There IS no “Gorean culture” as such. What (Sociologist) Dr. John Lange (aka John Norman) did was to take “snapshots” of various periods of EARTH culture and use them as settings for his story line(s). Within the context of the books each “setting” was selected for its ability to fit within the social theme of “Gor”. The Gorean cities are as Greek as one might imagine … the plains people could have been described equally well by Lewis & Clark, the Northern People even use the nomenclature “thrall” etc. that are Scandinavian. Dr. Lange explain these areas as being places were the Ships of Acquisition placed entire settlements that were taken from Earth…

The DIFFERENCES are that these populations were NOT allowed to culturally dominate each other because the Priest Kings strictly regulated technology and limited aggression to localized “man to man” battles instead of the large armies. Thus, on Gor, Rome was not built in a day.. it was not built at ALL .. NOR was Gorean evolution warped by excessive religious zealotry. In fact, the religion of Gor, such as it is, was a COMMON denominator (again those pesky Priest Kings) until the Kuri began to interfere more than was initially permitted. Other significant differences is that Goreans needed no real advancements in medicine because the PK’s had already taken care of that, as well as overpopulation pressures and lest we forget, the “minor” problem of longevity.

The Code of the Caste of Warriors? See: Bushido and/or Spartans…etc. Make no mistake about it, everything that IS “Gorean” is ALSO “Earth” ... but an earth cleaned of the scourge of population, religion, politics, and an industrial society.

What defines one as Gorean might well be to escape from the "evils" of those influences and a return to the inner dictates and definitions of what it means to be "the best one might have been" .. and seeing that image, refusing to settle for anything less of and for themselves.

Rancher
21st February, 2004