Gorean views on mortality? (Full Version)

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AnimusRex -> Gorean views on mortality? (1/26/2010 9:26:30 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
We're born, we live well, and we die.
Inability to embrace all of life is poor spiritual practice.


This was taken from nephandi's thread about life extension- but rather than derail that one, I started a new one.

This is one thing I honestly don't grasp about the novels.

The Gorean world is a primitive, pre-industrial society. In the societies like those we have had here, life was "nasty, brutish and short". Most cultures like that developed a very fatalistic view of life, and accepted suffering and death; most religions were explicitly about helping us cope with our own short mortality.

So what purpose was served by Norman creating this contrived deus ex machina device of "stabilizer serums" that allowed Gor to be without old people, ugly people, and weakness and infirmity? What point was he trying to make?

If the novels are held up as an ideal to be emulated, doesn't that sort of contrivance destroy its own internal logic? Or are the novels merely commentaries on human nature, to be seen as both a cautionary tale, and examples of virtue?



bondmaid123 -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (1/26/2010 10:41:04 AM)

This is a good question, Jarl, and one I've thought about off and on over the years when I'd hit on a passage about the stabilizer serums, in sort of a "Huh... that's intriguing...." passing thought sort of way. ;)

Obviously I don't dare try to speak for the author... but I always thought that there was a bit of "This Utopia Can Be Yours If You Follow The Path" in the books.  Except I don't think that's a *literal* meaning.. I don't think anybody *really* expects (outside of juvenile daydreams  **guilty blush**  hehe) to be swept up during a Voyage of Acquisition and live out their unnaturally extended life on another planet.  In fact, I think there's *way* too much focus on literally trying to recreate Gor.  I see Grammar Police spazzing out about proper capitalization and Fashion Police arguing about the proper length of dancing silks and Position Police with (properly calibrated Gorean) rulers ensuring the knees are X horts apart when a girl assumes the nadu position, and arguments about all sorts of, frankly, ridiculous window dressed stuff that only serves to cover up the core of uncertainty and pettiness which completely invalidates the concept (in my mind) of what Gor is about.

So I think the stabilization serums just make it more convenient for a storyline as EPIC as Tarl Cabot's journeys to maintain the veneer of plausibility so you don't lose the thread and get bored and stop reading. ;)  And I don't think the novels are meant to be emulated.  I think they're allegory, honestly.  And that's perfectly useful and good enough for me!!  :)



Sagacitas -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (1/28/2010 7:37:47 PM)

The prolonged lifespans have two useful consequences I can think of; whether either of them was intentional is pure speculation.

* If a slave lives long enough she is assured of eventually finding a love match; an owner would not keep an ill-suited slave for decades.

* Longer lives partly justify the lack of pregnancies or children.

I think it more likely, though, that his intention was simply to populate his world with men and women at their peak of physical perfection, and not have to explain why there weren't any old people cluttering up the scene.



Hierodule -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (1/28/2010 7:56:05 PM)

 Hello,

I think the device's purpose is to avoid the question of what happens to the yielding, deliciously superb female once she hits menopause [:)]





Unbuilder -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (1/29/2010 8:03:51 PM)

Howdy AnimusRex,
I'm going to offer a different tack on the idea of stabilization serums. What if... this device was to take away the focus of "rejecting death" and shift the focus to.... "embracing life"?  That seems to me to be more in context with what the novels say.  A life of constantly accepting new challenges may only seem like it accomplishes more, but I would postulate that it also feels like it lasts longer, in a good way.... like.... having sex vs. waiting around to die.

Goreans don't have the device of... a life beyond death... so... the life that they have right now... is actually cherished, and lived...fully.

Perhaps it's only wishful thinking that... living the only life I'll ever have will somehow extend my years beyond what statistics might offer me as a lifespan.

Perhaps...

There is a guy at work, who holds the same job title that I do... who is less than half my age.... who prolly thinks he's going to outlive me... which I doubt.  But that's speculation... what I do know...  is that while *I* may have lost a step over the last 30 years... it was a step that *he* has never experienced, and never will.

