Modern Day Slavery

If we were going to describe modern day slaves when it concerns individuals that are enslaved by low wages that are forced to take particular jobs because they are denied anything else, how about would we go about doing that?

How would we describe the modern state of slavery today?

Official definition of wage slavery:

Quote :

Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person's livelihood depends on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.[1][2] It is a negatively connoted term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor. The term pertains to economic exploitation and/or social stratification, with the former referring primarily to an unequal bargaining power between labor and capital, particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages (e.g. in sweatshops);[3] and the latter to a lack of workers' self-management, which draws similarities between owning and employing a person.[4][5][6] Social stratification thus covers a wider range of employment choices bound by the pressures of a hierarchical social environment i.e. working for a wage not only under threat of starvation or poverty, but also of social stigma or status diminution.[7][8][9]

Some defenders of slavery, mainly from the Southern slave states argued that workers were "free but in name – the slaves of endless toil," and that their slaves were better off.[21] This contention has been partly corroborated by some modern studies that indicate slaves' material conditions in the 19th century were "better than what was typically available to free urban laborers at the time."[22][23] In this period, Henry David Thoreau wrote that “[i]t is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself.” [24]

The description of wage workers as wage slaves was not without controversy. Many abolitionists in the U.S. including northern capitalists, regarded the analogy to be spurious.[25] They believed that wage workers were "neither wronged nor oppressed".[26] The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass declared "Now I am my own master" when he took a paying job.[27] Abraham Lincoln and the republicans "did not challenge the notion that those who spend their entire lives as wage laborers were comparable to slaves", though they argued that the condition was different, as laborers were likely to have the opportunity to work for themselves in the future, achieving self-employment.[28]

African American wage workers picking cotton on a plantation in the South.
However, self-employment became less common as the artisan tradition slowly disappeared in the later part of the 19th century. In 1869 The New York Times described the system of wage labor as "a system of slavery as absolute if not as degrading as that which lately prevailed at the South".[28] E. P. Thompson notes that for British workers at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, the "gap in status between a 'servant,' a hired wage-laborer subject to the orders and discipline of the master, and an artisan, who might 'come and go' as he pleased, was wide enough for men to shed blood rather than allow themselves to be pushed from one side to the other. And, in the value system of the community, those who resisted degradation were in the right." [15] A "Member of the Builders' Union" in the 1830s argued that the trade unions "will not only strike for less work, and more wages, but will ultimately abolish wages, become their own masters and work for each other; labor and capital will no longer be separate but will be indissolubly joined together in the hands of workmen and work-women."[16] This perspective inspired the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union of 1834 which had the "two-fold purpose of syndicalist unions – the protection of the workers under the existing system and the formation of the nuclei of the future society" when the unions "take over the whole industry of the country." [17] "Research has shown", summarises William Lazonick, "that the 'free-born Englishman' of the eighteenth century – even those who, by force of circumstance, had to submit to agricultural wage labour – tenaciously resisted entry into the capitalist workshop."[18]

The use of the term wage slave by labor organizations may originate from the labor protests of the Lowell Mill Girls in 1836.[29] The imagery of wage slavery was widely used by labor organizations during the mid-19th century to object to the lack of workers' self-management. However, it was gradually replaced by the more neutral term "wage work" towards the end of the 19th century, as labor organizations shifted their focus to raising wages.[30][31]

Karl Marx described Capitalist society as infringing on individual autonomy, by basing it on a materialistic and commodified concept of the body and its liberty (i.e. as something that is sold, rented or alienated in a class society). According to Marx:[32]


The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master's interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence.

American financier Jay Gould. After hiring strikebreakers, he said "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."[33]
Proponents of the viewpoint that the condition of wage workers has substantial similarities (as well as some advantages and disadvantages) vis a vis chattel slavery, argued that:
1.Since the chattel slave is property, his value to an owner is in some ways higher than that of a worker who may quit, be fired or replaced. The chattel slave's owner has made a greater investment in terms of the money he paid for the slave. For this reason, in times of recession, chattel slaves could not be fired like wage laborers. A "wage slave" could also be harmed at no (or less) cost. American chattel slaves in the 19th century had improved their standard of living from the 18th century[22] and, according to historians Fogel and Engerman plantation records show that slaves worked less, were better fed and whipped only occasionally—their material conditions in the 19th century being "better than what was typically available to free urban laborers at the time".[23] This was partially due to slave psychological strategies under an economic system different from capitalist wage slavery. According to Mark Michael Smith of the Economic History Society: "although intrusive and oppressive, paternalism, the way masters employed it, and the methods slaves used to manipulate it, rendered slaveholders' attempts to institute capitalistic work regimens on their plantation ineffective and so allowed slaves to carve out a degree of autonomy."[34] Similarly, various strategies and struggles adopted by wage laborers contributed to the creation of labor unions and welfare institutions, etc. that helped improve standards of living since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Nevertheless, worldwide, work-related injuries and illnesses still kill at least 2.2 million workers per year with "between 184 and 208 million workers suffer[ing] from work-related diseases" and about "270 million" non-lethal injuries of varying severity "caused by preventable factors at the workplace".[35]--a number that may or may not compare favorably with chattel slavery's.
2.Unlike a chattel slave, a wage laborer can choose between employers, but they usually constitute a minority of owners in the population for which the wage laborer must work, while attempts to implement workers' control on employers' businesses may be met with violence or other unpleasant consequences. The wage laborer's starkest choice is to work for an employer or face poverty or starvation. If a chattel slave refuses to work, a number of punishments are also available; from beatings to food deprivation—although economically rational slave owners practiced positive reinforcement to achieve best results and before losing their investment (or even friendship) by killing an expensive slave.[36][37][38]
3.Historically, the range of occupations and status positions held by chattel slaves has been nearly as broad as that held by free persons, indicating some similarities between chattel slavery and wage slavery as well.[39]
4.Arguably, wage slavery, like chattel slavery, does not stem from some immutable "human nature," but represents a "specific response to material and historical conditions" that "reproduce[s] the inhabitants, the social relations… the ideas… [and] the social form of daily life."[40]
5.Similarities were blurred by the fact that proponents of wage labor won the American Civil War, in which they competed for legitimacy with defenders of chattel slavery. Both presented an over-positive assessment of their system, while denigrating the opponent.[25][26][41]

