Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Natural servitude is not the reason for beating.
In plain terms
If they were servants by nature, beating wouldn't be needed.
What can you take from it?
Oppression is maintained by force, not nature.

Where it applies

  • debating justice
  • historical critique

Putting it to work

  • challenging oppression
  • identifying coercion

Questions to consider

  • Who controls whom?
  • Why is force used?

Another view

Some may argue nature plays a role.

More from Orson Scott Card

  1. There is no good thing that does not cost a dear price. That is what Cristoforo learned by looking back upon his life. Happiness is not a life without pain, bu…

    Permalink to quote #792
  2. It's a brave man who beats a little child. They'll no doubt write songs about your courage.

    Permalink to quote #794
  3. She could never have been the woman of his dreams; there were times when he suspected she had once loved another man, too, that was as lost to her as both his …

    Permalink to quote #791

Related quotes

  1. I may say this is a deluded generation, veiled with ignorance, that tho popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it; tho I am sure there was …

    Richard RumboldRichard Rumbold quote #1
  2. The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.

    Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht quote #13
  3. When America passed the fugitive slave law compelling men to catch their fellows more brutally than runaway dogs, Canada, aristocratic, unrepublican Canada, st…

    Voltairine de CleyreVoltairine de Cleyre quote #18