In many historical societies anyone who didn't own land were slaves. The peasant social class in European medieval period had less rights and more oppression than most slaves of the classical period of history. It was far better to be a Roman, Greek or Celtic slave than a 'free' peasant. In Celtic society, those who didn't own land were either squatters or slaves. Squatters were usually dealt with violently by land-owning freeman.
Historical Japan didn't maintain slavery, but they did have oppressed peoples - any non-Japanese living in society. During the mid-feudal period of Japan (1400 - 1600), the eta caste of peoples were somewhat oppressed, but they had monopolies on certain occupations like working leather (touching dead things was taboo) and most of the wealth in feudal Japan was held by the oppressed classes - very much a weird dicotomy.
Finally someone in this discussion broaches the difference between player context and character context. whilst Golarion is required to draw from certain moral outlooks in order to survive in politically correct modern society it is for the most part a medieval setting. take for example common player actions: if they come across goblins they will kill them, the same can be said for followers of Urgathoa. now in context of the game these make sense in relation to the nature of urgathoa's faith and the Goblin general behaviour however if we look objectively it's a bunch of well-armed mercenaries slaughtering people based on their race or religion, remind me how that the players heroes?
I agree entirely. However, people seemingly like to play with 21st century, modernist views in a medieval fantasy world and then call the system built around that world "crap." Hence, this thread exists.
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What are the examples in the Bible where slavery is okay?
You get to do your own research on that; this isn't the place for it.
But I'll get you started, if you like:
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Matthew
Mark
Luke
1 Corinthians
Ephesians
Colossians
1 Timothy
Titus
1 Peter
Proverbs
Isiah
Jeremiah
Galatians
Philippians
Philemon
Hebrews
Just to name a few.
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Honestly, slavery in America was far worse than any form of slavery prior to that.
This is something i often think about when North American complain about the evil of slavery. There were many forms of slavery beside what happened in america. My greatgreatmother was a slave and she never married her owner but parted in good terms when slavery ended in Brazil and the sons they had together had his surname. There were bad owners that were really evil, but also there where good owners that treated slaves fairly like they were workers.
"okay" is highly subjective. What isn't "okay" for me might be very much "okay" for someone else. And vice-versa.
I am 100% comfortable saying that slavery is not okay, objectively. There is nothing subjective about slavery being a bad thing.
I'm basing it on two things
1.) The DND/Pathfinder alignment scale
2.) the "White man's burden" belief of patriarchal slavery
So...
Good is defined in these games as "For a greater cause"
Evil is defined as "In self interest"
Every use for cannibalism in DnD and Pathfnder is for personal gain. Only spiritual rituals of passing would be construable as anything but evil.
Slavery can be done with the view and intention of "Uplifting a lesser people" and "Shielding them from actions which would cause harm to them or others"
IE: You might be keeping them busy as slaves so that they do not have vile temptations and are free from dark thoughts and lesser inclinations. So you're effective serving a greater good.
Now yes you DO benefit from slavery, but a LG pali benefits from killing monsters, this does not make him evil, he sees it as a reward for his great accomplishments in the name of justice and order!
Slavery is obviously not inherently good, as of course some people clearly do it for purely greedy or cruel reasons.
By Alignment table restrictions, Slavery is a non-alignment constrained occurrence.. Though the manner and reasoning for its practice hold many alignment constricted actions, and cannibalism is not, it has only selfish desires at heart (With the one exception seen above).
Throughout most of history slavery was a fact of life. It was neither evil or good, it just was. This is why moral documents and holy books of the time don't rail against the institution.
The abolition of slavery in the "modern" world is an aberration - one that I'm personally glad we have. But the veneer of civilization that holds the practice at bay is very thin.
Returning to a system where the strong dominate the weak would likely bring it back. And this is just the kind of world we have in PF. The strong dominating the weak; sometimes in the name of a pantheon or god, sometimes for the sake of an alignment or belief.
"okay" is highly subjective. What isn't "okay" for me might be very much "okay" for someone else. And vice-versa.I am 100% comfortable saying that slavery is not okay, objectively. There is nothing subjective about slavery being a bad thing.
Clever tactic, but still wrong. You're falling into a "transference trap" and transferring what I said into a wider statement that I didn't say.
I didn't say "slavery is okay" and I didn't say that such a sentiment is subjective. I said the word "okay" is subjective. Nothing more.
Don't put words in my mouth, by inference or otherwise, unless I actually said them.
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Slavery is what happens to other people.
That's why people who don't consider slavery evil can justify it in any way.
While that is superficially true, not all slaves have always hated slavery.
For example, many Roman slaves refused to be set free when they were offered freedom. Freedom meant having to work for a living in an economy that often had no jobs, which meant starvation and squalor. On the other hand, living as a slave of a Dominus who isn't cruel meant regular food and clean clothes and a dry place to sleep and a comfortable place to live. In fact, very often Roman slaves lived much better and happier lives than Roman citizens. And Rome had laws to punish slave owners for being needlessly cruel to their slaves, so cruelty to slaves was considerably more rare than, say, cruelty to wives.
This is why there were, at times, estimated to be 10 slaves in Rome for every free citizen but there were few slave revolutions (usually small, localize, not city-wide). At 10-to-1 numerical superiority, they could easily have revolted and killed every Roman citizen and the survivors would all have their freedom, but they weren't really that unhappy as slaves. At least, not unhappy enough to fight for change.
Not all cultures were like that. Surely many slaves have been mistreated and brutalized and worked to death. Those slaves certainly had it very bad and they desperately wanted salvation and freedom.
But it's a logical fallacy to apply that perception to all slaves everywhere throughout history.
Jesus christ you are so wrong. Yes if you were educated or lucky you were a 'well treated' slave, but no you had no rights and virtually no laws protecting you. Generally the life of a roman slave was brutal and above all short. Even a brief search on the internet contradicts you, have you even tried wikipedia?
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