The sad part, from my viewpoint, is that.... he won't miss having that extra step.... or steps... because *this* society never told him that it was... possible or reasonable, or ... desirable to take it.

I wish you well

Unbuilder



Nephilim -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (1/29/2010 9:14:08 PM)

I agree with most people's guesses at this.  I would also guess maybe it was a bit of hyperbole (or real perception of a liberal) trying to take a stab at government spending on war technologies instead of those to save and enhance life.  But I have to strongly agree with Sagacitas, that the author actually realized that the majority of slave women on a planet like that would be hardened fat, or thin women that were disease ridden.  No need for discussions of how a slave should serve when sick or what to do with one with an STD.  Seems like the author was just thinking out the fantasy.  "How do I make this a world I want to be in.  Well, Rome was nice, but pestulance, plague and pregnant whores isn't too hot.  How can I make myself a super hero. Oh, just lower the gravity and im he-man.  Get rid of those damned feminists, wait no, make the feminists wanton whores who want me to show them how to be a woman and serve me.  Wait, I don't want to piss of the blacks and make them think I approve of African slavery, no problem, all of the slaves are white women, hot white women, mostly college freshmen who have yet to know the touch of a man, an English professor.... mmm... .... ... .... ...  I think I'm going to wash my hands and make me a sammich"  The books are far from a holy tome of philosophy. 

I am seriously considering starting a stabilization serum research fund.



AnimusRex -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (1/30/2010 9:36:23 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Unbuilder
Goreans don't have the device of... a life beyond death... so... the life that they have right now... is actually cherished, and lived...fully.


Unbuilder-
Interesting take on things- That there is no concept of immortal life after deathin Gorean thinking, then it would make sense that they would embrace life to its very fullest, fiercely and without regard for the long term.

But then things like the stabilization serums and the Priest Kings raise another question- instead of seeing the books as a "This is how to correctly live life" manuals, perhaps Norman was making a subtle statement, that the marvelous world of Gor cannot be acheived, that it could only exist in a place where Priest Kings held sway over technology, and no one ever got old or sick.

So in this view, living as a Gorean consists only of living with the contradictions of embracing our wild fierce spirit, and at the very same time, living in peace and cooperative harmony within earth cultures. In the same way that violent stories like the Greek mythologies, and Hollywood action movies serve an important purpose for us, not as instructional manuals, but as commentaries on the contradictions of human nature- we want to live freely, yet also cooperatively; we acknowledge the rush of spirit that comes with violence, but also see its destructive power.
Goreans embrace the wildness in a man's nature that causes him to subjugate his woman so totally as to constitute a cruelty, yet embrace the constructive and uplifting power of paternalism, all within the very same man.



Musicmystery -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (1/31/2010 10:00:54 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: AnimusRex


quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
We're born, we live well, and we die.
Inability to embrace all of life is poor spiritual practice.


This was taken from nephandi's thread about life extension- but rather than derail that one, I started a new one.

This is one thing I honestly don't grasp about the novels.

The Gorean world is a primitive, pre-industrial society. In the societies like those we have had here, life was "nasty, brutish and short". Most cultures like that developed a very fatalistic view of life, and accepted suffering and death; most religions were explicitly about helping us cope with our own short mortality.

So what purpose was served by Norman creating this contrived deus ex machina device of "stabilizer serums" that allowed Gor to be without old people, ugly people, and weakness and infirmity? What point was he trying to make?

If the novels are held up as an ideal to be emulated, doesn't that sort of contrivance destroy its own internal logic? Or are the novels merely commentaries on human nature, to be seen as both a cautionary tale, and examples of virtue?


Hi Animus,

I know others aren't comfortable with this view, but I've always considered Gor Norman's "thought experiment." Like other thought experiments, he isolates what he wants to explore, since turning on every single thing possible in an environment means cause and effect is virtually impossible to establish. So he eliminates circumstances irrelevant to his hypothesis.

In examining the dynamic between men and women, especially viz a viz feminism, aging and children are not immediately relevant to the question. People live in the unique environment, without the distractions.

