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ORIGINAL: Unbuilder

Tal, Kirata,

Perhaps you can define for me, when it stops being watered down milk, and starts being cloudy water.

I wish you well
Unbuilder

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My first question is whether you, as a Gorean, feel that any of these various oaths would be in conflict

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ORIGINAL: Aswad

Perhaps this is one of those times where my gut is wrong ... or perhaps my usual, analytical approach would take an eternity of dancing around with words to convey something I already know on a nonverbal level: the oaths of a slave mean nothing, and are an affront to the concept of a solemn oath.

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ORIGINAL: Unbuilder

Evening Grace,

It appears that yer trying to put this one to bed, but... I don't think I'm done yet.

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Watered-down milk ceases being watered-down milk and becomes milky-water when the total volume of water exceeds the total volume of milk. Of course.

Here's another interesting question, however:

Does the Gorean slave, upon Gor, cease being a Gorean slave the instant she is beyond the direct control of Gorean Masters?

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For instance-- let us say I send my slave down to the market to purchase some verr cheese (since my household is, for whatever reason, seriously in need of a round of verr cheese).

Let us also say that there is no one else out and about on the streets of my city. So the Ihn she leaves the house, until she arrives at the cheese merchant's shop, she doesn't encounter or interact with any other free Gorean at all.

During that time, she is under her own cognizance, fully.

Is she not a slave during that time?

It is my belief that there are two separate forces at work in the Mastery of any slave-- the external (collars and siriks) and the internal (the slave's own acceptance of, and adherence to, her state of slavery).

Ideally, the two states are constantly in effect, reinforcing one another, all the time. That would be total slavery.

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But rarely would that be the case. At any given time, either the external or the internal would take precedence over the other, due to circumstantial modifiers. But the internal wouldn't have much validity without at least some existence of the external-- meaning a slave in a closet without any master in her life might internalize her slavery all she wanted, in private, but unless it were held up to some external controlling factor or mastery, she would be surrendering, in effect... to the control of nothing.

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In the opposite extreme, a slave might be subject to all manners of discipline, etc., while in the public presence of others-- but once the door closes and she is alone, she could laugh the whole thing off as a meaningless sham. In such a case, there would be no internal adherence to her status as a slave, so that, too, would be an incomplete and incorrect manifestation of supposed slavery.

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As is often the case among Goreans, sometimes it's not what someone does that matters most-- but why one actually does it.

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So continuing your milk analogy-- a partial slave ceases being a partial slave and becomes a partial free woman when she is more free than slave by volume-- or in this case, through her own direct control over her existence.

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As to your question about Mastery-- well, since we don't live on a planet on the other side of the sun where slavery is an established institution, I suggest that here in Earth-bound Gorean interaction, "Master" ISN'T what one IS-- rather, it is a reflection of what one DOES.

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If you don't practice it, in the form of active "Mastery," then you're not one... except in the context that it is a polite, nominal honorific whereby slaves address the free.

Addressing the OP:

All of the oaths presented say essentially the same thing. They all attest that the swearer will perform a particular duty or series of duties, honestly and to their best abilities, and that they will not allow themselves to be lax in those duties or to betray the trust inherent in those duties.

That's pretty much the common definition of any such oath. It is a formal declaration that one will do (or not do) something, presented in the format of "everyone who witnesses this oath is invited to watch what I actually do, and to judge me should I violate it." It is a formal expression of one's "word of honor."

But unless one makes a point never to take more than one such oath in one's life, then such oaths automatically fall into a natural hierarchy. One must take precedence over the other, should two of them ever come into direct conflict.

One should be careful how one takes such oaths, and why. As an old adage says "If one never gives one's word rashly, one will never be forced to keep it poorly."

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Personally, I don't see any of the oaths, presented above, as being particularly antithetical to Gorean philosophy or interaction. A Gorean might take an oath to his city and Home Stone, another to his caste, and so forth. Circumstances will determine which has precedence over the other at any given moment. Hopefully, the two will never conflict, and the Gorean in question will be spared having to make a difficult decision-- to uphold one oath while foreswearing another.

But not always. This very situation is dealt with in some detail in Witness of Gor.

Slaves may take oaths, surely (though legally on Gor, they would have little consequence, and since slaves are excused from the formal demands of personal honor, they might not be considered externally binding). But they swear such with the caveat that their actions are not always their own, and therefore difficult decisions may arise from swearing such.

If the sworn slave holds her oath as inviolable and gives it precedence over the direction of her owner, well-- that is inarguably the action of one who is free.

I wish you well!

_Marcus_

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While I wouldn't normally respond to something that was labeled "men only". However, since a female posted the whole topic and a man I know asked me to reply.....