It’s a weird thing when a people start to obsess about something that happened over a hundred and fifty years ago. If, for example, the Japanese suddenly, in 2022, started having a national dialogue to re-litigate the Kinmon Incident (1864), we might rightly start to wonder why. Or if tomorrow the Ethiopians begin to weep and rend their garments over the past genocide of the Oromo (1880s) under Emperor Menelik we might similarly be confused. America’s obsession with race and slavery is seen by others in much this same light.
“What are they talking about?”
We don’t know.
Like so many things, the conversation we appear to be having is actually about something else. This happens sometimes in relationships for example. When two people argue heatedly about the washing of dishes, it is seldom that the dishes themselves are what either of them is actually upset about.
We fight proxy wars.
The real things. The big things. The things we’re actually mad about and upset over, we don’t want to touch them. Bringing up that you feel neglected by your husband, that he doesn’t love you, and that you think he just views you as a maid to clean up around the house… that might cause problems. Best not to talk about that, per se. Let’s fight about the dishes instead.
Countries do that sort of thing too sometimes. Maybe all the time. The thing we’re actually mad about we don’t want to say out loud. It’s much too sensitive a topic. Too many myths about America and it’s people might fall down. Our self image would be destroyed. We would have to reinvent ourselves, face the fact that much of the narrative of our lives has been a lie.
…That might cause problems.
Best not to talk about it, per se.
Let’s argue about how people were treated in the 1840s instead.
I thought about this when I saw a recent news segment about the “antiwork” movement. The news segment itself was somewhat illuminating, considering the way they handled the antiwork advocate, but much more so was the reaction to it. In our personal relationships it is precisely the conversations we want to shut down, to reflexively ridicule and malign as stupid or unimportant, that are often the things we are scared to address. I think we saw that happen a little nationally, when this segment aired. The news simply ridiculed the person and social media simply piled on. The question of why this was a movement at all, much less one with over 1.7 million people talking about it, was never discussed. Those seem to be important questions. At least to me, a citizen who would prefer not live in a society collapsing faster than it must. I mean, I know the ship is sinking but could we at least try to make a raft? 1.7 million, mostly younger people, deciding that work just isn’t for them…. is a problem. Why?
Best not to talk about it, per se. Shut it down.
The reality is that a large swath of employment in the United States today is functionally no different than slavery. To people who have been conditioned to consider slavery the worst possible evil I realize that this sounds absurd. The thing is though, throughout most of the history of the world, including in the U.S. case, the life of a slave and the life of a worker in a cubicle have not been overly different. We hear slavery and think “Roots”, with devilish slave owners stripping the shirts off their slaves and whipping them while screaming slurs. Sure, that did happen. But also that isn’t really what slavery is. Most slavery, then and now, has been economically enforced.
Here’s how it worked.
In ye olden times, for whatever reason, you and your family might find yourselves on hard times. Maybe it didn’t rain enough this year and the crops didn’t grow. Maybe it rained too much and the end result was the same. Maybe there was an early frost that knackered all the potatoes. Maybe your farmhand son got kicked in the head by the mule and couldn’t work anymore and you had to sell off parts of your land to support him. However it happened, money was tight. You had mouths to feed.
What’cha’gonna’do?
Well, traditionally, you’d sell yourself into slavery.
So, your crops weren’t doing so hot. Okay, but hey maybe James’s farm down the road was having a banger year. Who knows why. Maybe James is simply a better farmer. Maybe he plans better for the winter. Maybe God just likes him more. Whatever the reason, James has food and you don’t. And James not only has food, he has excess food. Food that, maybe, you could convince him to share.
For a price.
And remember, you’ve really got nothing much to sell but your labor.
“Mr. James, hello. Listen, it appears as though I am going to starve to death. Instead of that, would you be willing to accept me and my family as farm hands, in exchange for bread to get through the winter?”
“Can you work hard?” Asks James.
“Certainly sir.”
“Hmm…. alright. You all can sleep in the barn.”
And then you take to calling him Master. Or, perhaps “lord” depending on the time period.
Now, the above seems far removed from our experience today but that is a clever ruse of propaganda. For one moment remove the emotion and baggage associated with the words “slave” and “slavery” and ask yourself really how much difference there is between calling someone “your master” and calling someone “your boss.”
Not much, by my estimation. Nor is your fundamental action in acquiring a boss any different in the slightest.
“Mr. James, manager of Company Inc, hello. Listen, it appears as though I won’t have enough money to buy groceries. Instead of that, would you be willing to hire me to perform labor in exchange for money to buy bread?”
Same same.
Potato, potato.
