posted February 27, 2013 04:28 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Hera:
There's a whole subculture out there based on his books and people living according to the philosophical principles of the Gorean universe.

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Can you share more about this? I'm curious both what the philosophy is and how it's applied to real life.

posted March 05, 2013 06:23 AM            

From wikipedia:

quote:

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Some of this philosophy is concerned with "order of nature" and the relations between men and women, which may or may not take the form of a master-and-slave dynamic. [...]

The Gorean identity is founded on home, job, and social order. The 'Three Pillars' of Gorean society are described as "Home Stone, Caste System, and "Order of Nature".
[...]

The home is of prime importance to the Gorean, and this applies as much to the city-state of origin, as to the current residence or camp. "A man's home is his castle" is translated in Gor as, "Every man is an Ubar within the circle of his sword" (The Ubar is a war-leader, a General who takes power at a time of crisis, and whose rule is tantamount to tyrant until the crisis is resolved.).
Living Goreans, those who follow Gorean Morality here on Earth, hold the ideal of Home Stone very high. Home Stone as embodied on Earth, is considered to be sovereignty over oneself, as well as good citizenship: the two must be well-balanced, so that neither the individual nor the community suffers.

[...]

The social order is further consolidated by social edict: "A man who refuses to practice his livelihood or strives to alter status without consent of the Council of High Castes is by definition an outlaw." A Gorean regards the welfare of their caste higher than their own, but in return, the caste provides welfare and charity when a caste member is in need.
The way in which many Living Gorean reflect the Gorean Morality, in their professions, is to establish a code for their profession that they follow. This, combined with striving for excellence in their profession, is a small reflection of the Caste system presented in the series.

[...]

Part of what Norman indicates as natural order, is that males have a predisposition to be more dominant, and females have a predisposition to be submissive. Norman indicates that with changes in society brought on by industrialization and feminism, human instincts have become confused and suppressed.
Typically the Gorean principle of male dominance is this: Males tend to be dominant and females tend to be submissive. Male dominance is seen as part of the natural order, a biological truth. As partial support, the Gor books stated that most mammals and all primates are male dominated. That is not completely true as there are at least two species of primates that are female dominated.
On Gor, male dominance is a generality, not an absolute. Women on Gor can attain the highest ranks of power on Gor, becoming the absolute rulers of Gorean cities. It is noted that in the Gor novels Norman wrote of at least four Gorean cities that were ruled by women. Gorean women can own property, operate a business, and control family life in a Gorean household. Norman states that in this "natural order" men and women are neither superior or inferior, simply different. In Gorean society it is not believed that males are more intelligent or have more wisdom then females, but are considered physically stronger.

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posted March 05, 2013 10:41 PM            

I got curious about the religion and found this on their myths:
http://furmesnest.tripod.com/id38.html

Giving it a brief skim (I'm bookmarking for later reading), however, doesn't explain the philosophy, nor the idea of male supremacy I found here (btw, some excellent links there):
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gorean

Well that cuts out Celtic that I first thought it might be getting its inspiration from. While Gor society does sound superficially similar to Celtic society the women of the Celts were actually greatly feared by Romans (because they'd rather die than watch their children slaughtered and themselves raped, possibly to death anyway, by Roman scum, so when it looked really grim they'd join the battlefield with the literal goal of "kill until I am killed"). I get the impression that the reason there weren't more women warriors is because they were usually too busy taking care of children to run off playing war, but even then they weren't unknown, including Boudica.

I also loved how a Celtic woman (who had far more rights than Roman women) responded to a Roman lady who thought Celtic women were too "loose in morals" with, "We fulfill the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest." Yeah, you got told lady.

Scandinavian women were also known to be tough, similar to Celts in many ways even before the cultural mixing. While it's true their myths tended to put down femininity more many revered Freya who was just as independent, martial, and sexual as any man, and even many men couldn't help but grudgingly respect that and Freya was one of the more popular goddesses among both genders (and socially speaking, even the housewives were generally seen as masters of the home as represented by Frigga, perhaps a reason why some men preferred to spend so much time away from home ). Of course with men away playing Vikings did tempt other Scandinavians to go all "Gor" with the unattended women, but that didn't always end well for them. For example:
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/blenda.html

And today Asatru (a modern religion honoring the Scandinavian gods) celebrate Queen Sigrid in November for taking down the Christian king of Norway that slapped her face for refusing to accept Jesus and marry him.

Come to think of it even the fictional & romanticized Conan tales featured strong warrior women (not to mention witches and the like) amidst all the machismo, even originally when I'd think it would be quite radical a concept (granted, Wonder Woman first came out just a few year later). Granted, they were fairly rare, but the "wenches" seemed to remain strictly in the background (though I've only read a couple out of curiosity and saw 2 movies, plus I read someone's copy featuring several Conan comic stories including one where he allies with a clever barbarian woman to loot a city besieged by Romans).