Philosophy.

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Lectures on Liberation

by: Angela Davis 1971 New York Committee

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N ION resented here are Professor Angela Davis’ initial lectures for “Recurring Philosophical Themes in Black Literature,” her

course at UCLA. taught during the Pall Quarter of 1969. At the time she was beginning a two-year appointment as Acting Assistant Professor in Philosophy, an appointment duly recom- mended by the Department of Philosophy and enthusiastically approved by the UCLA Administration. The first of the two lec- tures was delivered in Royce Wall to an audience of over fif- teen hundred students and interested colleagues, At the lecture’s end Professor Davis w olonged standing ovation by the audience. It was, we vindication of academic free- dom and democratic e or the lectures are part of an attempt to bring to light the forbidden history of the enslave- ment and oppression of black people. and to place that history in an illuminating philosophical context. At the same time. they are sensitive, original and incisive: the work of&n excellent teacher and a truly fine scholar. - Now Professor Davis is a prisoner of the society that should have welcomed her talents, her honesty and the contribution she was making toward understanding and resolving the most criti-

the division between its oppressors and its oppresse he was attacked by the Regents of the

p _ attempted to diZiG3 ‘[email protected]_fhe- _---____.. - --- Uniy!-2rsitv on the_patenf Iv illega_lground of her membership-_i.n the Com_munist Pace’ When this at-r %a?%%%m’by the Superior Court of Los Angeles, the Regents denied her the nor- mal continuation of her appointment for a second year, in spite of recommendations from a host of review committees and the Chancellor of UCLA that she be reappointed. buring the summer of 1970, she was charged with kidnapping. murder, and unlaw- ful flight to avoid prosecution, and was placed on the FBI most wanted list. When apprehended, she was held on excessive bail, then denied bail, and subsequently has been kept in isolation from other prisoners.

in her first lecture Professor Davis points out that kee ’ +

g an._opp,ressed class in ignorance is on% of-the Princlpa-_!ns$i-- -: --.- .._.---* -_ merits o f its oppr_essmn. EilFFF&lerickDouglass. the blackf - ---- __._ _. .,.

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slave whose life and work she surveys here, Professor Davis is one of the educated oppressed. Like him, she has achieved full consciousness of what it is to be oppressed, and has h d this consciousness in her own people and in others. ri’ be little doubt that her effectiveness in blunting the oppressive weapon of ignorance was the chief motive for her removal from the University of California, and a major motive in the harsh _ treatment she has since received. !’

These are lectures dealing with the phenomenology of op- pression and liberation. It is one thing to make the elementary point that millions are stiil oppressed in what is advertised as the world’s most free society. It is much more difficult to lay

Ii-out the causes of that oppression and the ways in whit it is % perpetuated; its psychological meaning to the oppressor and the

I oppressed; and the process by which the latter become

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con- scious of it; and the way in which they triumph over it. This was the task Professor Davis set for herself. She. . .-- - brings- o her work a rich philosophical background, a piercing intellect, and the knowledge born of experience.

It was perhaps inevitable that Professor Davis should be- come a symbol for conflicting groups and causes. But it is well to remember that behind the symbol lies the human being whose thoughts are recorded here, and that when she stands trial not

-only a human cause but also a human life will be tried. In the meantime, we take pride in presenting these two lectures by a distinguished colleague and friend. May they everywhere con- tribute to the defeat of oppression.

Matthew Skulica, English Peter Orleans, Sociology

Richard Ashcraft, Political Science

David Gilhnan, Mathematics lolrn Horton, Sociology

Sterling Robbins, Anthropology Paul Koosis, Mathematics

Marie Brand, Nursing Patrick Story, English ’

I. C. Ries, Political Science Alan E. Flanigan, Engineering

lerome Rabow, Sociology Roy L. W&ford, Medicine

Donald Kalish, Philosophy Albert Schuxzrtz, Htstory

Evelyn Hatch, English Wade Savage, Philosophy

Tom Robischon, Educdion Kenneth Chapman, Gotman Laurence Morrissette, French

Barbara Partee, Englis?~ Car-Los Otero, Spanish .

Temma Kaplan, History Peter Ladefoged, Linguistics

Alex Norman, Urban AhiTs

D. R. McCann, German Henry McGee, School of Iaw

E. V. Wolfenstein, Political Science Robert Singleton, Business Admin&tration

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The idea of freedom has justifiably been a dominating theme in the history of Western ideas. Man has been repeatedly defined in terms of his inalienable freedom. One of the ‘most acute para- doxes present in the history of Western society is that while on a philosophical plane freedom has been delineated in the most lofty and sublime fashion, concrete reality has always been per- meated with the most brutal forms of unfreedom, of enslavement. In ancient Greece where, so we are taught, democracy had its source, it cannot be overlooked that in spite of all the philosophical assertions of man’s freedom, in spite of the demand that man realize himself through exercisi as a the polis,the majority of the peopl

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were not citrzens and slavery was an accepted institution. More- over, there was definitely a form of racism preseat in C-k soci- e6, for only Greekswere surted for the benefits of freedom: all.nd bv their very nature could

In this context, one cannot fail to conjure up the image of Thomas Jefferson and the other so-called Founding Fathers formu- lating the noble concepts of the Constitution of the United Sates while their slaves were living in misery. In order not to mar the .beauty of the Constitution and at the same time to protect the in- stitution of slavery, they wrote about “persons held to service or labor,” a euphemism for the word slavery, as being exceptional types of human beings, persons who do not merit the guarantees and rights of the Constitution.

