| From: | Steve Huth <HUTH@***.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | More slavery drek--delete now or suffer |
| Date: | Tue, 20 Apr 1993 14:11:52 -0700 |
personally, but my ego could no longer take being silent, so here's a
few thoughts.
First off, it has often been stated in defense of mages that because
the law says they are responsible for the actions of the elemental,
that it is obviously not slavery. Actually, this is not necessarily
true historically. In certain eras and places (including parts of
the old Confederacy) masters were legally responsible for the actions
of their slaves. I suspect this was because slaves were considered
property, and therefore the master had both ownership and responsibility.
This is really quite a minor point, as both sides have stronger arguments
than obscure legal definitions of responsibility to back their arguments
up.
On to free spirits. I think this topic is the thorn in both sides of
the issue. The rulebook clearly states that free spirits gain the
intelligence and individuality of a (meta)human when they go free, not
before. This obviously implies that spirits are not intelligent
individuals before this freedom.
One of the possible ways a spirit can go free is if it has spent a
great deal of time on this plane in service. In other words, if spirit
has the time, it will become free. (OK, gulp, here I go, I really shouldn't be
doing this).
In many ways this reminds me of the argument over abortion. A baby in the
womb is not alive in the sense of having an independent intelligence
capable of maintaining it's existence on this plane without help.
Similarly, a spirit, until it's moment of "birth" (italics added by Grim II)
is not alive, but after the birth, it is. Attempts to find out a true name
for the purpose of dispelling or binding a free spirit are therefore
assaults on an individual. Like with a baby, we are now involved in the
situation that something is not alive, but will become so. Do we therefore
have the right to do what we want with the helpless life to be? I am not
saying this argument is exactly like the abortion battle, but it certainly
bears some intellectual similarities.
One final point about free spirits strikes me as interesting: the mage/shaman
has very little to do with the actual creation of the spirit. When the
spirit goes free somehow it grants itself intelligence/individuality/life.
This implies at least a minimum independent will before the spirit
becomes free. The spirit apparently wants to become alive. This actually
supports both sides of the argument: spirits might have a will of their
own/but if they do, they are grateful for being summoned, because it gives
them an opportunity to become fully alive.
The situation is obviously different with allies. Any ability the ally has
is granted by the magic user, who has paid karma and a point of magic to
do so. Logically, I
(oops) don't think an ally should be able to free itself from its master
unless the master dies.
Anyway, I just wanted to add some thoughts to the debate. Due to the
fact that bringing up this whole abortion thing is so likely to
inspire strong emotional responses in people, I request that anyone who
gets really pissed off at what I said take a few hours off and respond
when they calm down--I post this in a very detached intellectual way, not
to state a political/emotional viewpoint.
Spectre
Steve Huth
