"People will most fiercely defend those beliefs vulnerable to disproof, in which they have the greatest cultural investment."

Ranar of Rire in student briefing article: "Locating Okal Rel in the Larger Human Context."

Abstract

"Given the existence of more potent weapons than swords, how can Okal Rel function as a check on Sevolite behavior? This question, although natural enough for Reetions unaccustomed to the daily exercise of sword law, is easy to answer in terms that encompass all such questions in general. How does a cultural convention sustain itself against criminal exploitation? The answer is that people will most fiercely defend those beliefs most vulnerable to disproof, in which they have the greatest cultural investment. For Gelacks, this is Okal Rel. For Reetions, it is the inviolable integrity of arbiters. For humans of the late Earth era, it was idea of money, and for medieval Europe it was the unifying idea of Catholicism. Gelacks are no more proof against dishonor than 20th century earth lacked financial fraud. But neither fact negates the power of either money, or Okal Rel, as an organizing principle. Just as 20th century people planned their lives in the faith that money must be earned (not stolen) and that something as abstract as numbers growing larger on a printed piece of paper represented investments able to sustain them in their retirement, so law abiding citizens of Gelion make decisions, count their successes and endure their loses, in the context of the Okal Rel system of rewards and punishments. Violators of either system threaten the equilibrium between collective and individual interests. More personally, and poignantly, criminals in either system mock the decisions and sacrifices of those who chose to play by the rules. The hatred and punishment they incur is, therefore, quite naturally proportional to the gravity of those sacrifices. In the case of 20th century earth, theft was punished with fines or imprisonment which deprived the offender of wealth or the means to enjoy it. On Gelion, offenders are deprived of their lives and the prospect of repeating them through rebirth because personal survival, and the prosperity of the clan, are the stakes that they play for. Punishments do not exist because cheating is an impossible means of resolving conflict. To the contrary. They exist exactly because cheating is both tempting and possible. The more tempting, the more possible, and the more damaging successful cheating would prove to the fabric of the social contract, the more strenuously cheaters will be reviled and hated. I leave it to the student, as an exercise, to consider how these principles apply to Rire's reliance on its arbiters."

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