‘ B l a c k p e o p l e h a v e e x p o s e d , by t h e i r v e r y extstence, t h e i n a d e - quacies not only of the practice of freedom, but of its very theoretical 7f formulation.’

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its extent and limits, th this theme in the hist ber of rea’isonsmt

people who have been denied entrance into the teal world freedom. Black people have exposed, by their very existence, th inadequacies not only of the practice of freedom, but of its ver theoretical formulation. Because, if the theory of freedom rc- mains isolated from the practice of freedom or rather is contra- dicted in reality, then this means that something must be wr with the concept - that is, if we are thinking in a dialect m a n n e r .

The pivotal theme of this course will thus bboif freedom as it kunfnldedinterary undertaking of m @$i5Y’S~t~g with The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass -- we will explore the slave’s experience of his bondage and thu 5

important here will be freedom as 4 static *

spersed will be poetr’y from the various periods of Black Histor in this country, and theoretical analyses such as Fanon and D Bois’ A.B.C. of Color. Finally I would like to discuss a few pieces b,y African writers and poems by Nicolas Guillen, a black Cuban poet S and compare them to the work of American Blacks.

Throughout the course, I have sa will be the axisaround

studying will be crucial. The morality peculiar toe@.. 1 hav&tnome to grioswith. As w P

a t u r e - & I d e unfolding of freedom in Black liter-

retrieve a whole host of related themes. Before I get into the maferial, I ‘would like ta say a few

words about the kinds of questions we oupht to ask ourselves wl%%%?d~e’%o~&~-%$% of human freedom. First of all,, is freedommk&iective, totallv objective, or is it a synthe%-.” sis of botfioles? Let mefry to explai6&t3 mean.ls-e- dom to be conceived merely as an inherent, given characteris-

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tic of man, is it a freedom which is confined within the human mind, is freedom an inbmlal experience? Or, on the other hand,

of the more notorious statements which the French Existential- ist, Jean-Paul Sattre. has made. Even the man in chains, he says, remains free-and fat this reason: he is always at liberty to eliminate his condition of slavery even if this means his death. That is, his freedom is narrowly defined as the freedom to ,i choose between his state of captivity and his death. Now, this,‘; is extreme. But we have to decide whether or not this is the! : way in which we are going to define that concept. Certainly,! this would not be compatible with th when the slave-wpKfor~, he doe af~6iiditiG~ ot enslavemenf, for at thp v time he is abolishing the v t con ltion o te-‘d--‘Tfedom.life. Yet there is mote to b-,-when we take the decision to die out of an abstract context and examine the dynamics of a teal situation in which a slave meets his death in the fight for concrete freedom. That is to say, the choice, slavery or death, could either mean slav- ery or suicide, or on the other hand slavery or liberation at all costs, The diffeteetwen the te .ns is crucial.

‘The authentic co&ciousness of an oppressed people entails an understanding of the necessity to abolish, oppression. The .slave finds at the end of his journey towards understanding a real iWsp of. what freedom means. He knows that it means the destruction of the master-slave relationship. And in this sense. h,is knowledge of freedom is mote profound than that of the master. For the master feels himself free and he feelshimself free be-

he im control the lives of others. HPs free at the expense of the fre& f angthet. The slave experiences the freedom of the master%‘its true light. He understands that the ma&r’s freedom is abstract freedom to suppress dthet human beings. The slave understands that this is a pseudo concept of freedom and at this point is mote enlightened than his master for he realizes that the master is a slave of his own misconcep- tions, his own misdeeds, his own brutality, his own effort to o p p r e s s .

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Now I would like to go into the material. The first part of The Life and Times of Frederic Douglass, called “Life of a Slave,” constitutes a physical vo ge from slavery to freedom which is both the conclusion and reflection of a philosophical _ voyage from slavery to freedom. We will see that neither voyage would have been possible alone; they are mutually determinant.

The point of departure for this voyage is the following ques- tion Frederick Douglass asks himself as a child: “Why am f a slave? Why are some people slaves and others masters?” (page 50). His critical attitude when he fails to accept the usual answer

that God had made Black people to be slaves and white people:-- to be masters -)is the basic condition which must be present before freedom can become a possibility in the mind of the slave. We must not forget that throughout the history of Western society there is an abundance of justifications for the existence of siav- ery. Both Plato and Aristotle felt that some men were born to be slaves, some men are not born into a state of freedom. Religious justifications for slavery are to be found at every turn.

Let’s attempt to arrive at a philosophical definition of the slave: we have already stated the es%!n~-he’~T~-b&g who, by some reason or another is denied freedom. But is n&t the essenc~fhehu~~~~~-h~~~~bm? Either the slave

- - “---- “----:--

is not2 man or hrs very existence is a-contradiction. We can rule out the first alternative, although we should not forget that the prevailing ideology defined the Black man as sub-human..The fail- ure to deal with the contradictory nature of slavery, the impose c& ignorance of reality is exemplified in the notion that the slave is not a man, for if he were a man, he should certainly be free.

We all know of the calculated attempts to rob the black man of his humanity. We know that in order to maintain the institution of slavery, black people were ‘forced to live in conditions not fit for animals. The/white slave-owners were determined to mould black people into the image of the sub-human being which they had contrived in order to justify their actions. A vicious circle emerges in which the slave-owner loses all consciousness of himself.

The vicious circle continues to turn, but for the slave, there is a way 0ut:JIesistance.Frederick Douglass seems to have had his first experience of this possibility of a slave becoming-free upon observing a slave resist a flogging: “‘That slave who had the cour- age to stand up for himself agginst the overseer, although he might, have many hard stripes at first, became while legally a slave virtually a free man. ‘You can shoot me,’ said a slave to Rigby J Hopkins, ‘but you can’t whip me’, and the result was he was nei- ther whipped nor shot.”

