Slavery

[tfg345i4u5lw]

What is your definition of slavery? At what point does one become a slave? Is slavery psychological? Does our current system use slaves and if so who are they?

Lastly, do you consider yourself a slave?

 

[barbad0s]

[video=youtube_share;BlH6QaoOe8I]http://youtu.be/BlH6QaoOe8I[/video]

I'm a slave to this system I inhabit
To my good and bad habits
To my "have not"s
and my "I have to have it"s
I'm a civilized savage


For realz though, I think some people see addiction or psychological things like that as forms of slavery, but by definition it makes more sense to have to involve another party that benefits from the slave--a "master". Slavery is working hard for something and not really benefiting. It's like another word for, or an extreme form of, exploitation.

I'm probably a slave in many ways that I am not aware of to "the man", or at least that's what progressive people who think they are in the know want me to think. We can be slaves whether we know it or not. Those who are the best at being masters are the ones who let their slaves believe that they are free.

 

[tfg345i4u5lw]

[video=youtube_share;BlH6QaoOe8I]http://youtu.be/BlH6QaoOe8I[/video]

I'm a slave to this system I inhabit
To my good and bad habits
To my "have not"s
and my "I have to have it"s
I'm a civilized savage

We are slaves to our desires. Interesting. Perhaps this is the reason we enslave others.

 

[Soulful]

I don't know if I would call it slavery, because what I go through is certainly NOT comparable to the trauma endured by people who are or were significantly constrained or trapped, as the traditional definition of slavery would suggest.

However, I do feel controlled, and that is not a healthy reality. So yes, I feel myself trying to grapple with living in a dysfunctional and abusive global society, and it's deeply upsetting and damaging. It picks away at me, and I'm afraid of what that might mean for my future. Mostly, I just feel incredibly sick to feel stuck in it. I am incredibly lucky in some ways, but it comes at the costs of others. Right now, the clothes I am wearing, the computer on which I am typing, the internet I am using, the construction of my entire reality - really - has been provided through the exploitation of great numbers of people who are indeed enslaved moreso than I am. And knowing that my sense of security and the provision of my needs (food, shelter, healthcare, finances, and ways in which these and other resources affect my mental, emotional, and social experiences and thus define my life) are only mine to control to a certain extent that could be stripped as easily as with the gust of a wind, is terrifying. If the world is uncertain, unstable, and violent, and if a large majority of persons live in unsafe conditions and unstable economies, what's to say that won't happen to me one day? I am generally understanding and compassionate, but I sincerely hope the fuckers who profit from people's misfortunes bear hell one day and have the fortune to experience all of the suffering they cause others due to their own thoughtless, heartless, and selfish aims.

 

[Soulful]

I would also add that we're all stuck in life, and sometimes I feel like we've been enslaved by the greater powers that be or whatever it is that brought us here. But I try not to think of it that way too often. It is entrapment, though. It's like we awoke on a train, don't know how we got there, why we're there, or when it will stop. We don't know what's going to happen along the way, there may not be any rhyme or reason as to the conditions of our journey, or the nature of the finale of our trip. We could jump off of the train, but it takes much resources, time, effort, and an inner willingness to kill myself -- the latter of which I frankly do not possess. So, essentially I am stuck. Indeed. But again, I don't feel comfortable calling this slavery because I feel it would belittle the trauma of what is traditionally considered to be slavery, both past and present.

What do you all think?

 

[Rferraris]

We are nothing except what other things direct us to be. Rather than explain why or if you are a slave, explain how or when you are not.

 

[Soulful]

We are nothing except what other things direct us to be. Rather than explain why or if you are a slave, explain how or when you are not.

I'm of the opinion that the choices I make within my constrainted reality are made in a certain relative freedom. My conditions may be controlled, but my spirit remains my own.

 

[Rferraris]

I'm of the opinion that the choices I make within my constrainted reality are made in a certain relative freedom. My conditions may be controlled, but my spirit remains my own.

