Slave Mentality in the 21st Century
A slave, according to the OED, is “One who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, whether by capture, purchase, or birth; a servant completely divested of freedom and personal rights.”
A slave mentality is having the mind of a slave — that is, thinking like someone who has no freedom or personal rights.
The idea of a slave mentality is worth considering during this election cycle. As someone who supports Bernie Sanders’ campaign, I often tell people about how Bernie’s version of Democratic Socialism builds on FDR’s ideal: Medicare For All; a Green New Deal; a $15 minimum wage; legalizing marijuana; eliminating tax loopholes for billionaires and multinational corporations; scaling back the military industrial complex; tuition-free public college; forgiveness of college and medical debt; public child daycare; strengthened union representation, etc.
Let’s call them “Nice Things.”
Among my friends, mostly affluent white people like me, the response to the idea of these Nice Things is quite often a variation of: “That will never happen” or “They won’t let that happen.”
“That will never happen” doesn’t mean my friends don’t want Nice Things, my friends just believe that “they” — the unnamed people who my friends believe run the country (lets call them “The Establishment”), will successfully undermine any effort by a Bernie Sanders administration to get Nice Things done.
And let’s be clear, it is certain that The Establishment will attempt to undermine Bernie Sanders’ agenda. Their very existence depends on the largesse of billionaires, and multinational corporations — especially in the petrochemical, insurance, military, and pharmaceutical industries. Bernie’s program is an existential threat to the status quo, and therefore an existential threat to The Establishment.
So, yeah, The Establishment is going to fight Bernie tooth and nail. Heck, they’ve already begun.
But this article is about people — my friends, who confidently conclude that The Establishment won’t let us have Nice Things. I said earlier that this attitude doesn’t necessarily mean that my friends don’t want Nice Things, but the disturbing thing is, their saying “that will never happen” doesn’t necessarily mean that my friends do want Nice Things either. In fact, the statement reveals they haven’t even considered the possibility of having Nice Things.
Case in point: I posted Bernie’s proposal to provide quality public daycare, hoping it would be of interest to young families I know who struggle with taking care of their young children. To my surprise, one such friend responded with a variation of “that will never happen.”
Manifest in these expressions is a sense of powerlessness. A resignation to the will of The Establishment. What’s missing is any sense that we, as people, have any political power. It is almost as if we’ve become “completely divested of freedom and personal rights.”
The slave mentality doesn’t just happen. It seeps into the national mind when our leaders in politics and the corporate media tell us over and over, decade after decade, that Nice Things aren’t “feasible” or there isn’t the “political will” for them. They frighten us by asking how much Nice Things would cost, without considering the benefits of having Nice Things. (Mind you, cost is never a question when it comes to the Bad Things that The Establishment wants).
Over and over, The Establishment tells us Nice Things won’t happen, and after a while, we start to believe them. Worse yet, we begin to defend the very system that denies us, because it’s the only system we’ve ever known, and we’ve become convinced it keeps us safe.
Bob Marley sang: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” The American people would do well to take this lyric to heart. We are powerless only because The Establishment has convinced us that we are powerless. It is a slavery of the mind, which has very real external implications.
United, people have immense power. The Establishment knows this, and it terrifies them, because it is an existential threat to the status quo. They don’t represent us — they represent their billionaire employers. Luckily, we still have a Constitution which gives us the right to vote. Our power is in our vote, and in our voices, and in our solidarity. When we join together and fight for one another, when we stop asking politely, and with one voice start making demands, Nice Things will happen.
