Dead Goreans

Most Goreans are aware of the types of people that form the majority of characters on Gor in the books.  There are the free and the slaves.  But there's another type that doesn't get nearly as much coverage.  However, it plays an important role in the fictional Gorean society, and I'd like to talk about it because it impacts the way we put the Gorean philosophy into practice in real life.  This last major type of character are those that are dead.


People who can't cut it on Gor in the books die.  They get killed, usually on purpose.  Slaves who can't cut it get killed.  Men who can't cut it get killed.  Free Women who can't cut it become slaves, and if they can't cut it then, they get killed.

"There were only three statuses conceivable to the Gorean mind outside of the caste system:  slave, outlaw, and Priest-King.  A man who refused to practice his livelihood... was, by definition, an outlaw and subject to impalement."

Tarnsman of Gor 1967 p46 

There are a lot of people in real life who couldn't or wouldn't cut it in the society from the books (Hell, I still wonder if I'd cut it).  In real life, they don't have to cut it.  We'd love them to, we challenge them to, we call on them to.  If they want to try, want to work on it, want to discover their Gorean nature, we train them.  But they don't have to.  We don't punish them for not trying, because they haven't done anything wrong.  They are just not Gor.

So, while we may choose to believe that a man or a woman may be more fulfilled by adopting the principles and beliefs that we love, we cannot force them to do so, and we cannot disdain them for refusing to do so.  It is their right to refuse.  They don't have to fit.

That said, we don't have to treat them as Goreans, either.  If a woman is not Gorean, we usually don't treat her as a slave.  If a man is not Gorean, we usually don't treat him as free.  We may occasionally make exceptions to this if we choose to inspire someone to look closer at their nature, or if we want to deepen our own integrity.

The impact of this understanding goes deeper than first may appear.  We already know that slaves don't have to obey other slaves, unless a slave has specifically been given authority over them, such as first girl.  Slaves do have to obey the free.  Now that we understand that there are many people out there that are not free or slave, we can accept the possibility that a slave would not obey a man, because he is not free.  She might be deferent, and conditionally obedient, because that is her nature (in fact I would hope she is, it's healthy for her to be herself as much as possible), but he does not have the mandate that a free man would have.  To the degree (and no more) that he does not behave as a free man, she can refuse him as she would refuse a slave, without breach of conscience.  He would be classified as a dead Gorean.

In fact, we see examples of slaves in the books disdaining even true Gorean men that they feel are weaker than others.  One example is near the beginning of Raiders of Gor, when Bosk gives the girls from the rence islands to the men he has freed from the ship.  One of the girls recoils when she is given to a man with a slighter build, believing him to be weaker than other men.  That is, until he holds her and she feels his strength.  Then she is more than happy to be his slave.

The kicker is this:  A slave does not have to feel torn between her mandate to obey and her need to protect herself from those that would take advantage of her surrender to her harm. She is not expected to obey a dead Gorean, any more than she would be expected to obey a slave.

We walk a fine line here.  It is unhealthy for a slave to refuse any man, because it takes her out of the depths of her surrender and puts her in some degree in the place of the free.  But surrendering as a slave to a weak man, or to one that is not free, isn't healthy either.  I will think about this more and look for a simple way to judge.

P.S.  Yes, this post smacks of elitism.  Deal with it.