could deliver his blow.
I saw a man on the parapet fall screaming backward, struck by a rock as large as his head, hurled from the small hands of Luma. Vina, with a shield, whose weight she could
hardly bear, was trying to cover the boy, Fish, as he fought. I saw him drop his man, and turn, seeking another." (Raiders, p. 438-9)"Outside, on the dim, polar ice, many on sleds, drawn by sleen, were hundreds of the People, men, and women and children. More were arriving, visible in the reflection from the moons on the ice. Karjuk stood near the entranceway, his strung bow of layered horn in his hand, an arrow at the string. Other hunters stood about. Men from the complex lay scattered on the ice. From the backs and chests of several protruded arrows. Red hunters stood about. Some of the men from the complex had been downed by lances. A few cowered, their weapons discarded, herded together by domesticated snow sleen, ravening and vicious, on the leashes of their red masters. Some men of the complex were thrown to their stomachs on the ice. Their hands were jerked behind them and were being tied with rawhide. Then their suits were being slit with bone knives.
"We will freeze!" cried one of them. The red hunters were putting their enemies completely at their mercy, and that of the winter night.
Karjuk called out orders. Red hunters streamed in, past me. Imnak handed the dart-firing weapons to some of them, hastily explaining their use. But most simply hurried past him,
more content to rely on their tools of wood and bone. The men with the domesticated snow sleen passed me. I did not envy those on whom such animals would be set. Drusus, with
a dart-firing weapon, joined one contingent of hunters, in their vanguard, to cover them and match fire with whatever resistance they might encounter; Ram, seizing up a weapon,
joined another contingent. I looked outside the hatch, or port.
Even more of the People, women and children as well as hunters, were making their way across the ice to the complex. They were detaching many of the snow sleen from the sleds, to be used as attack sleen.
Karjuk continued to stand by the port and issue orders, in the tongue of the red hunters.
"There must be more than fifteen hundred of the hunters," I said.
"They are from all the camps," said Imnak. "There are more, before they have finished coming, than twenty-five hundred."
"Then it is all the People," I said.
"Yes," said Imnak, "it is all the People." He grinned at me. "Sometimes the guard cannot do everything," he said.
I looked at Karjuk. "I thought you an ally of the beasts," I said.
"I am the guard," he said. "And I am of the People."
"Forgive me," I said, "that I doubted you."
"It is done," he said.
More red hunters streamed past us." (Beasts, pp. 68-4)
Karjuk's role as "the guard," BTW, is but one of numerous allusions throughout Beasts to Plato's The Republic.
The last aspects I'll touch on are Norman's uses of allusion & puns, both of which are venerable literary & philosophical techniques authors use to convey to attentive, sophisticated readers that they may be using irony or otherwise commenting obliquely on their characters' views or behavior. Given the amount of time I've spent already trying to pull all this together for you, I hope you won't mind if I cheat a little at this point & copy below extracts from a few posts I've made elsewhere in the last 18 months while discussing the books with other close readers of the texts.
In response to a comment about Norman's description of all intercourse as "rape," I'd written:
"It's also a recurring etymological pun, IMO. I've mentioned in earlier posts here my observation that Norman regularly employs the Aristotelian rhetorical device of paronomasia (a visual, auditory or etymological pun intended to provoke thought & to challenge the reader's assumptions even more than to amuse, indeed often devoid of any intention to "amuse"). Nietzsche also employed this technique regularly & quite emphatically in his works, with particular attention to tracing the semantic shift (meaning change) in words by employing them not in keeping with their common, current usage (except superficially), but rather in conformance with their archaic usages, thereby demanding that the attentive reader reflect on the significance of the underlying cultural changes that had led to such a semantic shift & perhaps even partly resulted from it, or perhaps to suggest a hybrid meaning, one perhaps that could have resulted had cultural history taken another direction.
I've noticed numerous words with which Norman appears to me to be employing such "etymological paronomasia" & regarding Norman's use of the word "rape," let me observe that it has a very long history of "semantic shift," deriving originally from the Latin "rapere, to take by force or seize," which was co