I maintain we have no original thought. Everything you think, every voice you hear, in your head or otherwise, you heard from someone, somewhere else.
Every thought about what you expect or will do is explained to you. It can be no other way. We are born with nothing and learn associations. Ask if there is something you know or understand that is not an association We live another day and have more associations. This makes the result a product of the input.
Simple math. The product is a result of the variables. Nothing too brilliant here. We aren't responsible for who we are. We might convince ourselves we have preference, but we only express preference for choices we are given. We don't make the choices, we simply choose. But from the choices we are given, which make us slaves. Or non existent without what it is that gives us the ability to be here, but not of our own volition.

 

[Soulful]

I maintain we have no original thought. Everything you think, every voice you hear, in your head or otherwise, you heard from someone, somewhere else.
Every thought about what you expect or will do is explained to you. It can be no other way. We are born with nothing and learn associations. Ask if there is something you know or understand that is not an association We live another day and have more associations. This makes the result a product of the input.
Simple math. The product is a result of the variables. Nothing too brilliant here. We aren't responsible for who we are. We might convince ourselves we have preference, but we only express preference for choices we are given. We don't make the choices, we simply choose. But from the choices we are given, which make us slaves. Or non existent without what it is that gives us the ability to be here, but not of our own volition.

I didn't say we have original thought. Perhaps some people do. Perhaps most of us don't. However, I *choose* what I think on a regular basis. Not always, but at least some of the time. I take the time and the energy to reflect on the thoughts, feelings, etc. I engage, and I deliberately choose. So, to that end, I consider that a freedom of mine. Perhaps if I had an illness that put my mind in control of my thoughts, such that I couldn't distinguish physical reality from false constructs, or heard voices, etc. I would think differently, but as is the case I do not experience that and so I associate my experience as one of freedom. Feel free to disagree, though. I'm happy to hold differing opinions. I certainly don't wish to argue or even to debate this.

 

[Rferraris]

I didn't say we have original thought. Perhaps some people do. Perhaps most of us don't. However, I *choose* what I think on a regular basis. Not always, but at least some of the time. I take the time and the energy to reflect on the thoughts, feelings, etc. I engage, and I deliberately choose. So, to that end, I consider that a freedom of mine. Perhaps if I had an illness that put my mind in control of my thoughts, such that I couldn't distinguish physical reality from false constructs, or heard voices, etc. I would think differently, but as is the case I do not experience that and so I associate my experience as one of freedom. Feel free to disagree, though. I'm happy to hold differing opinions. I certainly don't wish to argue or even to debate this.

Well, I wanted to respond. But you said you don't want to go on. So I'll leave it here. I didn't think of it as an argument. I was actually interested to see where it might go. I think it's an interesting exercise. I still wonder if the choices we make are just from the choices we are given. I'm not one to choose the most delicate way to say things, so my fear is I confront or say things too aggressively. But as an example, of all the things I could say as a response to you, they are from a discrete list of options. For example, I can't say words we both don't understand, or have a meaning of some sort. Every choice I make will be from a select list of responses. I only know what I know.
I only know what I've been taught.
So to that end I am a slave. I can only move in the directions you have let me. I can only do the things this life has let me choose from and I can't do the things I don't yet know of. I can't choose from the choices I don't recognize as choices but choices are the choices that have been given to me. I ask what choices are mine, and not given to me. What ideas can I claim ownership of. Or are they all something I got from somewhere else.

But again. I'm not trying to make enemies. So feel free to not respond and I won't take offense. I was just having fun exercising this thought and to see if I could learn from you.

 

[Soulful]

Well, I wanted to respond. But you said you don't want to go on. So I'll leave it here. I didn't think of it as an argument. I was actually interested to see where it might go. I think it's an interesting exercise. I still wonder if the choices we make are just from the choices we are given. I'm not one to choose the most delicate way to say things, so my fear is I confront or say things too aggressively. But as an example, of all the things I could say as a response to you, they are from a discrete list of options. For example, I can't say words we both don't understand, or have a meaning of some sort. Every choice I make will be from a select list of responses. I only know what I know.
I only know what I've been taught.
So to that end I am a slave. I can only move in the directions you have let me. I can only do the things this life has let me choose from and I can't do the things I don't yet know of. I can't choose from the choices I don't recognize as choices but choices are the choices that have been given to me. I ask what choices are mine, and not given to me. What ideas can I claim ownership of. Or are they all something I got from somewhere else.

But again. I'm not trying to make enemies. So feel free to not respond and I won't take offense. I was just having fun exercising this thought and to see if I could learn from you.

No, not enemies. It's been a long day and I'm just tired and don't want to force my brain to think about things it's not eager to mull over atm, and I don't want this to hang on my mind as something to have to return to later. Easier to just let it be for me right now. Sorry if that cuts the discussion short. I'm sure your points are valuable to consider.

 

[Apone]

You could probably have called this thread 'what does it mean to be free?', which is actually a really difficult question to answer.

I'd say that children have it the worst when it comes to slavery, which is actually really horrible... I guess because they're the weakest. Women/girls are probably second... though a lot of the time they're also included in the 'children' description. I'm talking mostly about troubled/underdeveloped countries here.

I definitely don't think that I am a slave in any way. Most of the people who think that Westerners are enslaved really don't seem to be interested in comparing our situation to situations where actual slavery is unquestionably involved. A lot of people in the west (barring those trafficked in) have an extremely high quality of life and that includes the kind of freedom that a lot of people in other parts of the world probably sell their children to get.

If you have a broad enough definition, then you could say that we're all slaves to our bodies because we need food and water and we actually have to do things in order to get them, or children are slaves to their parents because without them they wouldn't have a home, but I think that there's a difference between not providing for someone and enslaving someone, and there's a difference between not getting your way and being a slave.

'The system' is usually pretty hands-off... in some ways it empowers the individual but you do have to accept its terms, and they're not always fair or ethical. Still, if you have issues with the system it's completely possible to escape it, or I suppose get a bunch of people together and buy an island or plot of land somewhere and set up your own community... and unless you do things to call attention to yourself or break the law, you should be okay.

The difference between the system and slavery is that until the population explodes to the point where the Earth is infested, you can leave pretty much any time you want. It's not easy, but no one is stopping you. There are still places that you can go where nobody will bother you... they're not always the most livable places in the world, however.

Slavery is when you don't have the option to be free, when you can be bought and sold by owners, and will be actively hunted/tortured/killed if you disobey or try to escape. I don't think that people who actively embrace the system and complain that they're not getting what they want out of it are slaves in any way, even if they want to think that way.

Anyways, good thread-- it got me thinking.

 

[Radiantshadow]

We have no original thought.

We are born with nothing and learn associations.

The product is a result of the variables.

We aren't responsible for who we are.

We don't make the choices, we simply choose.

1. Then how do you account for discovery and innovation, or even their base faculty of creativity? The continued debate of philosophical topics -- among them the mind-body problem -- dating from the ancient world does not preclude an absence of progress, much to the contrary in fact. They just laid the foundations, the direction so to speak; we have been filling in the details ever since.

2. Mostly true, with two notes: motivation, which can be both learned and innate, can guide and form associations, and we have massive capacities for certain behaviors regardless of environment, chief among them language/grammar. (The lesson to take away from this is that behaviorism and cognitivism are integrated.)

3. That is true only for sensation, the raw accumulation of sensory information. I.e, the same stuff goes to the brain through the same media. Once there, it must be acted upon to be significant in any way, which is the realm of perception. Perception in turn is filtered by attention, an agent of motivation, which can be both intrinsic and extrinsic. We are more than the sum of our physical parts. (I'm obviously a dualist.)

4. Do you understand the implications and allowances of that blanket statement? If what you say were true, then every teenage girl in America suffering from an eating disorder is perfectly happy with their condition and doesn't want to stabilize their self-esteem. Rape, abuse, and crime in general would also be permissible because the perpetrators clearly don't know that they're hurting someone.

5. Yet what we choose, and why, makes all the difference.

---------------------------

At the OP:

My definition of slavery is the state of being unwillingly bound to a harmful situation. This definition ironically makes it rather difficult to point out instances of true slavery, but I feel the distinction between being unwillingly bound to a harmful and an open-ended or beneficial situation is necessary.

So according to that criteria, one is a slave when they are in a situation harming to some aspect of their person and are unable to escape. In my mind, schizophrenics, among others, are slaves to their condition. They have no choice but to experience the hallucinations and other symptoms, which rolls right into chulo's question of whether slavery need be material. My answer is obviously a resounding NO.
@chulo What system, and part of whatever system, are you referring to?

Am I a slave?
No, I don't think so.

Am I forcibly bound to certain conditions?
Oh yes. Plenty of them.

 

[tfg345i4u5lw]

[MENTION=4108]Radiant Shadow[/MENTION]

I was speaking in general when I say "the system" but for me that would be America.

 

[this is only temporary]

What is your definition of slavery? At what point does one become a slave? Is slavery psychological? Does our current system use slaves and if so who are they?

Lastly, do you consider yourself a slave?

Hi Chulo! Good questions -- slavery is a term that gets bandied about rather loosely, imo.

When I think of slavery, the obvious thing that comes into my mind is the slavery that existed in the US prior to the civil war. You know, the kind where people were placed on auction blocks and bidded on like property, the kind where legally people did not qualify as a whole "person", the kind where if you wanted to run away and quit your job, your "owner" could legally have you forcibly returned and brutally whipped; the kind where it was not legal for a slave to learn to read and write, the kind where children and young teenagers worked at difficult, menial tasks such as hammering nails in a blacksmith shop, or heavy agricultural labor, and the kind where families were forcibly split up and sold to distant locations where they were then unable to find each other.

That to me is the obvious, classic definition of slavery. There really was no practical escape from it at all and it required violence and struggle to end it.

I've also used slavery to define addiction, and I believe that is a valid description in some cases.

Does our system use slavery?

Well, define "our" system! The US? The West? The whole entire world?

I understand that human trafficing exists today in certain places, including the US, though I have no personal experience with it. It ought to stop, no doubt, and that probably qualifies as slavery. This is not a legal part of the system in the US and there are many people fighting against it. You can get jail time if you get caught doing it, no? It is generally frowned upon and not part of the "system".

I know there are migrant workers and undocumented workers who are subject to abusive labor conditions. This, again, is not actually legal, so it could not be considered part of the system, could it?

I've heard there are people in the world today who willingly indenture themselves to con artists who promise to get them out of their home countries and to a better way of life -- I have heard that this happens in parts of southeast Asia, though I am fuzzy as to the details. I also understand that extremely bad labor conditions exist in the world today, particularly China. I have limited experience and understanding as to how oppressive those conditions are, never having been to China.

Those things might be considered a gray area similar to slavery? Certainly they are appalling conditions. But since these people have legal protection against it, I am not 100% sure it is the same as the antebellum form of slavery that was part of a legal, formal slavery. (?) Honestly, not sure, it is a gray area.

I've met people who are fairly well-educated, well-fed, living in a wealthy country with plenty of labor laws, and who have 40-hour a week jobs with weekends off, paid holidays and vacations, etc. etc. etc, and they bitch like its killing them, and call it slavery. THAT, imo, is pathetic, and not at all slavery.

If you have a boring or difficult job, or don't like your boss, or don't make much money, that is certainly frustrating, but it is not slavery. Sorry.

