Scriptural Reflection: Amash Akura 25:16 -- On Service

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"To serve, unshakably, is to reach greatness."
The Scriptures, Amash Akura, 25:16

These words are, perhaps, some of the most important in shaping Amarr culture, yet also perhaps often ignored.

To serve, unshakably, is to reach greatness. Thus, it is that slaves, having served well, eventually reach the greatness of their masters. Too often we forget this idea, though, and consider slaves or those who were slaves as always lesser; or we think of slaves as existing only to glorify us, their masters, when scripture would have their purpose be to glorify themselves.

Even more, though, we forget what this passage implies: that greatness comes from serving. It is the calling of all of us, from the lowest slave to the greatest holder, to even the Empress, to serve. This is how we achieve greatness, this is how we demonstrate the greatness we have, and this is what the greatness inside of us calls us to do.

Rulers, then, are called not to rule for their own glory, but to guide those they rule, and to humbly serve. Those that hold slaves are called not to use them for their own ends, but to serve those in their care, improving their lives. Those who are under others should serve them not because they are bound to, but because serving is a good thing.

Service to one another holds societies together, gives them strength. When communities know that all members will serve the common good, and mutually serve each other, they thrive. When they cannot trust each other to do so, they fall apart. When communities are united, and one member falters in their service, the others can encourage them, and they can return to doing what is right. Yet when one member betrays the others by not serving them, the others also will falter in their dedication. A strong community, then, is required to ensure that all are unshakable in their service.

From service, greatness. Because one is great, service.

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Servitude is an inherently noble trait. It requires strength of will and fortitude to put someone else ahead and above yourself and your own desires. On the other side of the coin, it’s also a refuge for the uncertain and weak who dare not take responsibility and instead want to hand that off to someone else, in favor of only having to obey and follow orders.

So where then do we find the nobility in forced servitude? It removes the nobility of selfless sacrifice for someone else, so it’s not that. It removes the necessity for character, will and fortitude since there is no choice of whether to do this or not. It instead forces the other side of the coin upon them, taking away the choice and possibility to forge a path ahead, the responsibility and value of forging your own view and stance on New Eden and its inhabitants.

To serve, unshakably, is to reach greatness indeed. Being forced to serve… only diminishes and demeans, because it removes everything that part of scripture should be teaching you. To willingly and faithfully serve is the prerequisite for the servitude to raise you above the base animal, and this is in direct opposition to the vile practice of human slavery.

That only leaves one path to greatness. To stand up, reject the tyranny and heinous violation of your mind, body and spirit and rebel. If successful, this is the path towards finding someone or something worth serving, which any who would force such upon another is not. If unsuccessful, it will still have been a demonstration of will and fortitude, and as close to the rewards of willing servitude as one can get when such conditions are forced upon one.

You have taken all the wrong lessons from your scriptures, ‘faithful’ Amarr. This is what will become your downfall, one day. I truly mourn what could have been, if the corrupt and power-hungry hadn’t twisted and blighted your shining light into the travesty it has become today. That so many trillions willingly pretend that they can not see the rot within if nothing else proves that humanity has a very long path to walk before it can become that point where the rising man meets the falling angel.

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Slavery is a punishment for conquered peoples and criminals. In its best it is a redemptive punishment, where penance is done and salvation can be found, but it is still a punishment. Slaves serve for the lord. To glorify the lord, and to glorify God, and through that glorification find some manner of redemption for themselves. That is their purpose. Education and guidance might happen, to greater or lesser effect depending on the lord, and this is certainly a good thing, but it is a side-effect, a byproduct.

There is nothing more dishonest than a holder that thinks they work for their slaves. No slave will respect a lord that says it is in fact he who is the servant, who tries to steal the virtue of service from their slaves on top of everything else they have taken. Holders rule. They serve their own lords, and God ultimately, but it is the slaves who serve for the lord. Be a good person and reward services rendered to you with grace, and cultivate the spirit of those under you, but never make the claim that you are the servant and the slave is the served.

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Samira says it excellently. The holder who claims their position is one of servitude to those that actually serve is a liar or an idiot. Our position is a privileged one which requires great considerations of ethics and Faith but we are hardly mining for coal.

God has so ordained that the yet to be cleansed will purify themselves under the service of lords. This much is true.

However, it is completely undermined by the idea that the service they perform in this status is for anybody but themselves. The majority of the Matari remain in our care and have either undergone or are undergoing the process of being reclaimed. Every grain of wheat they harvest; every ore fragment of iron they mine is their accomplishment and another brick set into the road of the Faith.

Slaves do not work for the redemption of their masters; they work for the redemption of themselves.

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Your position is one of oppression and exploitation in the name of maintaining power and spreading a ‘Faith’ so weak that you clearly don’t believe it stands on its own merits. If you did, you’d let it. You’d spread your faith by word and by example. You’d demonstrate the virtue in your ‘virtues’. You don’t have to enslave someone to teach them mathematics, or physics—you introduce concepts, you demonstrate those concepts are correct, and you let them seek to enrich and deepen their own understanding. If the Amarr ever truly believed your religion was as true and real as ‘1+1=2’ or the laws of motion, you’d have the courage and faith to let it stand on its own. But your faith’s never really been about anything but maintaining the temporal power of those who control it.

The ‘nobility’ in involuntary service is surviving it, and never letting the cowardly parasites who call themselves your masters win.

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Amarri ite domum !

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Non Servium

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Thank to those who have posted thoughtful replies – I may not agree with all of their points, but I find having well presented differing viewpoints along with my own to be worthwhile, both for myself as it forces me to think more deeply about what I believe, and for those reading as well.

In regards to the service of those in power to those under them, perhaps I should have been more clear in my words, my intent was to convey my belief that in the mutuality of service – that those in authority have a duty to those under them, that it should be a mutual beneficial relationship. Given the subject of my reflection, I chose to render this as ‘service,’ though it is different from service in the conventional sense, because I believe it is still such in its way, and because it emphasized the point I was making.

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I understand criminals being punished but why should those your masters conquer be punished? Because they lost a war? Isn’t being subsumed and losing one’s heritage, culture and racial identity enough of a punishment?

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Slavery’s the mechanism they use to achieve that.

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It is punishment for straying from the righteous path in the first place, sins of the ancestors and all that malarkey.

… also, conveniently a very useful way to suppress, break and subordinate a newly conquered people, but that’s surely coincidental and excused with the above.

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@Anabella_Rella What @Arrendis said.

@Mizhara_Del_thul: It is not coincidental. Suppressing, breaking, and subordinating a newly conquered people so that they can be integrated into the society in a way where their previous cultures and communal bonds are unable to exert any influence over Amarrian society is the core purpose of the institution. It’s to ensure that subversive minority groups are destroyed at the root and prevented from ever growing into something that could threaten the Empire. What the sin established is that there is only one good culture–Amarr–and it needs such mechanisms to ensure that impure foreign influences cannot corrupt it.

To @Garion_Avarr, your words were clear. But there are many, many holders who claim exactly what I said in relation to this topic. My points were more against those who take up that habit.