Society + Culture,

No Freedom
By James L. Secor

Socialism maintains that before a socialist state can be realized slave mentality must be gotten rid of. I will go even further: before there can even be responsible self-determination, slave mentality must be gotten rid of. And. . . .at the present time there is no possible way that Americans can rid themselves of authority and enjoy self-determination because they wallow in slave mentality.

Let us look at slave mentality a bit closer. It comes in two varieties: that of the slave and that of the master.

The slave works for someone else, a master, and reaps no benefit from that work--other than, perhaps, subsistence level living. This seems to be the condition of America at present: it's called working for The Man. Nobody wants to work for The Man but if you want to work, you must work for The Man. Catch-22. Like Communism. A slave has the tendency to not perform to maximum potential; slavery breeds incompetence and irresponsibility. Why bother when you know you've got a job? Don't rock the boat. Don't upset the apple cart. Tufthunter. Lackeyjackal.

Most Americans would admit this is what has only happened with government employees. Indeed, as with a slave, they cannot be fired. Learn to do what you're told. Follow directions. Don't ask questions. Act dumb. If you excel, you are hounded, debased, and ostracized by your fellow workers for showing them up for lazybones slackers who are taking up space and basically stealing the boss's money. And speaking of stealing: the slave takes (steals) a thing or two here or there to have something, to sneak something from under Massa's nose so they, the slaves, the underlings, can laugh at Massa's stupidity.

A free man doesn't need to do this because he's working to the best of his ability and reaping benefits. Slaves reap nothing but what they can steal. Excellers are not slaves; if you don't slave, you suffer. Play the game, dude. Just mosey along doing the bare minimum. Be a perfect example of slave mentality.

Slave mentality also involves a belief that you are somehow less than your masters. No matter what you want to believe--you're just as good as him, you're equal to everybody--you are really "less than." The louder you shout about equality and being just as good as, the mo yo is less'n.

This is most obvious when those lesser-than people strive to get to the top: they want to be like their masters. As if their masters are better, the right kind of people even while hating that kind of person. If you want to be like your betters, you are still less than they are because you see them as your betters and you want to be like them. Not like yourself. Better than yourself. Why? There's to like about yourself when you're a slave.

A piece of dirt. A little shit. But. . . you want to be like your hated masters anyway. Why? So you can enslave them. So you can debase and dehumanize them. Do unto others as they have done to you. So, what is so different between you, the slave, and them, the masters?

No difference--other than you think you are doing your betters one better. As long as you think they are your betters, you are a purveyor of slave mentality. So, too, as you behave as they do, enslaving those inferior to you. And there's always somebody, right?

The ultimate in slave mentality is that there is nothing you can do to change things. This is the way it's been, this is the way it will be. Que sera sera--the same old same old. These kinds of slaves tend to complain a lot, like all slaves, while they wallow in self-pity or, more self-righteously innocent, in complacency. I ain't doin' nothin'. I ain't done nothin'. Much of the middle class, as they call themselves, fall into this category. They're comfortable enough (working for The Man), why change anything? Even if you're not getting anywhere. Of course, since you can't change anything it's better to not cause trouble and just put up with your lot.

Slave mentality knows no freedom. Slave mentality is enchained by tradition, by so-called social values, glue. Slave mentality is believing you are less than your masters, less than yourself. Being less than you could be. . .and settling for it.

But it's not just the complacent majority who suffer from slave mentality: the left, the rebels do too. They subscribe to the violence-equals-change, violence-to-end violence: an ages old doctrine. The behavior of their masters. It's tradition. They also subscribe to out-of-date solutions to what they perceive as present-day problems.

That too is tradition, looking backwards. They are stuck in "the same old" mindset. Massa done it an' wha's good fo Massa is good enuf fo me. Yassuh.* And these lefties consider themselves somehow less while shouting vehemently that they are equal, that they want their rights to equality. . .and that they don't want their betters on top: they want the power their betters have. Regardless of the rhetoric, they want to be like their betters. In the end, they, these rebels, these revolutionaries, want to do to their betters what their betters are doing to them. Very typical slave mentality: I'll make you pay.

Part of this is due to that horrid small-minded theory called Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism has been around for about 100 years. It is based on a socio-anthropomorphism. On a misinterpretation of the most unread, most talked about book in the world: Origin of the Species. If one bothers to read this huge boring tome, one finds that Darwin never said anything definitely.

He never makes a demonstrative statement in conclusion. His writing hedges his bets: perhaps, may be, seems, appears, could be. . . . But the embattled aristocracy and the industrialists jumped on the phrase "the fittest survive," mutated it to "the strongest survive" and then propaganda'd a heinous crime against humanity by developing the tautological doctrine of Social Darwinism. If you're not on top, if you're not successful ( i.e. rich), you're not of the stronger sort, you're weak. If the strong are on the top of the heap, since they're on the top of the heap they're strong; therefore, y'all at the bottom must be weaklings.