Yes, that oversimplifies it, but Gor DOES have old, ugly, weak and infirm people. It's not as simple as you're presenting it.

To the original question--I eat right, exercise, get regular check ups, watch my environment, but none of this is because I think it will help me live longer. It might. Genetics or accidents might have other ideas. But it doesn't matter. I do it because it makes me feel better, more energetic, more alert, more fully alive, right here, right now, today, this moment.

Live well,

Tim




OrionTheWolf -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (1/31/2010 10:47:40 AM)

Greetings Tim,

I actually agree and have said before that Norman "cheated" in a couple of areas, so that he could focus on different things. The serum, slave wine, and the biggest cheat, The Priest-Kings.

Live well,
Orion



kajjirus -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/1/2010 4:00:26 AM)

Master Sagacitas:

This one feels, as well, that the reason You noted below is the "true" one. After all, even in the dim 1960s, it might have been hard to convince people that slavery could EVER be OK, if it were the traditional sort, where slaves would be abused and used and finally, worn out, essentially left to die. However, if slavery is connected with staying (or becoming, again) young, then it has its compensations, one thinks.

Well wishes,

kajjirus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sagacitas


I think it more likely, though, that his intention was simply to populate his world with men and women at their peak of physical perfection, and not have to explain why there weren't any old people cluttering up the scene.



Unbuilder -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/2/2010 9:49:00 PM)

Gd'evening AnimusRex

quote:

"But then things like the stabilization serums and the Priest Kings raise another question- instead of seeing the books as a "This is how to correctly live life" manuals, perhaps Norman was making a subtle statement, that the marvelous world of Gor cannot be acheived, that it could only exist in a place where Priest Kings held sway over technology, and no one ever got old or sick"
quote:



As far as stabilization serums in the books go, if memory serves me correctly, Tarl didn't recieve them... although it was stated that his father did. They were used more among those who were imported from earth than among those that were born on Gor.As far as the Priest Kings....I'm gonna concede a literary device.  I see them as an insurmountable wall... that kept humans from devoting their primary energy on better ways to kill each other, and instead bent that energy to healing .I mean.... what if that ancient Chinese inventor had invented.... the toothbrush instead of gunpowder,... what it Alfred Nobel... had discovered... a multivitamin? Would this world still be the same place?   Would we be negotiating with our most prominent former enemies to reduce our stockpile of  nuclear weapons down to a mere 15 times what was required to erase life as we know it from the face of the earth?
Yeah, I see the priest kings as a literary device, but one that suggests that if we as a species spent most of our energy on keeping people alive rather than making them dead, we might find as many, or ... perhaps even more, ways of curing whatever ailments we find ourselves experiencing, as ways to get rid of our competition.

As I see it, we can spend our time trying to recreate scenes from the books or we can try to wrap our minds around the idea of being a natural part of our environment, *our* Home Stone.  Is this planet to be raped and exploited... or... savored?  Are we... Kur, or men?

We don't have... *priest kings* to steer us so we're going to have to find that answer for ourselves.

As far as living a really long time, within our own cultural backdrop there were some who lived a really long time.... was Methuselah a literary device.

I wish you well
Unbuilder





Cherylmazana -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/3/2010 9:24:27 PM)

I remember hearing somewhere these words (not in the Gor books) “a civilization has the morals it can afford”.

It’s a very profound statement when you think about it, we as a wealthy technologically advanced society can afford a degree of niceness that wasn’t affordable in the past.

We have no need of atrocities to make our enemies think twice about killing us, we can afford prisoner of war camps and then releasing them back to their countries instead of slave auctions and death for those two dangerous to enslave.

We can afford to lock away dangerous criminals instead of killing them, and we can afford to let them loose to kill or rape again because our population is so high a few individuals do not matter in the larger scheme any more.

We can afford for women to work and have careers because we have the technology to prevent them having child after child many of them dying from high infant mortality because we no longer need those children to work the land and look after us in our old age. And we are starting to have a long enough and rich enough life that starting a family later and later seems reasonable so the population is going down or even coming to a stop in many wealthy areas as women choose money and a career over a family.