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Aiready i t a p p e a r e d open act of In-ITGEX

we can begin notion of freedom as to the slave. of freedom is the resistance - physical resistance, violent resistance, wee, the rudiments of freedom are already

present. And thk biolent retaliation signifies much mote than the physical act: it is refusal not only to submit to the flogging, but refusal to accept the definitions of the slave-master; it is im- plicitly a rejection of the institution of slavery, its &,andards, its morality, a microcosmic effort towards liberation.

,5’ “the first condition of freedom is the open act of resistance. . . It that act of resistance, the rudiments of freedom are already pres- ent.’

The slave IS actua!!psons~~f the fact that freedom IS no: a fact, it isG%t a given,&&rat&r~omethi~~~fo be foughtfor, it can ex~r&.-.through a process of struggle. The slave-master. on the other hand, experiences his freedom as inalienable ant’ thus as a fact: he is not aware that he too has been enslaved by his own system. +To begin to answer a question we posed earlier - is it possible for a man to be in chains and at the same time be free - we can now say that the path towards freedom can only be envisioned by the slave when he actively rejects his chains. T&first phase of liberation is the decision to reject the image of himself which the slave-owner has painted, to reject the conditions which the slave-owner has created, to reject his own existence, to rejec!. himself as slave.

-fl” Here the problem of freedom leads us directly.,into. tbe_gues

tron of identity. The condition of slavery is a condrtlon of aliena Con: “Nature never intended that men and women should bi either slaves or slaveholders, and nothing but rigid training Ion; persisted in, can perfect the character of the one or the other.” Slavery is an alienation from a natural condition,‘it isa %datib:1 of nature.which distorts both psrtics .: -t&?. sl>ve and the slave: owner. Alienation IS the absence of authentic identityzn- the case of the slave, he is alienated from his own freedom.

This non-identity can exist on-a number of levels: it can be unconscious - the slave accepts the master’s definition, renders himself unfree in seeing himself as inherently unfit for freedom. Or it can be conscious, knowledge can strike a blow at it. We are most concerned with the second alternative, for it constitutes a stage in the voyage towards freedom.

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Black people were bjects. “The slave-was

His life rriiiXrtiv.ed-w the limitsqtthevlhi, toss if he were is inverted. Because must forge his own h choice, no goal, but was pegg own to one single spot, and mu s

, take root there or nowhere.” The slave has no determination wha soever over the external circumstances of his life. One day woman could be living on a plantation among her children, thei P father - family, friends. The next day, she could be miles awzaty with no hope of ever meeting them again. The idea of the journey loses its connotation Of exploration, it loses the excitement 0 learning the unknown. The trip becomes a

&dew ‘ourney into hell nca

away from the thingness of the slave’s existence, u sharper accentuation of his non-human external existence. “His; going out into the world was like a living man going out of sight hearing of wife, children, and friends of kindred tie.” Frede Douglass gives a moving account of the last days of his grand er, who having faithfully served her master from his birth to his death, having had children and grandchildren for him, is looke upon in disdain by her then present owner-the original master’s grandson. She is sent into the woods to die a solitary death.

Frederick Douglass’ owner reveals to him unwittingly the pat toward the consciousness of his alienation: “ ‘If you give a nigger an inch he will take an ell. Learning will spoil the best nigger in the world. If he learns to read the Bible it will forever unfit him to be slave. He should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it.’ ” The slave is alienated totally insofar as he accepts his master’s will as the absolute authority over his life. The slave has no will, no desires, no being - his essence, his being he must find entirely in the will of his master. What does this mean? It is partly with the slave’s consent that the white man is able to perpetuate slavery - when we say consent, however$ is not free consent, but consent under the most brutal force and pressure.- - lll.. .

a

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ction, on every level, on oyage towards fre~om

the process of know-

“When I gas about thirteen years old, and had succeeded in learn- ing to read, every increase of knowied~e, especially anything re- s~~~cti~g the free states, was an add~tiona1 weight to the mast in- tolerable burden of my t~~ought - ‘I am a slave for life.’ To my bondage X could see no end. It was a terrible reality, and I shalt ncv- er be able lo tell how sadly that tb~ught chafed my young spirit.”

His alienation becomes real, it surfaces. and Frederick Doug- lass is going to existerltjalfy experience all that is entailed by being bound to a state of unfreedom materially, while mentally finding his way towards liberation, The tension between the subjective and the objective will eventually provide the impetus towards total liberation. But before that goal is reached a whole series of phases must be traversed.

The slave, Frederick Douglass, thus mentally transcends his condition towards freedom. Herein lies the consciousness of alien- ation. lie sees freedom concretelyas the negation of his eomoa--m---.-.X”-r__ __ it ~~.~~~,Q~~~~~,~~~~~. ~~~~~~~-~s~i~,. able birthright of PE?y man, conver~~~~~~~~je~t into an assert- er of this right. I heard it in every sound, and saw it in every object. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretchedness. the more horrible and desolate was my condition. I saw nothing

