Cas, seems like Lyn understood my intentions.
You did not.
There is a few main differences between any real life example of slavery and what slavery is with the Amarrians.
The level of education/literacy in the culture that it is happening.
The fact that the Amarrians are living in a culture with very good primary education when it comes to moral issues.
The abuse towards slaves in the South can easily be explained by the facts that everyone involved in slavery, even by modern standards, badly educated and living in a society where it was quite easy to control the travel of information. It is much likely for the lines of morality be fudged when you are a days travel from your closest neighbour, there has not been any kind of formal education in the whole county and you have no other entertainment than to get drunk and fuck something.
Low standards of education, isolation and no entertainment.
By ANY modern standards would that time and age be called civilized?
No.
Women were raped in marriages, domestic violence was rampant and it was quite common for a young man to die if he went out drinking, he was lucky if he was shanghaied to a ship. Duels were legal and you could die anywhere at any time if you were unlucky.
You take the worst parts of Deadwood and enhance the barbarism by a few decades or centuries.
Then the difference between then and 'now'.
I would think that all the Four Factions would be seen as civilized by modern standards.
Including the Amarr, including the Minmatar, the Gallente and the Caldari.
Which would mean that each faction has failsafes that deal with corruption among the powerful,
where there is an efficient police force that keeps all kinds of crime rates down,
where there is personal freedom if you follow the societys rules,
where there is some sort of welfare system that does not leave the citizens dying in the streets,
the list could go on for quite some time.
The key word is civilized.
To me civilized means that during your primary education you are socialized into your society so that you live by the ethic standards that enable for more advanced societies to survive.
The biggest part of this socialization is putting that little voice in your head that says 'No its not a good idea to steal shit' or go on a bovine raping rampage.
To say a future society that we would consider civilized would have its people acting nonchalantly towards breaking some of the fundamental rules of the society to me seems a tad unbelievable.
Also the issue has been touched about how well does the information about what the people in the Empire do travel to others within the Empire.
I would think that it travels to the religious authorities quite well (Ministry of Internal Order) but not to the common population (ACN).
The God is watching, with the little help of Big Brother and all the nice little informants that want to move up the ladder in the society.
So in the Amarrian society we would have.
Quite high educational standards when it comes to moral issues, no real isolation to commit atrocities without anyone finding out and a lot more chances for wholesome entertainment.
The fact that there is sex mentioned between a master and a slave in the PF, with abuse or not, with about six powerful individuals... it leaves several trillion within the Empire that are not perverts.
I'm just getting tired of this whole issue...