(Reprinted from original publication in the Gorean Voice magazine)
Ah, violence, how our modern society claims to abhor it! It is blamed for a multitude of ills in the world, everything from teen mass murders to the quieter, more intense nature of the psychopathic serial killer on the loose. Road rage on our highways and gang killings across the world. And lets not forget about war… naked violence without pretense, the greatest of evils. Violence is deplored in the arts, in the movies, in the school yards, it is denigrated as a relic of a previous, less civilized time.
In the past, societies dealt more directly with violence. They more commonly understood that violence cannot be expunged from the human psyche, but rather must be channeled into acceptable forums, or unleashed productively in battle. Violence was nothing to be ashamed of unless it was uncontrolled, a person reduced past reason to animalistic response.
There are numerous examples of how violence was handled in past societies. The Roman arenas with their gladiatorial contests, the spectacle of blood sport between animals, man and animals, and finally, man against man, with the crowds screaming and cheering. The Spanish bull fights, man against a goaded, angry, and exceedingly dangerous animal more than ten times his size. In South America, ancient forms of the game of Jai-Alai featured broken bones and shattered teeth in the frenzy of the play. Human and animal sacrifice was once a common feature of civilizations around the world, entire societies experiencing religious ecstasy as a heart was wrenched still beating from a living body and held aloft in triumph. Public floggings that scourged the flesh off a man’s back, hangings and beheading that were both mandatory to attend and considered a source of entertainment by many, crucifixion which served notice to all passers-by that criminal activity would not be tolerated in the town they were about to enter. Massive personal violence turned towards what was thought to be constructive; a lesson in civic behavior, entertainment for the masses, spiritual transport. Whatever the excuse for it, one purpose it always served was to release the violent instincts in the population through a controlled, small portion of that same population.
Perhaps if these things occurred in only a few societies throughout human history, if they were localized to a particular region, or even one or two continents, it might be more easily explained away as aberrant behavior by people who simply ‘did not know any better’. However, even a cursory examination will show that violence in one form or another has always been a part of human history, in every civilization, in every region and in every epoch, as far back as we have record.
These days children are taught that the evil of violence should be suppressed, that it is in inherently wrong. That it is, in effect, a dirty word for a dirtier act. They are taught not to fight, and that if they must release their violence then it should be through accepted means such as sports, or gentle competition. Perhaps it is no surprise in this context that sometimes the most virulent violence breaks out from those who had held it in the longest, who had previously been most successful at pretending to pacifism.
“A ‘pacifist male’ is a contradiction in terms. Most self-described “pacifists” are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger.”
- Robert Heinlein, from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
The legendary mild-mannered Postal worker who brings loaded weapons to work one sullen morning, boys in a school who can no longer sublimate their teen angst or tolerate bullies, the man or woman who comes home with life’s frustrations driving them to abuse the spouse. Examples go on and on in a parade of tragedy. The causes are cited to be anything from insanity to bad childhoods, from social stresses to mental breakdown. Those who arrive at such conclusions are wrong. They speak of triggers and think them causes, and ignore fundamental human nature in the process. The cause is that we are an extremely aggressive race, we enjoy our violence, and that violence, like a dammed river at flood time, will find it’s own outlet, one way or another, sooner or later.
Yet, our wondrous modern society does indeed have it’s hypocrisies where the evil of violence is concerned. It is sublimated into corporate take-overs and brutal sports such as boxing, karate, football, rugby, and hockey, but for many, sports are too distant from the real thing to truly sate the savage soul within. Most people claim to hate violence, yet the most consistently high movie and television ratings go towards two fundamental themes; sex, and of course, violence. The films of John Woo and Quentin Tarrantino set new marks for ‘action movies’, the polite euphemism for violent action and, often, outright combat. People cry out at the horror of an accident on the highway, yet they slow down and create massive traffic jams so that they can indulge in ‘rubber-necking’, peering with anxious morbidity at the aftermath of high-speed violence, hoping that in the few seconds they are near to the scene a glimpse might be granted to them of twisted wreckage and shattered bodies. We demand that news coverage includes every possible aspect of war; the types and numbers of weapons, how they are used and what their effects will be, down to the interviews with the soldiers in the trenches, hanging on every shakey word. We are riveted to the screens as we watch the high altitude footage of bombs taking out whole city blocks, of missiles arcing unerringly into their targets, and we know the slaughter is wholesale. Children play at ‘army’, while adults are glued breathlessly to their seats viewing the auto races, with especial attention to the way a car tumbles out of control.
It is worth remembering, also, that not all violence need be physical, or with intent to harm, nor need it be upon another human for it to exist. The violent conflict of a debate or argument can be just as cutting as sharpened flint, the claw marks of a woman’s passion upon a man’s back even as his hands grip her unto bruising. The violence brought about by hunting and fishing as an animal’s life is taken for the sport of it. Not so long ago a movie was released which delved into the sexual release found in the violence of car accidents, while ‘snuff’ films have long been a part of the underground movie scene. Documentaries showing natural catastrophes, or the destruction of buildings, have their own niche. And finally, violence can be done to a society, by numerous means. The bonds of community snapped while the destroyer smiles with the pleasure of watching that society fray and come apart. There are even more justifications for violence than there are types of violence itself, but in the final analysis on this perspective, violence is a fundamental and pervasive realization of innate human aggression, and as such, as long as there are humans, it will not be denied.