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rejects and thus his ~~jse~y is Rot just a resuit of his ~~d~v~~l~a~ un- freedom, his ~r~divid~al alienation. True coflsciolJsness is the re- ~~~~j~9~ of the jnst~t~~t~~n itself and ~~~er~tbifl~ which acc~~r~~ar~ies it. “It was slavery and not its mere i~c~d~~ts that I hated.” To foreshadow Frederick Dau lass” path from slavery to fr~~~or~, even when he Atkins his ow freedom. he does not see the real goal

been ~tt~i~~d. It is only with the tnt;rl abolition af the i~st~t~ti~~ of slavery that his misery, his desolation, his alienation will be elir~i~at~~~ And nat even t,hen, for there will remain

nts and therm still remain in existe~~~~ today the causes which

o freedom, Frederick Dauglass experiences as a rc~nf~rc~ment and just~Fica~~~~n for his desire to be

free. Out of thu Christian d~tri~~~ he deduces the eq~~i~ty of all men before God. If this is true, be infers, then slavemasters must be ~~~~f~i~~ the wili of God by s~~ppressin~ the will of hu an beings and sb~uld be dealt with in accordance with God’s anger Freedom, the ab~ljt~#~ af slavery, liberation, the destruction of al~e~ati~~ -”

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these notions receive a ~~e~~hysical ju~tif~cat~~rl and impetus through religian. A supernatural being wills the abolition of slavery: ~r~~rick Doug ass, slave and believer in Cad, must accomplish-4 ~~~~f’s will by working towards the goal of liberations

Douglass was not the only person to infer this From the Ghris- tian religion. Nat Turner received an irn~~r~n~ part uf his inspira- tion From his Faith in Christianity. J o h n B r o w n w a s another example.

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We all know that from the perspective of white, slave-owning society, Christianity was supposed to serve quite another function. The overriding idea behind exposing the slaves to religion was to provide a metaphysical justification, not for freedom, but rather for slavery.

arx’s more notorious statements is that religion is the opium of the people. That is - religion teaches men to be satisfied with their condition in this world - with their oppression - by directing their hopes and desires into a supernatural domain. A little suffering during a person’s existence in this world means nothing compared to an eternity of bliss.

FUrrran.

Mare P ‘nt out me often m&&&that Karl%arx also said thay’religion is the &&l- reamof h Ity. Un the One hand this statement means, of course, that tilshes become dreams projected into a sphere beyond that over which human beings have control-I would say, an imaginary realm. But on the other hand, we have to ask ourselves: is there anything else implied in Marx’s statement about the notion of wish dreams of an oppressed humanity. Think for a moment. Real wants, needs and desires are transformed into wish-dreams via the process of religion, because it seems so hopeless in this world: this is the per- spective of an oppressed people. But what is important, what is cru- cial is that those dreams are always on the verge of reverting to their original status - the real wishes and needs here on earth. There is always the possibility of redirecting those wish-dreams to the here-and-now.

Frederick Douglass redirected those dreams; Nat Turner placed them within the framework of the real world. So there can be a positive function of religion because its very nature is to @,&.-

of people who are ‘oppressed. (We are speak- of oppressed people to religion, not attempt-

ing to analyze the notion of religion in and for itself. 1 There can be a positive function of religion. All that need be done is to say: let’s begin to create that eternity of bliss for human society here in this world. Let’s convert eternity into history.

Why is it that more Black people did not shift the emphasis from the other world to concrete reality - to history? There was a calculated effort on th cre ti%h would serve to perpetuate the existence of slavery. Chris- tianity was used for the purpose of brainwashing, indoctrinating, pacifying. $4

Kenneth dtampp in his work, The Peculiar Institution, dis- cusses extensively the role of religion in creating methods of

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appeasing Black people, of suppressing potential revolt. At first, Africans were not converted to Christianity because this may have given slaves a claim to freedom. owever, the various slave-holding colonies passed laws to t tians would not automatically become f baptism. Stampp formulates the reasons to let slaves through the sacred doors of Christianity:

“Through religious instruction, the bondman learned that slavery had divine sanction, that insolence was as much an offense against God as against the temporal master. They received the biblical command that servants should obey their masters and they heard of the punishments awaiting the disobedient slave in the hereafter. They heard, too, that eternal salvation would be their reward for faithful service and that on the day of judgment God would deal impartially with the poor and the rich, the black man and the.white.”

;ir* A very censored version of Christianity was developed for the slaves. . . . This use of religion was one of the most violent acts against

h u m a n i t y . ’ *

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. . ,, Thus those passages in the Bible which emphasized obedience, ’

humility, pacifism, patience, were presented to the slave as the essence of Christianity. Those fiassages, on the other hand, which talked about equality, freedom, the ones which Frederick Douglass was able to discover, because, unlike most slaves, he taught him- self to read - these were eliminated from the sermons the slave heard. A very censor version of Christianity was developed especially for the slaves. white man, his master2

pious slave therefore would never hit a . s always right, even when he was by all :

human standards wrong. This use of religion was one of the most violent acts against humanity. It was used to teach a group of men that they were not men at all, it was used to abolish the last

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remnant of identity which the slave possessed. But, in the long run, they were not SuEessful as can be witnessed- lti6rterProsser, Denmark VP~P+I&& TIWIU+ others w”ho t ’ stlani ’ st the missiana TesZ-or those w --Children of Israel-were delivered out of m

andc o u n t l e s s ,ries. .The Old .

,ho plan=d revolts ?1 In k!kvDt bv

God - but they fought, they fought in order to carry out th&$l;f God. Resistance was the lesson learned the Bible.

FPederlck Douglass’ -reaction- to Nat%rner’s revolt is re- vealing: “The insurrection of Nat Turner had. been quelled, but the alarm and terror which it occasioned had not subsided. The

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cholera was then on its way to this country, and I remember’ thinking that God was angry with the white people because of their

edness, and therefore his judgments were abroad urse it was impossible for me not to hope much

en I saw it supported by the Al-

I ’ d like to end here by pointing to the essence of what I have en trying to get across today. The road towards freedom, the

path of liberation is marked by resistance at every crossroad: mental resistance, physical resistance, resistance directed to the concerted attempt to obstruct that path. I think we can learn from the experience of the slave. We have to debunk the myth that Black people were docile and accepting and the extreme myth, which by the way I read in my, high school history texts in Birmingham, Alabama, that Black people actually preferred slavery to freedom. If you will begin to get into The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, at the next meeting we can try to continue our investigation into the philosophical themes in Black Literature.