We can afford many things our ancestor’s couldn’t. The question is can we really afford them? That is the question the novels ask over and over again asking what is the price we are paying for those morals.

Cheryl



Qorvas -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/4/2010 11:16:38 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cherylmazana

I remember hearing somewhere these words (not in the Gor books) “a civilization has the morals it can afford”.

It’s a very profound statement when you think about it, we as a wealthy technologically advanced society can afford a degree of niceness that wasn’t affordable in the past.

We have no need of atrocities to make our enemies think twice about killing us, we can afford prisoner of war camps and then releasing them back to their countries instead of slave auctions and death for those two dangerous to enslave.

We can afford to lock away dangerous criminals instead of killing them, and we can afford to let them loose to kill or rape again because our population is so high a few individuals do not matter in the larger scheme any more.

We can afford for women to work and have careers because we have the technology to prevent them having child after child many of them dying from high infant mortality because we no longer need those children to work the land and look after us in our old age. And we are starting to have a long enough and rich enough life that starting a family later and later seems reasonable so the population is going down or even coming to a stop in many wealthy areas as women choose money and a career over a family.

We can afford many things our ancestor’s couldn’t. The question is can we really afford them? That is the question the novels ask over and over again asking what is the price we are paying for those morals.

Cheryl



Cheryl, that was very well said indeed.

Qorvas



AnimusRex -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/5/2010 9:30:49 AM)


Although the original post was concerning mortality rather than morality, your post is interesting in its own right.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cherylmazana

We have no need of atrocities to make our enemies think twice about killing us, we can afford prisoner of war camps and then releasing them back to their countries instead of slave auctions and death for those two dangerous to enslave.


I agree with the proposition that we no longer have the need for savagery...but then doesn't that make it more the pity that we still engage in it?
I mean, the crimes of Abu Ghraib, the medieval technique of waterboarding, the sensory and sleep deprivation techniques practiced at Gitmo. Although these things are less obviously barbaric than disemboweling someone alive, I don't think they qualify as humane or civilized. There are reports that some of the inmates there have become literally mad from years of this sort of torture.

quote:


We can afford to lock away dangerous criminals instead of killing them, and we can afford to let them loose to kill or rape again because our population is so high a few individuals do not matter in the larger scheme any more.


I don't think the reason for releasing criminals is because of a surplus of civilians; I think the idea was to rehabilitate criminals.

quote:


That is the question the novels ask over and over again asking what is the price we are paying for those morals.


This is interesting- a price to be paid for morals? What does this mean?





Cherylmazana -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/6/2010 9:27:57 AM)

AnimusRex I am not sure what your country is like on the rehabilitation of criminals but my own has the policy of saying they will do it and in practice just shutting them up with other criminals so they can learn more and then releasing them to commit more crimes at a later date. The cost of rehabilitation is always more than they can afford, after all there is a recession on and the cost of crimes can come out of another budget.

As for the price we are paying …have you read the Gor books? I believe John Norman says it quite well in them.

Cheryl



AnimusRex -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/6/2010 7:23:08 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Cherylmazana

AnimusRex I am not sure what your country is like on the rehabilitation of criminals but my own has the policy of saying they will do it and in practice just shutting them up with other criminals so they can learn more and then releasing them to commit more crimes at a later date.


Thats pretty much what we do too. Its sort of a full employment act for law enforcement.

I was more interested inwhat you mean by the "price"; since as far as I can see, the novels can just as easily be seen as describing the price we would pay for not having them.



Cherylmazana -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/6/2010 8:40:01 PM)

If we look at men and women as two completely different types the price becomes easier to understand. This is just extreme generalizations as things are never this simple.

Men are designed to fight and compete physically with each other for status and women, they are also designed to form strong bonds with groups of men in an us against them situation, when you get too many men together there are going to be fights and wars as men need the adrenaline of competition of one type or another.

Women are designed to pack together to provide help with childcare and gathering necessities usually time consuming and boring tasks in which working together helps make a boring task easier. Women usually need security and stability, when younger they may look for danger as usually the more “dangerous” men are there with the type of genes women subconsciously look for. However when nesting self preservation comes into play and a good provider and security is at the top of the list.

