Hi Lisa,
Thank you for the opportunity to engage in creative communion–and to make the “unconscious conscious.” I believe it was systems scholar Bela Banathy who said, “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.”
I have begun to question the traditional labor market [employer-employee] nomenclature as an example of such mislabeling. When we strip away the legal lacquer and peel back the political politeness a master-slave paradigm appears to be the underlying animus.
Freire calls “domination” a “fundamental” phenomenon:
“I consider the fundamental theme of our epoch to be that of domination—which implies its opposite, the theme of liberation, as the objective to be achieved. In order to achieve humanization, which presupposes the elimination of de-humanizing oppression, it is absolutely necessary to surmount the limit-situations in which people are reduced to things.” Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p.84.
I contest the confining of domination to “our epoch.” The myth of Erysichthon and Ceres suggests that slavery is more ubiquitous and persistent than many may want to concede:
Erysichthon [Earth-tearer] was a rich and impious man who cut down a tree from the sacred grove of Ceres [mother earth] for his banqueting hall. By cutting down the tree, he had killed a dryad nymph [oak tree productive force]. The other dryads called upon Ceres [mother earth] to avenge their sister.
Ceres inflicted Erysichthon with insatiable hunger. No matter what Erysichthon ate, he could quell his hunger for more food. Erysichthon sold everything he had, for food, until he had nothing left but his daughter, Mestra [teacher]. He sold her too!
While on the seashore awaiting possession by her owner, Mestra prayed to Poseidon [the sea] to save her from slavery. She was then given the ability to shift-change—first a fisherman, then a mare, an ox, a bird, and so on.
Mestra escaped from her master and returned to her father who saw endless opportunity to make money by her. Driven by hunger, Erysichthon sold his daughter off, like livestock, into slavery, for a great deal of money to buy more food. But all the money she earned was not enough. Finally, driven to despair, he consumed himself.
Some observations and questions:
1. Is “domination” the exception or the rule? I suspect scholars have been tip-toeing around this issue.
2. The Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1996) defines slave thus: 1) captive 2) person owned by and has to serve another, 3) machine or part of one, directly controlled by another—Morgan’s Machine Metaphor immediately comes to mind.
3) Erysichthon sold his daughter off, like livestock. Our word chattel [movable “property”] originally meant livestock.
4) Moderns recoil at the suggestion of slavery as an organizational norm. “You are always free to leave,” they say. But if the assumptions underlying the master-slave, owner-owned, subject-object relationship greet the “runaway,” then how is that liberating?
Your thoughts Lisa?
Reference
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007.
Hi Lisa,
I was intrigued to find that the English word “boss” comes from a Dutch word meaning “master” and that “its popularity in U.S. may reflect egalitarian avoidance of master.” Further to my thesis that global labor-market exchanges [authority constrained interactions] are disguised master-slave relationships, I surfaced the following:
Two definitions of slavery highlight two salient dimensions: dehumanization and domination.
1) Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others.
2) Slavery is “the condition or fact of being entirely subject to, or under the domination of, some power or influence.” http://www.alternet.org/rights/69748/
While the conditions of slavery could vary from master to master (or mistress) the dimensions of domination and dehumanization remained constant. For example, slaves in ancient Roman society:
• could be subject to harsh discipline
• were never allowed to forget their inferior status
• often slept were they worked
• were human tools who did not require privacy or their own space
• were viewed as a commodity
Commenting on the “supply side” of the slave-master relationship, the Believers Bible Commentary epitomizes Luke 17:10 thus:
The Five Marks of a Slave
1) He must be willing to have one thing on top of another put upon him, without any consideration being given him.
2. In doing this, he must be willing not to be thanked for it.
3. Having done all this, he must not charge the master with selfishness.
4. He must confess that he is an unprofitable servant.
5. He must admit that doing and bearing what he has in the way of meekness and humility, he has not done one stitch more than it was his duty to do.
Speaking to the “demand side” of the master-slave relationship, MacLaren says:
“And what is involved therein? Absolute authority; so that the slave is but, as it were, an animated instrument in the hand of the master, with no will of his own, and no rights and no possessions.”
Freire says that an “oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surrounding it into an object of its domination. The earth, property, production, the creations of people, people themselves, time—everything is reduced to the status of objects at its disposal” (p.40). He continues, “humanity is a “thing” and they possess it as an exclusive right, as inherited property” (p.41).
I want to clarify that the master-slave relationship is not confined to “Capitalism” or “Communism.” I believe it is endemic to most superior-subordinate relationships. I recall the old Soviet joke, “under Capitalism, man exploits man; under Communism, the reverse is true.”
Bye for now!
References
Believer’s Bible Commentary (1995) –William MacDonald. Edited by Art Farstad. Thomas Nelson Publishers. p.1495
Boss. Online Etymology Dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=boss
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Luke (luke.iii.xvi) — MacLaren, Alexander (1826-1910). World Wide Study Bible.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007.
Slavery. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery