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> the lack of agency in being enslaved I don't get this, at all. It makes at least one fallacy, namely assuming that people are born free. They are not. Every
by tgv 4y ago
> the lack of agency in being enslaved
I don't get this, at all. It makes at least one fallacy, namely assuming that people are born free. They are not. Every newborn is restricted by parents, society, environment, etc. We must accept that: we can't think, act or sustain ourselves until much older. Thus, we loose our restrictions slowly, and we don't loose them all. Some people were actually born as slaves. That's the horror of it: to be born as property.
Agency has nothing to do with it: suggesting that it does implies the possibility to avoid it, and ipso facto that staying enslaved is the slave's problem. The appeal to a made-up brain process doesn't improve your case.
- gumby 4y ago> Agency has nothing to do with it: suggesting that it does implies the possibility to avoid it That was the point of my referring to it: the agency lies with the enslaver, not the enslaved.
- tgv 4y agoBut the word is not about agency: it expresses a state. How that state was achieved, doesn't matter. Are we going to say "enprisoned people", "people who somehow and totally against their will caught COVID", "people who accidentally experience permanent, fully reduced hearing"? Do you still call people who once were, but not longer are, slaves, enslaved? The assumption behind it all is that if someone can make a inference about your thoughts, no matter how far-fetched, those thoughts must contribute to an undesirable state, hence you are a bad person.