Padriag
Posts: 2633
Joined: 3/30/2005
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This is not a reply to anyone in particular but to the thread as a whole. I was sitting here this morning thinking about it. Its early, still dark out and quiet, a good time to think and listen to your own thoughts. As I did so something came to mind about all this and I decided to share what that was because I think its an important point.
As I read through the thread, even reading some of my own remarks, I couldn't help but feel that somehow something had been missed. That too much we had focused on mathematics, on balance sheets, on accounting. That with the best of intentions we were slipping towards reducing relationships to credit scores and numbers and that something of the individuals involved was being lost. Perhaps the key word then is not the accounting that should be looked at... but the accountability.
It struck me that in all this talk of financial agreements, trust funds, annuities, LLCs, savings accounts, contracts and pre-nuptual agreements that without realizing it we were saying something very wrong. Because in all these things, in suggesting that a slave should perhaps seek or require these things, that a master should be obligated to provide these things, we are saying one thing. We are saying, "I don't trust you." For those of us who take collaring seriously, who do view owning a slave as owning property and take that seriously, we are asking a slave to place a great deal of trust in us. How then do we reconcile the conundrum of encouraging them not to trust in us, but to trust in financial and legal agreements? The "vanilla" world has these for marriages and it has not provided them with guarantees, the divorce rate still hovers between 40% to 50% depending on who's numbers you use. For all the laws and financial agreements in place, it has not provided a solution, it has not made those relationships work any better nor guaranteed afterwards that things will go as intended. Lawyers find loop holes in prenuptual agreements, probate courts contest wills, trust funds are abused by trustees... are we to place our faith in these same things? These same broken remedies for that essential necessity of trust?
I am in no way saying a master should not be responsible and take care of the needs of their property. But merely questioning where we look to for an assurance that that will be the case. Suggesting that perhaps instead of laws and financial arrangements we look instead to the character of the individual. Consider this. If a master is not of good character and in a break up that becomes bitter, despite all those financial arrangements are you really certain you can rely on them? But, if he is of good character, if he has within him a sense of genuine honor, is that not a better assurance... that these things of his nature say he can be trusted? I know some of you will be inclined to say no, it isn't enough.
Let me challenge you to consider why it might not be enough. Could it be that because we live in a world of indemnity clauses and liability clauses and financial agreements and contractual obligations and golden parachutes, a world where we look to the law to take the place of trust, that we have forgotten something essential about how to trust? That we have forgotten something of how to judge whether a person is of good character? And that because of this, we look with fear at relationships, any relationship, that requires us to actually trust as part of that relationship? Should we not and would it not be better to teach those who would be slaves how to trust, how to know who they can trust, how to judge good character? To give them that skill of self reliance that allows them to insure their own life through their own judgement? Or would we teach them instead that they cannot trust their own judgement... do we really believe them too stupid for that? Would we as masters really want property too stupid for that?
Ironbear, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to use you for an example. In the last six months that I have been a member here, I have watched Ironbear, read his posts and observed his behavior and I have over that period of time reached a conclusion about him. In my own judgement I believe him to be a man of good character. I came to this conclusion not because of any single incident, not any single thing he has said or not said, not because of who he agrees with (or even whether he agrees with me), not because he is Gorean and as such claims to believe in honor, not because of any of these things. But more simply because over that period of time I have observed in his daily behavior a man who's actions are those of a man of good character. Because in the things he does, the things he says I believe he does so with good intentions, that he does to the best of his knowledge what he believes is right. That although I believe he holds himself to high standards, he has not lost the common touch. There is within him that spirit of bonhomme, of eudaemonia, of good spirit. If Ironbear an I lived on the same continent, in the same town and he asked to borrow my car I would not ask for a contract, nor liability clauses, nor insurance... I would let him borrow my car because I believe him a man of good character and that should something happen, should the car be wrecked, because he is a man of good character we would work it out. That is, because I believe him a man of good character, and because I believe I am a good judge of that character, I believe I can trust him and therefore I do not fear those situations which require that I trust him.
In another thread on these boards it was brought up that many submissives and slaves online flirt with relationships but do not commit because of fear. Could it be that fear springs from that same simple lack of trust. That they do not trust their ability to judge good character, to know that this individual or that is of good character, and so when faced with the choice of entering into a relationship that requires trust and is based on trust, they fear to do so?
In the end, a master (or mistress) of good character will do their best to take care of their property, their slave, because that is their nature. It will not matter whether any such agreements are in place, whether laws or societies or cultures obligate them to do so, because their own nature, their own good character, that nobility of spirit will require it of themselves.
There is no perfect solution to these questions, but I cannot help but think that in any solution we choose, trust should be an essential element. h|How can there be that trust if we have not sought out and learned to recognize good character? Because in good character we find not accounting... but accountability.
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Padriag
A stern discipline pervades all nature, which is a little cruel so that it may be very kind - Edmund Spencer
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RE: living expenses - 
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