I've also noticed that some of the people I've encountered who bitch like their job is killing them, also seem to be averse to other forms of work, like taking care of their families or doing any kind of volunteer work or heaven forbid, agricultural work. Work, to me, seems to be a fact of life in just about any political or economic system, and cannot be totally eliminated as far as I can tell. Someone is always going to have to do some form of work to get food, shelter, etc. Don't you think so?

No, I am not a slave, but people have called me one! :laugh: I work, but I have significant choice in the matter, and I get many benefits and opportunities and legal protection in return. I actually enjoy work, well, most of the time, and I do not think work = slavery. (That said, if anyone is going to be giving out trust funds or free 20-year yacht vacations, sign me up, okay?)

 

[Rferraris]

]

1. Then how do you account for discovery and innovation, or even their base faculty of creativity? The continued debate of philosophical topics -- among them the mind-body problem -- dating from the ancient world does not preclude an absence of progress, much to the contrary in fact. They just laid the foundations, the direction so to speak; we have been filling in the details ever since.

2. Mostly true, with two notes: motivation, which can be both learned and innate, can guide and form associations, and we have massive capacities for certain behaviors regardless of environment, chief among them language/grammar. (The lesson to take away from this is that behaviorism and cognitivism are integrated.)

3. That is true only for sensation, the raw accumulation of sensory information. I.e, the same stuff goes to the brain through the same media. Once there, it must be acted upon to be significant in any way, which is the realm of perception. Perception in turn is filtered by attention, an agent of motivation, which can be both intrinsic and extrinsic. We are more than the sum of our physical parts. (I'm obviously a dualist.)

4. Do you understand the implications and allowances of that blanket statement? If what you say were true, then every teenage girl in America suffering from an eating disorder is perfectly happy with their condition and doesn't want to stabilize their self-esteem. Rape, abuse, and crime in general would also be permissible because the perpetrators clearly don't know that they're hurting someone.

5. Yet what we choose, and why, makes all the difference.

I understand what you are saying.
And remember, I didn't suggest you weren't free to make decisions or to choose from the choices I have, we have given you.

My point is you choose from the limits this life has given you.

Do you think an ant is aware. It makes choices. If it does, what are those choices. Move this dirt here. Go this way. Visit the queen. Eat.

Does the ant think about death.
Does it think about driving to work.
Does it consider the human condition and all that wrong in the world. Does it even know you are there.

What I'm saying. Forgiven if I sound rude. Don't mean to be. But it's incredibly arrogant to think you have all the answers. That you are even aware that another being or existence is there. Much like the ant doesn't know the first thing about you. It's arrogant to think all the options are in front of you and you know all there is to know. The ant doesn't know how to drive to work.
Maybe there is something that you dont know how to do.

My point is you are a slave to this existence. And you are a slave to your limitations. You can't know more than you know. You choose between a and b, but I gave you those options. Or god did. Whatever. Just making a point. You don't have all this free will. You have the freedom that was granted to you. Kinda like a slave working a farm. You get to sleep in this dirt hole, or the hole over there. Those are you choices. You have that freedom. But you can't say you aren't a slave. You can't say you can be anything because you don't even know what that means. Non of us do. So I argue we are slaves to our surroundings. You can't escape.

Whether the girl is happy or not with her eating disorder or I rape you is just choices from the limited ones we were given. And to that end I am a slave to the binds that hold me. And I don't see a way to freedom. Maybe when we die.

 

[moonlightam]

