{"id":10062,"date":"2020-12-04T15:25:19","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T20:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/?p=10062"},"modified":"2020-12-07T08:55:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T13:55:20","slug":"how-do-you-not-see-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/how-do-you-not-see-this\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Not See This?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his <\/span>Notes on the State of Virginia<\/span><\/i><\/a>,<\/span><\/i> the always-curious <\/span>Thomas Jefferson<\/span><\/a> mused over the differences between Roman and American slavery, an institution he both criticized and actively participated in. We should not forget, he said, just how horrendously cruel Roman slavery was. There are stories of Roman aristocrats feeding slaves to their pet eels. There were laws that dictated that if a master was killed, all the slaves were put to death\u2014so as to discourage and deter potential murder plots that were, at their hearts, land and \u201cproperty\u201d grabs. It was believed that female and male slaves were kept separate so they could not procreate and \u201cburden\u201d their masters with the care of a child. Old and injured slaves were similarly sold off as soon as they stopped being useful, just as one might sell off a horse that could no longer be ridden; a practice of which <\/span>Cato the Elder<\/span><\/a>\u2014the grandfather of the great Stoic\u2014was guilty and Jefferson was fully aware.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what\u2019s most instructive about Jefferson\u2019s thinking, for our purposes, is his interest in the <\/span>talent <\/span><\/i>of Roman slaves. <\/span>\u201cYet notwithstanding these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans,\u201d he writes, \u201ctheir slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master’s children. <\/span>Epictetus<\/span><\/a>, Terence, and Phaedrus, were slaves.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jefferson\u2019s interest in this enslaved talent pool from antiquity sits at the heart of how he managed to rationalize the horrors of chattel slavery here in America. In hundreds of years of slavery in the colonies\u2014which, despite his self-interested protestations, was probably worse than Roman slavery\u2014there had been no black Epictetus. This was proof, to Jefferson\u2019s mind, that there was something fundamentally <\/span>lesser <\/span><\/i>about blacks as a population, as a race of people, which therefore made the American form of slavery less bad than the Roman kind<\/span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be a genius to see how stupid this logic was. First off, there was a freed slave named <\/span>Phillis Wheatley<\/span><\/a> who produced beautiful poetry, as good as any white poet of the era. Secondly, there\u2019s a pretty good reason why there wasn\u2019t a bunch of philosopher\/writers emerging from slavery, in Jefferson\u2019s time and beyond: <\/span>It was illegal to teach slaves to read and write<\/span><\/a>!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was slaves who taught the Stoics their philosophy in Rome and Athens two thousand years ago, but in America slaves were forbidden not only from teaching but from <\/span>being<\/span><\/i> educated. Thomas Jefferson\u2019s own beliefs, his own policies, created precisely the situation he then used to rationalize the abhorrent status quo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This <\/span>should be<\/span><\/i> a cautionary tale for us\u2026 today. You consider yourself a programmatic thinker, <\/span>a political realist<\/span><\/a>, a student of history, a righter of wrongs, a teller of truths. The world is going to hell and <\/span>you <\/span><\/i>know how to fix it. But maybe you\u2019ve become blind to the way your decisions, your actions, your beliefs are contributing\u2014not to any sort of solution, but rather to the very thing you\u2019re bemoaning. <\/span>Maybe you\u2019re the problem.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You look at people who are not as successful as you, people who are struggling, people who have messed up and you wonder <\/span>why they can\u2019t get it together<\/span><\/a>. What you\u2019re deliberately not seeing is the boot you have put on their necks. What you are ignoring is all the advantages you\u2019ve been given. You\u2019re not special. They\u2019re not inferior. You just started this race we call life at different points on the track.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t see that? Then you\u2019re the problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking to dive deeper into your study of Stoicism this year, join\u00a0Daily Stoic Life<\/a>\u2014our global community of Stoic thinkers and practitioners dedicated to becoming the best versions of themselves. Members receive an exclusive gift set including a clothbound book available nowhere else, free access to ALL of our online courses and challenges (including our upcoming New Year New You challenge), ad-free daily emails, an exclusive learning community,\u00a0and much more…<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

P.S.\u00a0<\/i>This was originally sent<\/i><\/span><\/a> on December 2, 2020. Sign up today for <\/i>the Daily Stoic\u2019s email<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0and get our popular\u00a0<\/i>free 7-day course on Stoicism.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his Notes on the State of Virginia, the always-curious Thomas Jefferson mused over the differences between Roman and American slavery, an institution he both criticized and actively participated in. We should not forget, he said, just how horrendously cruel Roman slavery was. There are stories of Roman aristocrats feeding slaves to their pet eels. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Do You Not See This?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/how-do-you-not-see-this\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Do You Not See This?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his Notes on the State of Virginia, the always-curious Thomas Jefferson mused over the differences between Roman and American slavery, an institution he both criticized and actively participated in. We should not forget, he said, just how horrendously cruel Roman slavery was. 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