Subject: (urth) 5HC : Free People

From: Jim Raylor <rjraylor at yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 19:29:10 +0000

The one and only argument that might be considered
pro-slavery that I 
can 
recall from Wolfe offhand is the reminder that *for
the ancients* a 
certain 
amount slavery was actually the humane way to
eliminate a conquered 
city as 
a potential threat - the alternative being wholesale
slaughter.

I don't think that could be held as a pro-slavery
argument in anything 
like 
this context.

> > Wolfe sets his face like granite against this
> > slavery, in book after book.
>
>I agree that he often discusses slavery.
>Often he submits arguments in favour of it.
>I think he understood that slavery was not always a
>bad thing... if the slave was willing.
>
>=== message truncated ===

Consider Io in the Soldier books who pretend she is
given to Latro as a slave to avoid a worse fate.
In VRT the interrogator argues that those who are
dependant on government for healthcare are slaves.
The slave at the end of that story is complicit.
Or take Bruno in TIODD!!!
I am sure GW also poses the arguments for slavery in
the Sun series and if you missed them then I am not
sure what to say.

Nevertheless I agree that GW disapproves of coercional
slavery when there are better alternatives.
Gene seeks to build on what the Etruscans wrought, not
to destroy their memory.

=====
http://prisoner143.50megs.com/

I am not a number I am a free person!

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 09:46:27 +0000

>the Sun series and if you missed them then I am not

"Posing arguments for" and advocating to two very different things. In The
Short Sun, Marrow offers *justifications* for slavery, but Wolfe presents
Marrow as part of the problem on Blue, not the wise solution-maker. Remember
that many people were captured and impressed in to slavery as soon as they
got off the ships.

The "slaves" in The Long Sun are the chems, and it is difficult to see any
aspect of their existence as anything but heartbreaking...I direct you to
Silk's discussion with Horn on the airship or Hammerstone's conversation
with Silk.

So, while Wolfe may POSE arguments in the Silk segment, I don't think he
ARGUES for it. Even in Soldier of the Mist, Io PRETENDS to be Latro's slave
but he consistently denies she is. This is not slavery. What she wants is
not be his slave but his lover (which might have some embedded commentary on
romantic love, but not slavery). I don't know what terrible life she was
supposedly escaping by RUNNING AWAY FROM HER MASTERS with Latro, but her
'slavery' to Latro did not protect her from a Fate Worse Than Death, since
she was eventually raped by Helots and sold into slavery to the Spartans.

In the Soldier stories Wolfe is only attempting to present the Greeks they
way they saw themselves. He NEVER justified slavery. He is said that modern
people should not feel morally SUPERIOR for not having slavery considering
the Holocaust, Khmer Rouge, Stalin, Mao, Dresden, etc etc etc.

~ Crush

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From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 11:44:03 +0000

I have to agree with Crush, and I'd also point out that even this much is 
using a very loose (and possibly just wrong) definition of "posing an 
argument for". In my mind this entails presenting an attempt at 
justification. Yet while slavery occurs in these stories, the reasons it 
happens rarely if ever qualify as an attempt at justifying it.

Io decides to be Latro's slave in order to avoid being someone else's slave. 
Nowhere does she really have a realistic chance not to be a slave; her 
choice is between masters.

There is no attempt to justify slavery in the Short Sun - it exists, but is 
straightforwardly presented as an evil.

In Long Sun and New Sun there are perhaps speculations on who is or is not a 
slave. This, too, doesn't amount to an attempt to justify slavery.

In the Soldier books I am willing to grant Wolfe may be making a slightly 
stronger point than even Crush generously allows, and that is the historical 
one I mentioned earlier: rebuilding an army was much easier in those times 
than now (the weapons were simpler), and to have long-term security against 
a defeated enemy you had to somehow remove their ability to rebuild. This 
meant either mass slaughter or forced relocation and/or slavery. It can be 
argued that slavery at that time was the more humane option.

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 12:53:59 +0000

> the Holocaust, Khmer Rouge, Stalin, Mao, Dresden, etc etc etc.

I think Wolfe might occasionally be trying to say that "honest slavery" is 
better than the things that replace it in his more dystopian stories. 

There are things that never **call** themselves theft, slavery and genocide, 
just as Nicholas' murder is "called" therapy.

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From: Georg Schönegger <g.schoenegger at aon.at>
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 00:30:22 +0000

> argued that slavery at that time was the more humane option.
 
Since slaves often became part of the owners' economy (or military), it
could be argued that the relations were in fact two-edged. During the
growth of the Roman Empire, it became more and more dependend on
slave-labor. In fact, in later centuries, big parts of the Roman economy
were run by ex-slaves. The nobility's children were educated by (greek)
slaves.
"Slavery is a mode of cultural transmission", says Kenneth Toomey in
"Earthly Powers", and it's a fact. So, while accepting the moral evil in
slavery, we still may look at the factual relations between owner(s) and
owned as a little more complex.

Georg