Men are also designed for times of high energy expenditure and adrenaline rushes and then times of relaxing and recovering, women are designed for constant low level activity.

In a civilized technology rich society the needs of women become more important, security, safety the knowledge that no matter how her child turns out he or she will survive to adulthood. Competition is removed so her child will never be at the bottom, danger is removed so her child will never be hurt, and punishment is removed so her child will survive no matter what happens.

So what happens to men under these conditions?

There is no real male bonding as competition has been removed so men do not bond through shared experiences and learn respect for each other. Danger has been removed so they do not learn their own limits at a young age and so gain respect. Authority has had its teeth pulled so there is no real price to pay.

Some channel these urges into healthy outlets such as sport but for others the urge to fight and compete is still there, there urge to fight and bond is still there but instead of being channeled into healthy competition it is warped into gangs where those urges are used to bind to the gang rather than to the community or the family.

Men who can bury the urges or become armchair athletes become lazy because they are doing what they are designed for when there is no need for fighting or hunting and women grow angry because they don’t understand and so they see no need for men, and in a world where there is safety and women can provide all that is needed apart from the sperm they decide not to bother with men at all. So men grow up not understanding what being a man is as they have mainly interacted with women and boys bought up solely by women and women think of men as weak and lazy.

And so while we have the appearance of safety and security, we have gangs of unhappy kids causing problems, and drink and fighting problems because young urges are not being channeled in a healthy way, with girls becoming as bad as the men because they have no need to settle down and mature the way their grandparents did. We have dangerous criminals let loose to commit crimes again because it’s not nice to kill and we have terrorists who laugh at the laws we in our civilized society have made.

We have human rights that ignore the victims’ rights in favour of the attacker, and so we become a victim society with everything becoming someone else’s fault. And at the top those who laugh at societies nice rules and who use the system to help themselves because not everyone will play fair.

And that is what we are seeing, the price we pay for our morals, the price we pay for the illusion of safety and security.

Cheryl





AnimusRex -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/6/2010 10:10:23 PM)

Cheryl-
Nice comments, I actually was right with you until you got to the part about

"In a civilized technology rich society the needs of women become more important, security, safety the knowledge that no matter how her child turns out he or she will survive to adulthood. Competition is removed so her child will never be at the bottom, danger is removed so her child will never be hurt, and punishment is removed so her child will survive no matter what happens"

You go on to describe a world in which men become weak and lazy, since there is no fierce competition.

I don't see us in such a world. I see us in a world in which the competition simply becomes masked, hidden beneath the veneer of polite society.
Just because we don't march face to face with broadswords and maces to fight over some naked girl, doesn't mean the level of competition and struggle is not savage and briutal. There isn't any shortage of cruelty, brute force and amorality in the business world- just read the Wall Street Journal on any given day.
An insurance company will deny coverage to a woman with breast cancer and watch impassively as she dies a slow horrible death; What did Norman ever write that was so cruel?

I would say that the real target of Norman's writing was not morality but Modernity.

The Gor novels are part of a tradition in our culture, of casting Nature and the Noble Savage as the truest most authentic version of ourselves. Jack London wrote in this theme in his stories, Last of the Mohicans typifies it, and even the Clint Eastwood westerns movies (created not coincidently at the same time as Tarnsman) celebrate characters which act with decisive brutal truthfulness in contrast to the foolish modern culture that preached morality, but was riven with hypocrisy for merely subverting the cruelty.

In all these, the savage is held up as the hero, idolized for his simple clear code of behavior.

But there is another way of looking at it- even as the hero vanquishes the villians, he is usually paying a terrible price for his "authentic" morality. In almost every instance, the hero is a loner, without family or children; he is usually a social outcast, usually emotionally stunted, and even in the most romanticized versions like Mohicans the savage is romanticized precisely because he is unfit for the encroaching modern world.


Maybe the Gor novels aren't saying "here is how to get back our primal mojo and live bettter lives."

Maybe they are a commentary on human nature, illustrating that our essential nature is harsh and brutal, but paradoxically, celebrating it only leads to a world that is nasty and brutish and lonely. The paradox is left for us to resolve.