Yes, sure, conquering armies would also take slaves. They had too. People made their living off the land and you had just taken over the land. They were by definition working your land now. That’s part of the logic of slavery. It’s their thing, that they own, and you’re working it, for them. As such, they more or less own you too. Conquering armies still do this, by the way. We’re just very careful to call it by other names. The U.S. taking other countries under its wing post WW2 and demanding they get special trade deals (essentially, demanding that the people in those countries work, in part, for U.S. benefit), is the same thing. The US getting the tax money of the people of Bulgaria through a back door method doesn’t make it any different than the Romans demanding tribute from the Germans. We just hide our imperialism with layers of paperwork. That’s all. Nothing today is overly different than it ever was because the logic of slavery is sound. That’s why it’s always been with us. That’s why it’s unlikely to depart anytime soon.
There is therefore a great cognitive dissonance at play. America is supposed to be “the land of the free,” and yet most people don’t really feel very liberated. Independence, after all, is the linguistic opposite of dependence. When you are dependent on somebody else for your basic needs of life, you’re by definition not independent. You don’t have independence. You don’t have freedom. Mr. James, the slaveholder, the CEO, the HR manager, can and does control your life. Your time. How you behave. How you dress. In some cases he controls when and for how long you can go to the bathroom. He might give you a weekend, if he’s feeling generous. Might not though. There’s not overmuch you have in the way of say on the matter either. Your job is to do what you are told.
If you had to put me on a left-right political spectrum, most would probably place me on the right by a fair bit. (I actually consider myself a Verticalist but that, being a term I just made up, isn’t overly useful in public discourse.) That said, the far Leftists, the communists, have a point. As Chesterton stated:
“Those who will not even admit the Capitalist problem deserve to get the Communist solution.”
G.K. Chesterton
He’s right.
Communism is a horrible system that has historically resulted in a lot of riots, gun fire, starvation, and death.
But it doesn’t come from nowhere.
It’s also no wonder that Communism was birthed in the post industrial revolution world. Not coincidentally, the industrial revolution was also why slavery was “abolished”. See, slavery, the old kind, didn’t go away because people suddenly got more moral. It went away because technology gave us a new, more effective kind of slavery. If you like, it gave us slavery 2.0. That’s why those places that were the first to industrialize were also the first to get rid of slavery 1.0. The old way just didn’t make economic sense anymore. Everything had by then become replaceable parts, including the people. In slavery 1.0 you had to like, take care of your slaves for life and stuff. And their children! That’s annoying. In the new version of slavery, you can just hand them a pink slip and off they go. You don’t “own” them, in the traditional sense, so you’re more free to toss them aside. Yes, true, this also means that your slaves now have the ability to walk away and pick new masters at new jobs, but on the whole there’s a lot more have-nots than haves so you’re not worried about that too much. Plus you can rope them in so it’s very very uncomfortable for them to leave anyway, by paying for their healthcare and so on. So.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
“Progress” mostly isn’t. Not in the social sense anyway.
Technological progress surely happens but that appears to just create ever more subtle methods of control for those in charge. They can measure how long you’re actually in front of your computer now, often logging your position and activities every fifteen minutes. The people of Thomas Jefferson’s time could only dream of such control over their slaves. Wagie, wagie, get in cagie, as it were.
This is, of course, the perennial problem. It’s actually the entire plot line of the Bible, though few teach it that way. The Exodus, the fall into and escape from slavery is the focal point of the old testament and the lens through which almost all of the new is formulated. Christ goes so far as to imply at times that you are enslaved physically to men because you are enslaved metaphysically to sin.
“And you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.”
Jesus
That’s why he implores you to ask God for your daily bread. As I’ve mentioned before, “Lord” comes from the same word as “loaf.” Your lord was the giver of your loaf, the one who you relied on for your daily bread. Your master. Mr. James. Jesus is asking you to instead make God your Master. To become God’s servant and not Mr. James’s. Why? Because his yoke is easy. His burden is light. Even the phrase, “give us this day, our daily bread”, is a reference to the Exodus. The newly freed slaves, when they no longer relied on other men to be their loaf givers, had to rely on God. Manna from heaven. Every day.
I don’t know how to solve the country’s problems. Nobody does. But I do know that what we’re arguing about isn’t what we’re arguing about. People aren’t really against working. I don’t think so anyway. I think they’ve confused “working” for “feeling like I’m a slave.” Okay well, it’s a fair thing to not want to feel like a slave. Maybe we should talk about that.
So.
My advice?
You don’t have to put your faith in Mr. James. You don’t have to put your faith in Babylon’s magic green rectangles to save you. You can be free and put your faith in God instead. That doesn’t mean you don’t work or even that you don’t have a master. It just means that your master is God. Therein lies freedom. The real kind.
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other, Ye cannot serve God and money.”
Jesus
(P.S. Please remember that The Subscriber Q&A is still active. Thank you for reading.)
Good article, thanks. I've had a similar conversation with people IRL a few times and their initial reaction is always complete shock. But by the end they are thinking about it. Same with the "America is a child sacrifice cult", always shocking at first but then you realize it's basically true.
Beautifully written,love it.I love "wagie wagie,get in cagie!