No matter how we think about it - we are almost all slaves to money. Theres not much choice, but to go and sell yourself (skills, body or soul) for money, otherwise you will simply not survive. You dont get a choice of a model of life you want to live, you are born, go to school (dunno about the rest of the world, but its mandatory in most of Europe), then you have a choice of either going to college/uni and try to sell yourself for more money in the future or dont continue education and get some low paying menial job just to feed and shelter yourself. There are, of course, exceptions, money-less communities and so on, but even they are not entirely free, somehow the land they live on needs to be bought/rented, tax paid (property or any other, this varies worldwide..). Work IS modern slavery in my opinion. You leave education with a massive fire of debt lit up under your ass, you need a place to live, you need to eat... so you dont really have a choice, but to work for someone who can give you some money to pay for these things. And very often the pay isnt enough - so you accumulate even more debt (credit cards, mortgages, payday loans etc) and then you become a real slave, you have to work just to keep your creditors happy. The reward for your work isnt adequate in most cases as well, everyone wants profit, but in order to make profit - someone has to deal with a loss, if your boss is keeping some of the money you earn as profit, you are at a loss, if someone is charging someone £1.90 for 2 litres of milk when the milk costs £1, they make profit, but the customer is at a loss...

 

[Radiantshadow]

]


I understand what you are saying.
And remember, I didn't suggest you weren't free to make decisions or to choose from the choices I have, we have given you.

My point is you choose from the limits this life has given you.

Do you think an ant is aware. It makes choices. If it does, what are those choices. Move this dirt here. Go this way. Visit the queen. Eat.

Does the ant think about death.
Does it think about driving to work.
Does it consider the human condition and all that wrong in the world. Does it even know you are there.

What I'm saying. Forgiven if I sound rude. Don't mean to be. But it's incredibly arrogant to think you have all the answers. That you are even aware that another being or existence is there. Much like the ant doesn't know the first thing about you. It's arrogant to think all the options are in front of you and you know all there is to know. The ant doesn't know how to drive to work.
Maybe there is something that you dont know how to do.

My point is you are a slave to this existence. And you are a slave to your limitations. You can't know more than you know. You choose between a and b, but I gave you those options. Or god did. Whatever. Just making a point. You don't have all this free will. You have the freedom that was granted to you. Kinda like a slave working a farm. You get to sleep in this dirt hole, or the hole over there. Those are you choices. You have that freedom. But you can't say you aren't a slave. You can't say you can be anything because you don't even know what that means. Non of us do. So I argue we are slaves to our surroundings. You can't escape.

Whether the girl is happy or not with her eating disorder or I rape you is just choices from the limited ones we were given. And to that end I am a slave to the binds that hold me. And I don't see a way to freedom. Maybe when we die.

Arg. It seems I was not clear, and I fear what follows will not adequately convey what I wish. But here I go...

We are held within boundaries, but even being as blind as we are to all that is is good enough. What we receive from the world can be molded to our purposes such that all needs and wants are met. That is why I do not consider myself a slave - everything I need to live the life I want is provided or capable of being produced. Nothing is being witheld, even sufficient confidence that I can trust what I know and even use it to predict other things. Possibility must be weighed against probability, wherein lies the real value of research. Skepticism leads to empirical reliability and validity. It is ironic that determinism can inspire, when I think about it.

As a side note, true happiness is not a choice. It is an emergent factor from a multitude of influences. A convergent stream, if you will.

---
For some reason your quote of my post did not show up, I had to check the thread itself to see if you had responded.

 

[tfg345i4u5lw]

Hi Chulo! Good questions -- slavery is a term that gets bandied about rather loosely, imo.

When I think of slavery, the obvious thing that comes into my mind is the slavery that existed in the US prior to the civil war. You know, the kind where people were placed on auction blocks and bidded on like property, the kind where legally people did not qualify as a whole "person", the kind where if you wanted to run away and quit your job, your "owner" could legally have you forcibly returned and brutally whipped; the kind where it was not legal for a slave to learn to read and write, the kind where children and young teenagers worked at difficult, menial tasks such as hammering nails in a blacksmith shop, or heavy agricultural labor, and the kind where families were forcibly split up and sold to distant locations where they were then unable to find each other.

That to me is the obvious, classic definition of slavery. There really was no practical escape from it at all and it required violence and struggle to end it.

I've also used slavery to define addiction, and I believe that is a valid description in some cases.

Does our system use slavery?

Well, define "our" system! The US? The West? The whole entire world?

