My Bondage and My Freedom

Furthermore, as all social relations are structured by dynamics of power, In his writings, Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave turned social reformer, emphasized that what distinguishes the slave from the free man is the level of power each possesses.

In his book, My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass defined the slave by the utter powerlessness they have to decide their own destiny.

He also notes that we have a natural aversion to powerlessness.

We are attracted to the powerful, and unless we have been psychologically broken, we aspire to power in ourselves.

The mechanism that causes psychological deflation is similar to that of an inflation.

It occurs when an individual identifies with a social role that is too restricted to encompass all the character traits that are needed to flourish.

Volodymyr Odechnik provides the following example in his book Young in Politics.

The members of the pariah or lower classes or members of socially despised national or racial groups frequently identify personally with their socially defined status and roles.

He records his skepticism, concedes that the Sunday kindness left him half inclined to credit the road, and lets his own resolve carry the Monday.

Ten years later, in My Bondage and My Freedom, the talk of Rhodes struck him as absurd, if not positively sinful.

Yet he admitted he could not be sure that the hand of the Lord was not in it.

Skepticism, conjure and providence share a single page.

So when he came to New Bedford, he was able to find a space, that he could now preach.

In my bondage, in the second book, My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglas spoke about being a preacher on Second Street.

Second Street is one block from the chapel.

Okay, interesting.

He becomes over the years a smaller, more careful version of himself.

that's not an uh an accident that happens on purpose so the romans had a word for what that does they said such a man learns to flatter they regarded flattery as the characteristic disease of the unfree and they were not talking about manners they meant that a man who's standing depends on another man's good will will eventually start shaping his opinions to fit that and then stop noticing that he's even doing it Now, Frederick Douglass in My Bondage and My Freedom said in 10 words what the philosophers took 100 pages to say.

He sets it up first.

My feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received.