Olrando Patteson. 1982. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Slavery and Social Death attempts to tackle the larger questions of slavery over a longer period of history in a wider geographical area in a more interdisciplinary way than perhaps is even possible within the constraints of five hundred pages. Nevertheless, Orlando Patterson’s work is an important study in its ambitions and its questions, encouraging the dynamic tensions and oscillations that create meaningful discussion and debate on issues of true importance. Despite his weaknesses, from a historians perspective, in his approach as well as his scope, he contributes to the discussion through his astute perceptions regarding the interdependence of master-slave, his discussion on the display of power as well as the perhaps unsuspected results of varying levels of manumission, the idea of property, the effects of natal alienation, and the inherent instability of slavery.
In any fruitful discussion there needs to exist a certain dynamic tension coupled with oscillating vibrations. In other words, much in the same way that a guitar strings need to be taught but not too tight, so too must a discussion be balanced between its two extremes. Many of the complaints that could be made against Patterson stem in part from his differences in approach, which are indicative of his background as a sociologist and not as an historian. The debate over slavery, however, is most fruitful when there is this dynamic tension between the question of specificity, or a detail orientation, and a more general inquiry into larger questions of ethics and philosophy. If the discussion is only about the minutest of details in a specific time, and place, and person, than larger questions of modern-day applications and personal revelations are less likely to be made. If, however, the issue of slavery is only discussed philosophically, then gross errors are bound to be created and perpetuated in an all-too human attempt to find a certain degree of continuity and clearly definable terms in the past. To continue the analogy, just as music is made by not simply stringing a guitar but by causing the strings to vibrate, so too is the discussion made productive not simply by the presence of the two counter-points but by the reader’s active engagement with both sides, and the oscillation between the two. Thus, a careful reading of Slavery and Social Death will produce valuable insights into the larger question of slavery in recent history if coupled with a simultaneous inquiry into more specific historical case studies, thus allowing both works to interact with each other and thereby produce a meaningful dialog on the unfortunate topic of “human parasitism.”
Orlando Patterson’s argument finds its greatest weakness in what is simultaneously one of its greatest strengths, that is: in its interdisciplinary approach. The failings of this are to be found in the simple fact that this work is neither a complete work of historical scholarship, nor is it simply a sociological treatise. It is an attempt to be both, which undermines its ability to be totally one or the other. A historian would therefore find his references to modern philosophers, contemporary comparisons to slavery, and his desire to make broad, overarching statements as weaknesses to his argument (unless he was, of course, attempting to say something about the philosopher, about the contemporary situation, or about historical perceptions of the world by those in it). While his claims are supported by acceptable data, his philosophy and approach step outside of the historian’s realm and into that of sociology. This is, however, somewhat necessitated by the very nature and scope of his work in its attempt to address slavery not just in one place at one time, but over large geo-political spheres in drastically different time periods. Despite these limitations, or perhaps precisely because of them, Patterson is able to make some important contributions.
Patterson’s discussion of the interdependency of masters and slaves, as well as his exploration of the effects of varying levels of manumission and the display of power, as well as his highlighting the essential role of natal alienation all add to the historical discussion of slavery and its far-reaching affects. Importantly, it required someone well outside the realm of historian to make the clear connection between domination and dependence. Quoting Georg Hegel, Patterson writes “total personal power taken to its extreme contradicts itself by its very existence, for total domination can become a form of extreme dependence on the object of one’s power, and total powerlessness can become the secret path to control of the subject that attempts to exercise such power” (2), and later concludes, “The slaveholder camouflaged his dependence, his parasitism, by various ideological strategies. Paradoxically, he defined the slave as dependent. This is consistent with the distinctively human technique of camouflaging a relationship by defining it as the opposite of what it really is” (337). Another important contribution includes the reversion of what one might normally conclude regarding the actual effects of something like manumission. Patterson writes, “While we normally think of manumission as being the result of the negation of slavery, it is also true that manumission, by providing one of the major incentives for slaves, reinforced the maters-slave relationship… [There is] a direct two-way link between enslavement and manumission” (341). Similar discussions exist on topics of property and the display of power.
In conclusion, Patterson ambitiously attempts to bridge the conversation of slavery between the world of the historians and the world of the sociologist, and in the attempt contributes to the potential for a meaningful dialog, forcing us to ask the greater questions such as “How, we may ask, could persons be made to accept such natural injustice [as slavery]?” (8) It must be kept in mind that his work is not strictly historical nor does it approach primary sources solely from a historian’s perspective. Slavery and Social Death does, however, contribute to the larger discussion insomuch as we bring it into dialog with other works and other approaches. In other words, if one focuses too much on details and specifics, they can easily lose sight of the relevance of historical questions on the lives we live in the here and now, which neither the historian nor the sociologist would advocate.