Before I continue the discussion of Frederick Douglass, I would like to say a few words about the course in general. Black Studies is a field which has long been neglected in the Universities. We are just beginning to fill that vacuum. And we must be very careful, because we do not want Black History, Black Literature to be relegated to the same stagnant, innocuous, compartmen- talized existence as, say, the history oftthe American Revolution. I could talk about Frederick Douglass as if he had the same rele- vance as, say, the so-called discovering of America by Columbus. History, Literature should not be pieces in a muesum of antiquity, especially when they reveal to us problems which continue to exist today. The reasons underlying the demands for Black Studies Pro- grams are mm imp@tXPit one ‘Is-the necessity to establish a contmuum trom the past to the preseiTr, to discover the g-s wtucn continue to e% today, to discover how our ancestors dealt with%@m75% n iearn trom the philosophi-

cal as w?ii~r%n”crre’@-exxrienc~ot the slave. We can learn

Phat methods of coming to grips with oppression were historicallysuccessful and what methods were failures. The failures are crucial, because we do not want to be responsible for the repetition of history in its brutality. We learn what the mistakes were in order not to duplicate them.

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We ought to approach the content in this course not as frozen facts, as static, as meaningful only in terms of understanding the past. We are talking about philosophical themes, recurring philo- - sophical themes. Philosophy is supposed to perform the task of gen- eralizing aspkcts of experience, and not just for the sake of formu- lating generalizations, of discovering formulas as some of my colleagues in the discipline believe. My idea of philosophy is that if it is not relevant to human problems, if it does not tell us how we can go about eradicating some of the misery in this world, then it is not worth the name of philosophyEthink that Socrates made a very profound statement when he asserted that the rr&son d’etre of phil- osophy is to teach us proper living. In this day and age “proper living” means liberation from the urgent problems of poverty, eco- nomic necessity and indoctrination, mental oppression3 r7

\ A/ #\I *My idea of philosophy is rnat . . . if it does not tell us how we can

I go about eradicating some of the misery in this world, then it is not ! worth the name of philosophy.’

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Now - let me continue with ihe course. At our last meeting, I T X <:- ,-.

attempted to use the first part of Life and Times of Frederick Doug- -A.‘- ‘ . ias as the occasion for variations on the salient philosophical themes which we encounter in the existence of the slave. The trans- formation of the idea of freedom into the struggle for liberation via the-concept,of resistan(le; this sequence of interdependent themes -‘freed0 t%?GGrse.v

, Jiberatio%-iesistancg -Qravides the groundG%rk for ith& this”stFii%re, we discussed last time the ex-

tent to which freedom is possible within the limits of slavery. We determined that the very existence of the slave is a contradiction: he is a man who is not a man, that is, a man who does not possess the essential attribute of humanity: freedom. White, slaveholding society defines him as an object, as an animal, as property. The alienation which is thereby produced as the reality of the slave’s existence must surface - it must become conscious, if he is to \ forge a path towards liberation. He must recognize at first the con- \ tradictory nature of his existence and out of that recognition, re- $r -i;‘* “3 jection emerges. We saw that recognition of alienation b.ecomes a ‘!J 1 prerequisite of and entails rejection, resist.ance.wy both a, positive and a negative role in‘that road towardsself:knowl:.

\edgc It can thwart liberation - and this is the express purpose for converting the slave - or it can provide powerful assistance as was the case in Frederick Douglass’ first experience of religion.

I’d like to begin today by continuing that discussion of religion. Now, we will discover that Frederick Douglass’ interest in and en- thusiasm about religion wanes when he apprehends the hypocrisy which accompanied it in the thoughts and actions of the slave- holder. It is important to recognize that the transition from spirit- ual elevation to disillusionment is ushered in by an actual physical change in the conditions of Frederick Douglass, slave. During the time he developed fervent inclinations toward Christianity as a re- sult of his learning to read, he lived in relatively comfortable cir- cumstances, that is, if anything can be termed comfortable under slavery. His disenchantment occurs when he is forced to live under conditions of actual starvation - when he is given to Capt. Thomas Auld.

A critical experience occurs when he observes his brutal and sadistic slave master’s conversion to Christianity: “If he has got religion, thought I, he will emancipate his slaves. . . . Appealing to ,,my own religious experience, and judging my,master by what was

. y ‘, true in my own case, I could not regard him as soundly converted,

(.J unless some such good results followed his profession of religion.”