The Gorean philosophy handles things a bit differently. Based on age-old precepts of human behavior and needs, it works intimately with the relationship between genders and exhorts us to “be who we really are”. It calls on us to not only understand ourselves more fully, but to embrace our primal instincts and find a way to integrate all of who and what we are in our real lives. Throughout the series one can find examples of people finding ways to release their violence in ways that are consistently constructive within their milieu. Gor is a savage, untamed world which affords numerous opportunities for such release, unlike our own fairly tame Earth. Yet, humans are still humans, in spite of fundamental cellular differences between Goreans and Terrans. Much of the books delve into the nature of the Warrior, his Codes and his responses to circumstances, yet a Warrior is still a man, and I cannot help but think that much of what is said will pertain to all men.
“Tears are not unbecoming to the Warrior. The Warrior is a man of deep passions and emotions. Many men cannot even understand his depths. Do not fear your currents and your powers. In the Warrior are the flowers and the storms. Each is a part of him, and each is real. Accept both. Deny neither.”
— Guardsman of Gor, page 238
Deep passions… all the barbaric splendour of a people who refuse to bottle up their emotions, who will not deny themselves or what is important to them. This is almost diametrically opposed to our modern societal viewpoint. At the same time, it is also clear that the nature of the Warrior is not the same as the nature of the Scribe, nor the same as that of a Merchant, that perhaps those are numbered amongst the “many men” who cannot fully understand the way the Warrior releases fully his inner violence in perfect harmony with who and what he is. The Warrior is unafraid of the furies which sometimes rage within him.
“Rings of gold and now insignia of rank, feathers and necklaces, were distributed. Once, Bila Huruma lifted his hand and said, “Good.” The soldier then commended would then, I think, rather have died than betray Bila Huruma. Such small things, I think, may be scorned by those who do not understand the nature of war or men, and be seen as manipulative and laughable, and yet such a small commendation, when warranted and sincere, is worth more to some men than the material treasures that might move those who hold themselves their superiors. Let each man choose his own treasures. The cynical, mercantile mind will never understand the mind of the soldier. The soldier has stood with comrades in arms, and held. I do not think he would exchange that for the contemptuous pretense to wisdom of those whom he protects, who would scorn him. He has maintained his post. But perhaps some, even those who have never marched in the mud, with comrades, singing, on a clear and windy morning, a spear upon thier shoulder, can understand this. Why does the nibbling urt chatter and laugh at the larl? Is it because he himself is not a larl, or is it because he fears it’s paw?”
— Explorers of Gor, page 229
A Warrior does not sugar-coat violence, he freely acknowledges it’s purview and moves with power and precision within it’s domain. Consider the Torvaldslander berserkers, an extreme case of the release of violence, yet even that wild, uncontrolled killing rage is permitted reign by deliberate choice.
“My sword is thirsty, it must drink.”
— Magicians of Gor, page 164
The Gorean philosophy knows and understands the deep-seated aggression within the human psyche, and explores that with, on occassion, cynical yet piercing insight. Human nature is not going to go away, and it will not be smothered by the thin veneer of civilization. The human spirit is a flame that can fan into a raging bonfire on a moments notice, and when it does it will seek outlet, it will crave expression.
“It is not the killing, for executions would not suffice.”
“No, it is the sport, and the risk, and the killing.”
“One must fight for causes.”
“Causes exist, that men may fight.”- Guardsman of Gor, page 16
How many have come fresh from seeing a movie filled with phenomenal levels of violence, and smiled with contentment, a feeling akin to the afterglow of sex suffusing your psyche, sated for a few days or a week through vicarious violence? How many shout and scream as they watch the aggressive violence of sports? These things are with us even yet, though we are separated by over a thousand years from Rome and her arenas, from the Mayans and their sacrificial offerings. The difference is that now, in our society, we are not supposed to acknowledge our inner violence, and instead, are expected to somehow, mysteriously, expunge it.
Humans are arguably the most aggressive land species still extant, and violence is the expression of aggression. Violence is, it seems, universal to humans. In spite of a hundred years of political activism, in spite of millenia of the progress in technological and social advancement, humans remain fundamentally feral, requiring only the right trigger to release what lies in wait, within. Rather than wait until such a trigger comes upon one unseen, perhaps it is better to find natural forms of expression for our natural aggression. Instead of viewing it with horror, understand that it is as much a part of who and what we are as our eyes and our arms and our brains. We are not a gentle race, we humans. We are conquerors, fiercely competitive with ourselves, even when there is an opponent before us, an enemy to smite, a danger to end.
“He who cannot think, is not a man. Yet, neither is he who can only think.”
— Vagabonds of Gor, page 65
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