I am not shying away from dicey topics. If you’re a sensitive person who doesn’t have the heart to talk about issues that plague society to this day, I’m afraid this entry is not meant for you. But if you think you have tough enough skin to handle said conversations, feel free to stay and even critique how I critique this issue. I must warn you, although I will touch on slavery as how pop culture sees it, it’s other, often unspoken of side will take on the spotlight. Here goes.

How does pop culture or mainstream media or even woke people define slavery? Oftentimes they unapologetically use the term to pertain to the slavery of black people. We can’t blame them. Mainstream media portrays their slavery most common. Encyclopedia Brittanica’s definition fits well with this:

“There is no consensus on what a slave was or on how the institution of slavery should be defined. Nevertheless, there is general agreement among historians, anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and others who study slavery that most of the following characteristics should be present in order to term a person a slave. The slave was a species of property; thus, he belonged to someone else. In some societies slaves were considered movable property, in others immovable property, like real estate. They were objects of the law, not its subjects.”

The general idea behind slavery is having little to no freedom or having someone else dictate what you can and can’t do, simply on the basis of class, of birth, and of race. If I were to ask you whether or not this is right, I am sure you’d unanimously answer no. If class, birth, and race are not factors that define what freedom we have, then what should?

Step back.

One of the most sensible answers to this is our humanity and how freedom is a consequence of it. I completely agree. Our ‘selves’ belong only to us. Who we are, what we want, what we aspire to be, these things are only determined by us simply because our ‘selves’, that is, our bodies and our minds are only ours. Let me take this opportunity to segue into the often unspoken, often unknown kind of slavery: the slavery of ourselves by ourselves, or “moral” slavery. This is imprisonment by our excessive desires such as lust, gluttony, greed, and every other vice; and anxiety over things beyond our control. Both hinder us in becoming better persons with the former trapping us in a vicious cycle of repetitive, unproductive actions, while the latter slowing or completely halting us from doing what we want out of fear of the unknown.

What does the Emperor say?

If you are familiar with Marcus Aurelius, then you have to understand why I refuse to tackle this at length. He was a Roman Emperor, plain and simple. Given the power at his disposal, he could have abolished slavery or at the very least have the people question the need for it. There are other persons who can discuss the complex structure of the Roman empire better than I, so I choose to leave it at that.

Shift the focus away from the person to the philosophy. What does stoicism say about slavery? Marcus Aurelius’ private journal-turned-stoic-literature provides insight. He shared the similar stoic view of cosmopolitanism or the mindset that likens humans to animals that work together for the common good. Think of ants, bees, wolves. He wrote:

“We were born to work together like hands, feet, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatrual. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.”

This gives us a more nuanced understanding of what the stoics or at least he, had on the rest of mankind. Aurelius narrows down and upholds this when he wrote:

“…treat them as the law that binds us – the law of nature – requires. With kindness and with justice.”

By removing the man from the equation, stoicism tells us to treat each other compassionately, as if we everyone was our kin or an indispensable part of the whole. But what of that greater slavery? The one Seneca says is more disgraceful than anything else? What do the stoics say about self-imposed slavery?

Becoming your own slave

What does it mean to be a self-imposed slave? It’s to be dragged everywhere our desires lead us to, effectively putting the body above the mind. As rational beings, it is in our nature to to think and to act in a way that is proper to humans. Stoicism teaches that this proper way of being is done by being virtuous or acting with self-control so that we never do too little nor too much of one thing. It is by being virtuous that we act in accordance to our human nature and thus, free. In simpler words, to be human (which also means to be free) is to be in equilibrium or at balance with all things.

We become slaves to ourselves when we stop being human, when we disrupt the equilibrium, when we let go of our control over our desires, when we don’t think before doing. We become slaves by abandoning our human nature and start behaving like animals or creatures significantly less free than humans (or how we’re ought to be).

How will I know if I’m a slave?

We all have our daily schedules either as students or as working adults. Take a step back and observe how your typical weekday goes. Say you’re an adult like me, what do you do the moment your alarm wakes you up? Do you hit the snooze button and squeeze in more sleep or do you resist the urge and rise up instead? When you walk or commute to the office, do you grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast? Do you scroll through social media while you work or do you focus on work alone? Write down your daily routines and judge your own habits. Take me for example. I am fond of drinking coffee. As I took a step back to observe myself I noticed that I drink it everyday, twice minimum. Now while drinking the beverage itself is not a bad thing, I discovered that there are occasions when I drank not for the sake of waking up, but for drinking for the sake of drinking. And that, I believe, is being a slave to something. Caffeine was my master and I was its slave. What I did to regain control was to limit my consumption into 2 cups per day, only exceeding when I absolutely need the boost to finish work.

Although regaining control from established habits sounds easy on paper, it may not always be the case. I struggled to set the limit to my coffee intake, but with the help of stoicism, I overcame and broke my habit. If you, too, are struggling with bad habits, keep in mind the words of Marcus Aurelius:

“Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.”

Take whatever you’re experiencing as something that you need to experience. If you are a student of stoicism or wonder what the philosophy has to say about it, remember that life happens for us, not to us. We decide how to play the cards we are given.