: These philosophical inferences from what Douglass took to be Y\.’ I’ the essence of Christianity: the demonstration of Christian

thoughts by Christian deeds are refuted by the master’s subsequent conduct. For the oppressed, for the slave, religion serves a quite positive purpose: it is a much needed medicine which helps to allay suffering and at the same time it is an inverted consciousness of the world, projection of real needs and desires into a supernatural domain. The slaveholder’s experience of religion as it is exempli- fied in the behavior of Capt. Auld has an entirely different texture. Religion, for him, is pure ideology which is totally contradictory to his real, day-to-day behavior. The slaveholder must constantly work to maintain that contradiction; his very existence is based on the rigid separation of his real life from his spiritual life. For, if he

.\ ’ 1..

takes the precepts of Christianity seriously, if he applies them to

I\- \ his daily life, then he would negate his own existence as an oppres-

I+\ sor of humanity. Auld formulates this himself quite clearly when he

_ * ’ says : “I will teach you, young man, that though 1 have parted with

i my sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold my slaves and ‘i. go to heaven, too.”

fL :- A’ Y

east on an unconscious level, there must be some aware- ,* .\#’ ness o +hese contradictions in the mind of the slaveholder. This is .I Iindicated by an actual sharpening of the contradictions by Auld

The more intense his religious involvement becomes, the intense becomes his cruelty towards his slaves: “If religion

effect at all on him, it made him more cruel and hateful in

‘all ways.” What we said was an unielatedness between his religiou life and his real life becomes a pred creased practice of religion seems to piation before the fact - of his increased ~er~etr~tio~ of miser: among his slaves. Long and loud prayers and humps justify long an hard flogging, justify outright starvation of the slaves.

’ What can we infer from this analysis of the slaveholder’s re lation to religion? As I stated in the last lecture, Western Society and particularly the era of the rule of the bourgeoisie, has bee characterized by a gap between theory and practice, particular1 between freedom as it is developed conceptually and the lack a freedom in the real world.

The fact that somewhere in one of the foundational document of this country, there- is the- statement-that&l men are-create- - : - - - equal and the fact that social and political inequality has never bee eradicated cannot-be35@d6d ‘as unrelated to the relative nor chalance with which Master Auld discusses the gap between his rf ligious ideas and his day-to-day precepts. The slaveholder’s ow words reveal to us the brutality which underlies not only his pal titular situation, but that of society in general. We sometimes hav to resort to the most extreme examples in order to uncover veile meanings of the more subtle example.

Frederick Douglass’ recognition of the contradictions betwee religious ideas and the behavior of his master brings him to a cri ical disposition toward the relevance of religion itself. “Captai Auld could pray. I would fain pray; but doubts arising, partly fro1 the sham religion which everywhere prevailed, there was awal ened in my mind a distrust of all religion and the conviction thl prayers were unavailing and delusive.”

Last time we pointed to Marx’s interpretation of the role th: religion plays in society. I would like to point to some further 01 servations he makes concerning religion in the Contribution to th Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. I think that Marx’s anal: sis of religion helps us to understand the state of Frederick Doul lass when he begins to turn away from religion. I quote a passat from that work:

“Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of re; suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sif of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, ar the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of men, is demand for their real happiness. The call to abandon their illusion about their condition is a call to abandon a condition which require i l l u s i o n s . ”

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y unbearably, We can his master, he attains a

The master becomes “.---~-

iii-retative comfort, he to trick in me ies. Now he must

ccme face to face to eradicate, to destroy his s~~~~rin~. ‘~~~Ii~i~~, Marx says. is only the illusory sun avocet ~bich man revolves so Iong as be does not revolve about him- self.”

&rick Oo~~tass . . . saw fhs nccah lo card out illurians, in 8r to $ro~~~~rrn tha rrtal w&i, i n or r to arriver at a total com-

mitrn~~f ha rsaaiat oppression.

~red~r~c~ Douglass gathers the caurage to resist the slave- breaker to whom he is sent for domestication, for taming, the grave-breaker who is infinitely more brutal than any of his previous ~~a~ter~; he finds this courage when he is able ta free himself of his religion: he says on this occasion, “my hands were no longer tied by my religion.”

So we find that the role of religion during the era of slavery is not homogenous: it is extremely complex The function af religion continually reverts from one extreme to t 6 other) No one formulak can suffice.tIf we saw at the last meeting that religion can play a positive role,-now we are uncovering the detrimental aspects, how it ~uppres~ed the slave in the person of the slave holded how it pro- vided internal control and thus how it must often be transcended in order for real change to take place. Religious leaders of slave ie- volts found inspiration in religion, they found courage in it. Fred- erick Douglass, at this point in his life, as well as countless other people, saw the necessity to cancel out illusions in order to trans- form the real world, in order to arrive at a total commitment to resist appressian.

I concur with Marx that one must overcome religion in order to regain one’s reason, that the sigh of the oppressed creature in order to become an effective protest against oppression, must hc articulated and acted upon in a poli ticai con text. Yet, I do not deny that to a certain extent, the illusory nature of religion may web be transcended within the limits of religion -‘- I gave Nat Turner.

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Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Presser as examples last lime. way, someone brought tQ mY attesting that 1 did not mention an women among these examples. 1 was not an my toes. The ac plishments of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner crumb, and many o can never be overestimated.

I would like to leave the discussion of religio we will take it up again at a further Douglass. I would like to continue to tion and how the slave experiences the World and that the extreme formulation of the slave’s alien en02 as prv=W as caW4 as montty. There is a relatively long quotation I would like to take the time to read, because I feel it epitomizes by its very concreteness the notion of alienation.

“I am, thought I, but the sport of a power which makes no ac- count either of my welfare or of my happiness. By a law which I can comprehend, but cannot ‘evade or resist, I am ruthlessly snatched away from the hearth of a fond grandmother and hurried away to the home of a mysterious old master; again I am removed from there to a master in Baltimore; thence am I snatched away to the Eastern Shore to be valued with the beasts of the field, and with them divided and set apart for a possessor; then I am sent back to Baltimore, and by the time I have formed new attachments and have begun to hope that no more rude shocks shall tyuch me, a dif- ference arises between brothers, and I am again broken up and sent to St. Michaels; and now from the latter place I am footing my way to the home of another master, where, I am given to understand, like a wild young working animal I am to be broken to the yoke of a bitter and lifelong bondage.”