Naturallurker -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/7/2010 4:33:56 AM)

Excellent post AnimusRex,

since Mungo Park wrote his travels in the interior of Africa (a book I highly recommend) the concept of Noble Savage has entranced Western society, the obsession of the Enlightenment with Classicism also crops up in the Gor series. I tend to think that to simply see past or foreign civilisations as the antidote to our own ills is a negation of responsibility. In much the same way as contemporary arts continues to churn out films such as Avatar. To look for answers and magic solutions to societies ills externally is tantamount to saying "none of this is our fault, if only we were like them" where as the books exhort us to take responsibility not merely for our individual circumstances but for how society progresses. Not only do we get the governments we deserve but we get the society we deserve. Until society, ourselves as individuals combine and say enough is enough, until the silent majority say no more, until we take responsibility for the world around us we will all be little more than slaves.




Cherylmazana -> RE: Gorean views on mortality? (2/7/2010 8:37:07 PM)

Hi AnimusRex

You are right there is a lot of competition in the workplace, for money etc. competition that has changed as you said to become much crueler than anything in the Gor books because people are not dealing with individuals they are dealing with numbers and profits.

I wasn’t talking about the fights in the boardroom, or the middle classes I was talking about the vast majority who once bonded together and formed communities of working men and women, you know “the golden age” our parents talked about when the door could be left open and neighbors helped each other. Times when men had their working men’s clubs and did men’s work and women had their own groups and met for tea and company and to grumble about their men. When strangers were trouble until they had been known and accepted and children were allowed to roam free without parents worrying they would end up raped and dead.

It’s gone, that time has passed so now what I am describing is a world in which bread and circuses are used to placate the masses, the Romans used it we use it, let’s get out the latest scandal or bandwagon to divert the mob, we may not have gladiators as such and blood sports but we have our own versions though the combatants may not end up dead or covered in blood, but let the soaps and scaremongers do their job and keep the population entertained.

In a small isolated community everyone is an individual known by everyone, in a city with a million inhabitants people become numbers and when the millions turn to billions worldwide consequences can be divorced readily from actions when you are dealing with a nameless number on a computer screen. Would the bankers have taken such risks if they had to then face the members of their community that they knew and broke bread with and say to their faces they were all ruined? Or the stockbrokers who caused a crash if they had to deal daily with the people they had reduced to poverty? When you are dealing with numbers not people it’s easy to take risks and think only of your own profit. A world in which each individual is wrapped in cotton wool to placate the masses and yet the cotton wool is an illusion where the petty things are prevented and the important things ignored because they interfere with profits. And so responsibility and accountability is removed from everyone and the government will tell us what to do and protect us with the laws we demand to make us all safe.

We do not need to go to war with swords out and physical fighting; we do not need to have men out hunting and putting supermarkets out of business. What we need is to rediscover the community and our place in it, for people to discover they have a “Home Stone” and to want to protect it and the people within it. For people to become accountable for their actions and not to shrug and dismiss the numbers because the numbers represent their profits and profit is the new God.

However what I am suggesting in its place is also a utopia and we all know what happened to the person in the books who tried to create a utopia, it’s simply not going to happen, base human nature will prevent that. What we can do though is hold ourselves accountable, we can look at our own decisions and take responsibility for them I cannot be responsible for others and their choices, I cannot change the world I am no Gandhi I have not the leadership ability nor the desire to take on a government and as we are not an oppressed country it wouldn’t work anyway, most would laugh if my desire was to make everyone accountable its not a force to bring down governments. And while everyone wants everyone else to be accountable very few wish to be held to those standards themselves.

And so we have the illusion of safety and divorce rates going through the roof, and children who feel as if there is no place for them, welcome to the modern world.

But there is hope there are places where communities are taking the children and bonding them through sport, where physical sports for boys stop them joining the gangs and give them a sense of community and pride, where individuals can and do make a difference and change their lives forever. We need communities we need “Home Stones” we need to belong to something small enough for us to feel pride in belonging where we are accountable.

Cheryl



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