The world sucked this right up like a fish a juicy worm. Yeah. Dat's it. I's bin wondrin' why I's so po and lo down an' now I know--I's weak. I ain't of de betta sort. Yassuh! Da's why I's a slave. I's meanta be. Lor, Lor now I kin live my life. I have learned my place. Despite the intelligent outcry against and denunciation of Social Darwinism, it has quietly seeped into the bedrock of society til we reek of slave mentality like a backed up sewer.

Now, the slavers, the slaveholders: The Man. They, too, are subject to slave mentality, for slave mentality goes both ways, like every chemical experiment. The belief that they are better comes in the face of an underlying fear that they are less--or not so better. So they must keep those others down, in an inferior position.

Thus, they are continually running in fear despite their lavish life style and devil-may-care behavior. They are cavalier in their dealings with their supposed uppity inferiors because they have the means to insure they remain untouched--while calling those lower down slave types untouchables.

The slaveholder, because he sees slaves as less than human, begins to generalize this attitude to all people. Slaves are things to be used and discarded when finished with. He begins to treat his own kind as things. Things to be manipulated, used and discarded. Irresponsible. As irresponsible as the slave who would let someone die--uppity, excelling slave--to maintain a lackadaisical safe position.

It is at this point that slave and slaveholder meet: both think of people as things. The slaves see themselves as things; the slaveholders see people as things.  The others around us are not human and we treat them so, as if fear drives us.

Fear of discovery. Fear of being bettered. So everyone must be watched. Kept down. Step out of line and you're dead, really or virtually. So easily blown off. In the process, of course, you become a thing yourself. A deadened thing. Emotions going the way of energy and drive.

A person without passion is stupid. Self-worth is zero. And so. . .there can never be any freedom. For anyone. Because we are suffering--all of us--from slave mentality. From being less, less than we are--and willing to stay in that place. It's a safe place. If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all.

What is there to do?

There must be some kind of authority--even a benevolent dictatorship in which the dictator prays daily that his position be relegated to the trash bin--to lead us along. Why? Because people are not free enough to be responsible. People are not independent enough to make their own decisions at this time. They are slaves to authority.

Now. The people in America cannot do anything without a law telling them not only that it's okay to do it but that you can't do this other thing. There is no ability to make a choice without being told it. Slave mentality: wha's I t'do nex' Massa?

Look carefully at the laws--and the proposed laws: virtually all of them tell you what you can't do. Repressive. Regressive. Unfree-ive. Where is freedom in this? Where is responsibility in this? Where is individuality in this? Nowhere. No freedom. Slave mentality: "Kin I do dat? Kin I do dis?" NO! Not only "Can I read Huckleberry Finn?" but "I cannot make the choice whether to read or not to read. I need a law to tell me what to do--and it should apply to everybody since we's all in de same boat." The slave master says, "You will do this!" And you do it. Slave. You have no choi--say. . .wait a minute. . .isn't choice, the ability to make a decision to do or not to do, the stone upon which freedom is built? Well duh!

This kind if repressive, depressive, regressive dictatorial power is not needed. It needs to be done away with. It needs to be replaced by a different kind of authority. We've seen how democracy has foundered--because of slave mentality.

Because the majority of Americans are the self-righteously innocent, the ones who didn't do nothing. And that's right: they did nothing. They didn't even bother to vote. They didn't bother to state their opinions--like slaves.

They don't do anything. It's not their affair. It's not their affair. It has nothing to do with them. It is these self-righteously innocent who have brought about the demise of a dream, however elitist it may have been at its conception. It is the running-in-fear masters who have taken advantage of this mindlessness to turn democracy into Antiphon's tyranny. It is the rebellious left, who maintain a single-minded devotion to old hat single-mindedness about there being one single problem that has allowed this to continue. These lefties believe in solidarity, in all of one mind. . .which is no different than the present Massa mind. It is part and parcel of the problem: we are telling you what to do. You know. . .if you don't believe like this you're wrong. What is so different from the repressive, regressive, depressive authority now in existence? What is different from the slave mentality?

Nothing. Nada. Zenzen. Meiyodongxi.

What happened to the ability to make a decision on one's own?

It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist within the slave mentality. There is no initiative with slave mentality. So there is no possibility of freedom. There is no possibility of doing away with some kind of authority.

The problem is: what kind of authority do we want. . .and how are we going to assure that it remains "so"? Obviously, we can't rely on "the people." They are too enslaved. How about the mavericks? How do we find them. . .really? For they are "out there." They do exist.

They are the caveat.

How do we free people from their self-imposed slave mentality? How do we get them to rise up to their potential? To act on their own initiative? I think the real question here is how do we get them responsibility? If you make people responsible for their behavior, if they must pay the consequences, they tend to become more responsible.