For the slave, the world appears as a hostile network of cir- cumstances which continually are to his disadvantage. History is experienced as 2 cluster of chance events, accidental occurrences which, though far beyond his control, act in a way that is usually detrimental to his personal life. A trivial quarrel between brothers is enough to wreak and mutiliate the siave’s life - Frederick Doug- lass is brought back to the plantation of his real owner, one who is infinitely more sadistic than the brother with whom he had been living, as a result of such a banal disagreement.

yesterday one oi’ the white students in the Class came to my office and wanted to know how I was going to conduct the course. He asked whether or not I was going to limit the course to the philosophical experiences : ;f the slave. of the Black man in society, or whether 1 was going to talk about People. Now. aside from the fact that slaves and Black People are People,

18

f.

I there is somethina’ in rnir mind which I think you should be aware of-and it 7s not &related to what I was just saying about alienation. impressed people are forced to come to grips with immediate problems every day, problems which have a phiIosop~~~a1 status and are relevant to all people. One such problem is that of alienation. It is my opinion that most people

> living in estern society today are alienated, alienated from themselves, from society. To provide an objective demonstration of this would require some discussion, and if you like, we can take this up in one of the discussion periods. The point

‘Oppressed people are forced to come to grips with immediate prob- l e m s e v e r y d a y , p r o b l e m s w h i c h h a v e a p h i l o s o p h i c a l s t a t u s a n d are relevant to all people.’

is that the slave, the black man,. . jhe Chicano ..a-ud oppressed wfi&%%%i@<‘?iiore’ awar ijf alienation, perhaps not as a

____ r _-_. -I- “_d - ̂.*A: philoS@lilcal concept, buf as 2’ fact of their -haill-e%stence. The slave, for example, &?p&ences t&i’.i7ie&ioT as the 66ntinual hostility of all his daily surroundings. During the era of slavery, I suppose it was common opinion that the slave was in bondage and the white man was free, the slave was non- or sub-human and the white man was the apex of humanity. Again, let us take a look at the extreme example of the white man in slaveholding society--the slave-breaker. There is something which I think we might call the concept of the slave-breaker and we can unfold this concept according to the concrete behavior of Covey, the Negro-breaker under whose authority Frederick Douglass lives for a year.

Now, what do we mean by the concept of the slave-breaker? His existence is the sine qua non of slavery, an indispensable fact, for the perpetuation of slavery. At the same time, the slave- breaker finds himself almost on the margin of slavery, the last barrier between physical enslavement and physical liberation. He is the one designated to tame impudent slaves, slaves who refuse to accept for themselves the definition which society has imposed upon them. He must break, destroy the human being in the slave before it succeeds in upsetting the whole balance present in the system of slavery. His instrument is ,vioiencc+& He does violence to the body ..in o&? to break Jhe ,wi!l., No’t ’ only continual whipping, but work, labor not fit for a be:ist of burden were the manifestations of that violence.

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“I was whipped, either with sticks or cowskins, every week. Aching bones and a sore back were my constant companions. Frequently as the lash was used, Mr. Covey thought less of it as a means of breaking down my spirit than that of hard a n tinued labor. He worked me steadily up to the powers of endurance. From the dawn of day in the the darkness was complete in the evening, I was kept hard at work in the fields or the woods.”

One of the lessons we can learn from the dialectical method is that in the process of functioning in the world, man under- goes changes himself which are consonant with his actions. That is, man cannot perform a task in the world without himself be- ing affected by that performance. Now, what does this mean for Covey, the.ISl_egr~b~eaker?fHis task is to mutilate the .-humanit-

+

of the slave. The question we must ask ourselves is whether h_e_. : n erf_o_rm.lhatJask without. mutilating his own humanitfiWe

oug t to be able to infer, from the answer to this question, what 4 ,happened to the humanity of the white man in general during the

era of slavery. We don’t have to engage in any unnecessary philosophizing in

order to answer that question. Frederick Douglass says it out- right, he calls the slave-breaker by his name.

“His plan was never to approach in an open, manly and direct manner the spot where his hands were at work. No thief was ever more artful in his devices than this man Covey. He would creep and crawl in ditches and gullies, hide behind stumps and bushes, and practice so much of the cunning of the serpent, that Bill Smith and I, between ourselves, never called him by any other name than ‘the snake.’ ”^ _.. I.

(.. ~ba..&..the~on-human h e r e . I .I “-“.-* “-L-“‘-~~~Who lowers himself to. the

depths? Aside from the Biblical imagery of the serpent as the representative of evil, the image of the snake, his very posture, crawling around on the ground, is symbolic and revealing. In order to induce the slaves to labor, the slave-breaker lies, be is forced to lie, he is,, inhuman and is forced to be inhuman. THe takes on the characteristics of the very task he sees himself as performing. I would go so far as to say that he is even more profoundly affected than the slave, for the slaves can see what is occurring-he is aware of the fact that there is an external power dedicated to the suppression of the slave’s basic human exist- ence. He sees it, feels it, hears it in every act of the slave- b r e a k e r .

2 0

The slave-breaker on the other hand’is unaware of the change he himself is undergoing as a result of his sadistic actions:

“ . . . r. Covey, trickery was natural. Everything in the shape of iear~ing Q Y ‘ religion which he possessed was made to conf,orm to this semi-lying propensity. He did not seem con- scious that the practice had anything unmanly, base or con- temptible about it.”

This tendency towards unconscious self-annihilation was not confined to the slave-breaker, to those who stood at the bound- aries of slavery in order to maintain those boundaries. These characteristics were ‘direct results of the system itself and could be attributed to slave-holders in general. This is indicated in two passages:

“Mean and contemptible as all this is, ‘it is in keeping with the character which the life of a slaveholder was calculated to produce.”