I understand that human trafficing exists today in certain places, including the US, though I have no personal experience with it. It ought to stop, no doubt, and that probably qualifies as slavery. This is not a legal part of the system in the US and there are many people fighting against it. You can get jail time if you get caught doing it, no? It is generally frowned upon and not part of the "system".

I know there are migrant workers and undocumented workers who are subject to abusive labor conditions. This, again, is not actually legal, so it could not be considered part of the system, could it?

I've heard there are people in the world today who willingly indenture themselves to con artists who promise to get them out of their home countries and to a better way of life -- I have heard that this happens in parts of southeast Asia, though I am fuzzy as to the details. I also understand that extremely bad labor conditions exist in the world today, particularly China. I have limited experience and understanding as to how oppressive those conditions are, never having been to China.

Those things might be considered a gray area similar to slavery? Certainly they are appalling conditions. But since these people have legal protection against it, I am not 100% sure it is the same as the antebellum form of slavery that was part of a legal, formal slavery. (?) Honestly, not sure, it is a gray area.

I've met people who are fairly well-educated, well-fed, living in a wealthy country with plenty of labor laws, and who have 40-hour a week jobs with weekends off, paid holidays and vacations, etc. etc. etc, and they bitch like its killing them, and call it slavery. THAT, imo, is pathetic, and not at all slavery.

If you have a boring or difficult job, or don't like your boss, or don't make much money, that is certainly frustrating, but it is not slavery. Sorry.

I've also noticed that some of the people I've encountered who bitch like their job is killing them, also seem to be averse to other forms of work, like taking care of their families or doing any kind of volunteer work or heaven forbid, agricultural work. Work, to me, seems to be a fact of life in just about any political or economic system, and cannot be totally eliminated as far as I can tell. Someone is always going to have to do some form of work to get food, shelter, etc. Don't you think so?

No, I am not a slave, but people have called me one! :laugh: I work, but I have significant choice in the matter, and I get many benefits and opportunities and legal protection in return. I actually enjoy work, well, most of the time, and I do not think work = slavery. (That said, if anyone is going to be giving out trust funds or free 20-year yacht vacations, sign me up, okay?)

You bring up some good points about law and how it relates to slavery. Slavery to me is a very confusing concept because it appears that for slavery to exist, the people benefiting from it need to be either unaware or desensitized to it in some way. I think this is the case with our current system. We have slaves in China and even here in California but they are drowned out by all the commotion from everyday life. And sure modern slavery is technically illegal which makes it different from Americas past form of slavery but many aspects of our system are made illegal by design. So in that way they are still intentionally part of our system. Perhaps the illegality of modern slavery is what we use to desensitize ourselves to it. So instead of calling them slaves, we can just call them criminals.

When I take the train to Central California and look out the window I see slaves. They live in sheds made of sheet metal and they work in the fields. These are kids, women, and men. They don't need to be told "You can't go to school" because they already know it. It's not necessary for it to be written in a law because their socioeconomic situation is their law (or at least they think it is). And so they live within the confines of that law.

Which leads me to the psychological aspect of slavery. I often question the morality of expecting people to either have a 30-year mortgage or rent. I question it because us humans have an amazing ability to create opinions and beliefs based only on what we understand. The quote "nobody sees tears when you're standing in the storm" comes to mind. I sometimes think about Native Americans and how they would view a 30-year mortgage or rent. Would they look at us like we were crazy??? Maybe. They would probably think we were stupid for not producing our own food and being self-sufficient.

I guess it's just difficult to tell if we are slaves or not because I have only lived in this little sliver of human history. And I know that I am human and humans in general tend to be short sighted.

 

[acd]

Sometimes, I feel more like a tiger in captivity who still possesses an inkling of instinct and what it means to be free and wild--just enough to make me slightly insane.. but not enough to possess the courage to do anything about it.
And doing something about it would entail dropping everything and living precisely in the moment of every day--no wishing the hours and days away and worrying about intangibles.