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 OrganizationsThe topic of Castes would not be complete without also including Organizations. Here are some relevant references from the series where Organizations in general are mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban The organizations, such as the sail-makers, almost guildlike, not castes, have dues, and these dues tend to be supplied to a number of purposes, such as support of those injured or their families, loans, payments when men are out of work, and pensions. The organizations have also, upon occasion, functioned as collective bargaining agencies. I suspected that the sail-makers would, threatening desertion of the arsenal, this year or the next obtain their desired increase in wages. Brutal repressions of organization have never characterized the arsenal. The Council of Captains respects those who build and outfit ships. On the other hand, the wages tend to be so slight that an organization seldom has the means to mount a long strike; the arsenal can normally be patient, and can usually choose to build a ship a month from now rather than now, but one cannot well arrange to eat a month from now, and not today, or tomorrow, or until a month from now. But most importantly the men of the arsenal regard themselves as just that, the men of the arsenal, and would be unhappy apart from their work. For all their threats of desertion of the arsenal there are few of them who would want to leave it. Building fine and beautiful ships gives them great pleasure. Beyond this, lastly, it might be mentioned that Gorean society, on the whole, tends to be tradition bound, and that there is little questioning of the wisdom of one's fathers; in such a society individuals usually have an identity satisfactory to themselves, and a place in which they feel comfortable; accordingly they are less susceptible to the social confusions attendant upon a society in which greater mobility is encouraged and traditional prestige considerations replaced with materialistic ones. A society in which each is expected to succeed, and is placed under conditions where most must fail, would be incomprehensible, irrational, to most Goreans. This will sound strange, I suppose, but the workers of the arsenal, as long as they make enough to live reasonably well, are more concerned with their work, as craftsmen, than they are with considerably and indefinitely improving their economic status. This is not to say that they would have any objection to being rich; it is only to remark, in effect, that it has never occurred to them, no more than to most Goreans, to take very seriously the pursuit of wealth as their universal and compelling motivation; being ignorant, it seems, they, like most other Goreans, are more concerned with other things, such as, as I have earlier noted, the building of fine and beautiful ships. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. I would note, of course, that these weaknesses, or virtues, of the men of the arsenal are, of tradition, welcomed by the Council of Captains; without them the arsenal could not be as efficiently and economically managed as it is. Raiders of Gor Book 6 Pages 134 - 136 "Then the object is a coin?" I said. "I do not know if it is a coin or not," said the man. "What else could it be?" I asked. "It could be many things," he said. "It might be a token or a medal. It might be an emblem of membership in an organization or a device whereby a given personage might be recognized by another. Kajira of Gor Book 19 Page 12 Such dramas, incidentally, are normally performed not by professional companies but by groups of citizens from the communities themselves, or nearby communities. Sometimes they are supported by rich citizens; sometimes they are supported by caste organizations; sometimes, even, they are sponsored by merchants or businesses, as a matter of goodwill and promotion; sometimes, too, they are subsidized by grants from a public treasury. Kajira of Gor Book 19 Pages 101 - 102 "What are they?" I asked. "Girls, maids, entertainers, dancers, rented in groups to private individuals or organizations for feasts, and such," she said. Kajira of Gor Book 19 Page 285 Caste is extremely important to most Goreans, even when they do not all practice the traditional crafts of their caste. It is one of the "nationalities" of the Gorean, so to speak. Other common "nationalities," so to speak, are membership in a kinship organization, such as a clan, or phratry, a group of clans, or a larger grouping yet, a tribe or analogous to a tribe, a group of phratries, and a pledged allegiance to a Home Stone, usually that of a village, town or city. Dancer of Gor Book 22 Page 293 An organization of great farms, acting in concert, of course, could reduce competition, and eventually regulate prices rather as they pleased, particularly with regard to staples such as Sa-Tarna and Suls. . . . Two forms of work groups not localized to individual cities are the "free gang" and the "free" chain. These differ both from the free laborers indigenous to a given city and from work groups of slaves, such as those which are commonly used on the great farms. The "free gang" consists of free men who are in the hire of a contractor who rents their services, and his own, say, to various cities, organizations, and groups. Dancer of Gor Book 22 Page 304 "You would have us hide you?" I asked. "Yes," said the prisoner. "Take you into our confidence, bring you to our secret places, tell you our plans, introduce you to our leaders, our pervasive, secret networks of communication?" "Only if later you deem me worthy of such trust," he said. I hoped by this last question to lead the crowd to believe that the Delta Brigade was a determined, disciplined, extensive, well-organized force in Ar, one which might realistically inspire hope in the populace and fear in the forces of occupation. Actually, of course, I had no idea of the nature or extent, or power, or resources, of the Delta Brigade, I was not even sure there was such an organization. At one time Marcus and I thought we were the Delta Brigade. Certainly at that time there had been no organization. Then, later, it seemed, there had been acts performed in the name of the Delta Brigade, sabotage, and such, in which we had had no part. These might have been the acts of individuals, or groups of individuals, for all we knew, perhaps patriots, or criminals, or fools, but not of an organization. Magicians of Gor Book 25 Pages 248 - 249 |       
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