Michael’s Reviews > Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study > Status Update

According to Patterson, Athens was the only society that had male concubines and manumission through male sexual exploitation.

I’m deep in the “Slavery as an Institutional Process” section. Patterson is covering a ton of ground here, and I’m not (yet) sure how the evidence is supporting his totalizing theoretical claims in the first section.

Part one finished on a high note: a critique of Hegel. Patterson says Hegel missed the freed person’s relationship to the Master/Slave dialectic. The master doesn’t receive recognition through the slave but from the free people via shared honor and mutual detection of the slave.

Long chapter:

Intrusive (e.g. war captive, outsider) vs. extrusive social death (e.g. criminal, fallen insider):

1. How slaves were or were not integrated into the community
2. How slaves were or were not recognized and marked
3. How slaves related or not to master’s kin (fictive kinship)
4. How religion justified, included, or excluded slaves, reinforced the system for both master and slave (e.g. Christianity)

Patterson says there's both insider/outsider routes to slavery (e.g., a criminal as an insider and a POW as an outsider). In either case, the slave symbolizes a "stranger" who is a "threat to the community." The slave is marked even when freed. I'm starting to really see how Afropessimism picks up on Patterson and pushes it further in ontology.

Patterson says there's both insider/outsider routes to slavery (e.g., a criminal as an inside and a POW as an outsider). In either case, the slave symbolizes a "stranger" who is a "threat to the community." The slave is marked even when freed. I'm starting to really see how Afropessimism picks up on this and moves in ontology.

Patterson argues (convincingly) that slaves aren't "property" by definition. He gives historical examples of humans being "owned" and used as property that wouldn't be considered slaves to the modern reader (controversially, bride sales and professional athletes). The idea that slaves are property comes specifically from Roman Law and carried through Western traditions. It is not necessarily cross cultural.