And in referring to the naturalness of Mr. Covey’s trickery and inclination to lie, Frederick Douglass says:

“It was with him a part of an important system essential to the relation of master and slave.”

‘Let’s continue to discuss this relation of m a ter and slave and its effects on the master. As we were saying the master isc thought to be free, independent, the slave is thought to be un- free, dependent. The freedom and independence of the master, if we look at it philosophically, is a myta It is one of those myths which, I was saying at the last session, we have to uncover in order to reach the real substance behind it lfow could the master have been independent when it is the eryc, institution of slavery which provided his wealth, which provided his means of sustenance? The master was dependent on the slave, dependent for his life on the slav$

“Tie independence of the master : . : is based on his dependence on. the slave. If the slave were not there . . . the master would not be fr$e from the necessities of life.’ . .

In the Pheaomonology of Mind, -Hegel discusses the dialectical’ relationship between the slave and the master. He states, among other things, that the master in reaching a consciousness of his own condition, must become aware that his very independence is based on his dependence on the slave. This might sound a bit contradfc- tory, but, )hen dialectics is bas‘efl “o’fi ‘dIs$,to@ylng ,$he $o&@d($ . tions in phenomena which can -alone amount fpr .their.exis&n,ce. .’. . . . .

‘Reality..is. through%l%%u& per&e_ated~. .yith ,contradictions.-___ .__.. -- ‘ - . . ..T -__. .-- ..--_ _ . r~ ----- L.ad-0 2 1

he wo~t(t be just as ~~~Cb in a , the slave is the ~~f~~~.~~~~,

the rn~~~ter~~ ~~~e~~~ ol ~~~~~~~~~

can demonstrate the truth of ihe pr5p~~1tt~~ that ttle master is ~iway~ on he verge of b~c~rn~ng the slave and the slave is always on the ver e af bicycling the master. Let’s look at what I think is the most e in the Life and Timers of Ftcd- crick ~~u~tas~. It can be found in ~b~~te~ 17 - ‘The Last Flag-

~~~~rick D~~gla~~ has just bad the har~Qw~ng experience riven tu work until the point when he ~hy~jc~iiy collapses. int he hasbeen broken - rng~tally his will is gone. Covey,

r~~u~i~~ to accept his illness as a valid excuse for failure to con- tinue, beats hirn while he is lying an the ground unable to move. ~r~(lerick ~~ug~as~ decider to return to his master, but, finding no form of c~~pa~~i~~ in the reaction of his master, returns. E’ortu- nately, it is on a Sunday when he finall eaehes the ~~av~break~r’~ house and because of his devoutness, Covey does nat beat him

ndy, a slave who has help rederick D~ugi~~~ would like us to believe, Mr. Covey does not beat him as a result of the magical powers of an herb which he has given him. At any rate, the ~~av~~break~r dees not enter into the person of Mr. Gavcy until after the Sabbath is over. ~n~t~nct~v~iy~ unc~n~ci(~u~ly~ Frederick Doug- lass fights back when the sIave-br~~k~r ~tt~~~pt~ to beat him:

2 2

“I do not know; at any rate, I was resolved to fight, and.what was better still, I actually was hard at it. The fighting madness had come upon me, and I found my strong fingers firmly attached to the throat of the tyrant, as heedless of consequences, at that very moment, as if we stood as equals before the law. The very color of the man was forgotten.”

What is the reaction of Mr. Covey? One would think that be- cause, after all he is the master, he is white, he would have no problems conquering a sixteen-year-old boy. The slave-breaker, who has the reputation of being able to tame the wild-animal slaves from all around, trembles and calls for help: “He was frightened, and stood puffing and blowing; seemingly unable to command words or blows.” He unsuccessfully calls upon a slave who is not under his authority, for aid. He eventually attempts to command his own slave, a woman, to conquer Frederick. She refuses, and he is left helpless.

We have to ask ourselves what is happening here. Covey is certainly physically strong enough to overpower Fre is he unable to cope with that unexpected

rick. tihy resistance?

c That act of

open resistance challenges his very identity. He is no onger the recognized master, the slave no longer recognizes himself as slave,

m roles have been reversed. And think about this as a concrete example of thPt proposition I put forth earlier - that the master is always on the verge of becoming the slave and the slave is always on the verge of becoming the master. Here, it has happefled.

2LCovey-implicitly recognizes the-fa.cc heis. dependent. on’the slave, not only in a material sense, not only for the production of-0 wealth, but also for the affirma- own identitv. The fact that he appeals to-X&e slaves around him to help him overpower Frederick indicates that he is dependent on that affirmation of his authority - they all reject it and he is left in a vacuum - alienated from himself. This has the effect of sapping whatever physical strength he may have needed in order to win the battle.

After having obviously lost the battle, with no substantial basis for his own identity, his own role, he nonetheless attempts to reas- sert his authority with this impotent and hypocritical statement: “ ‘Now, you scoundrel, go to your work; I would not have whipped you half so hard if you had not resisted.’ . . . The fact was, he had not whipped me at all. He had not, in all the scuffle, drawn a single drop of blood from me. I had drawn blood from him.”

Covey never again attempted to whip him. This incident, Frederick Douglass describes as the turning point in his life as a slave.

Next week we will analyze that i~~~d~~t from of the change produced who undergoes the eba

im, in the slave. It is not j

performs. Since we are in his nature as a result

the prospect of ~~nc~~~ed here wi

liberation, we will attempt an ext,en that event at the next lecture.

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