The term 'wage slavery' was widely used by labor organizations during the mid-19th century, but the structural changes associated with the later stages of industrial capitalism, including "increased centralization of production... declining wages... [an] expanding... labor pool... intensifying competition, and... [t]he loss of competence and independence experienced by skilled labor" meant that "a critique that referred to all [wage] work as slavery and avoided demands for wage concessions in favor of supporting the creation of the producerist republic (by diverting strike funds towards funding... co-operatives, for example) was far less compelling than one that identified the specific conditions of slavery as low wages..." Thus, "wage slavery" was gradually replaced by the more pragmatic term "wage work" towards the end of the 19th century.[30]

Some supporters of wage and chattel slavery have linked the subjection of man to man with the subjection of man to nature; arguing that hierarchy and their preferred system's particular relations of production represent human nature and are no more coercive than the reality of life itself. According to this narrative, any well-intentioned attempt to fundamentally change the status quo is naively utopian and will result in more oppressive conditions.[46][47][48] Bosses in both of these long-lasting systems argued that their system created a lot of wealth and prosperity. Both did, in some sense create jobs and their investment entailed risk. For example, slave owners might have risked losing money by buying expensive slaves who later became ill or died; or might have used those slaves to make products that didn't sell well on the market. Marginally, both chattel and wage slaves may become bosses; sometimes by working hard. It may be the "rags to riches" story which occasionally occurs in capitalism, or the "slave to master" story that occurred in places like colonial Brazil, where slaves could buy their own freedom and become business owners, self-employed, or slave owners themselves.[49][50] Social mobility, or the hard work and risk that it may entail, are thus not considered to be a redeeming factor by critics of the concept of wage slavery.[51]

Anthropologist David Graeber has noted that, historically, the first wage labor contracts we know about—whether in ancient Greece or Rome, or in the Malay or Swahili city states in the Indian ocean—were in fact contracts for the rental of chattel slaves (usually the owner would receive a share of the money, and the slave, another, with which to maintain his or her living expenses.) Such arrangements were quite common in New World slavery as well, whether in the United States or Brazil. C. L. R. James made a famous argument that most of the techniques of human organization employed on factory workers during the industrial revolution were first developed on slave plantations.[52]

Analysis of the psychological implications of wage slavery goes back to the Enlightenment era. In his 1791 book On the Limits of State Action, classical liberal thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt explained how "whatever does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness"— and so when the laborer works under external control, "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is."[77] Both the Milgram and Stanford experiments have been found useful in the psychological study of wage-based workplace relations.[78]

[edit] Psychological control

[edit] Higher wages

In 19th century discussions of labor relations, it was normally assumed that the threat of starvation forced those without property to work for wages. Proponents of the view that modern forms of employment constitute wage slavery, even when workers appear to have a range of available alternatives, have attributed its perpetuation to a variety of social factors that maintain the hegemony of the employer class.[40][79] These include efforts at Manufacturing Consent and eliciting false consciousness.

In his book, Disciplined Minds, Jeff Schmidt points out that professionals are trusted to run organizations in the interests of their employers. Because employers cannot be on hand to manage every decision, professionals are trained to “ensure that each and every detail of their work favors the right interests–or skewers the disfavored ones” in the absence of overt control:


The resulting professional is an obedient thinker, an intellectual property whom employers can trust to experiment, theorize, innovate and create safely within the confines of an assigned ideology.[80]

[edit] Lower wages

The terms "employee" or "worker" have often been replaced by "associate". This plays up the allegedly voluntary nature of the interaction, while playing down the subordinate status of the wage laborer, as well as the worker-boss class distinction emphasized by labor movements.

Billboards, as well as TV, Internet and newspaper advertisements, consistently show low-wage workers with smiles on their faces, appearing happy.

Job interviews and other data on requirements for lower skilled workers in developed countries—particularly in the growing service sector—indicate that the more workers depend on low wages, and the less skilled or desirable their job is, the more employers screen for workers without better employment options and expect them to feign unremunerative motivation. Such screening and feigning may not only contribute to the positive self-image of the employer as someone granting desirable employment, but also signal wage-dependence by indicating the employee's willingness to feign, which in turn may discourage the dissatisfaction normally associated with job-switching or union activity.

At the same time, employers in the service industry have justified unstable, part-time employment and low wages by playing down the importance of service jobs for the lives of the wage laborers (e.g. just temporary before finding something better, student summer jobs etc.).[81]

In the early 20th century, "scientific methods of strikebreaking" were devised—employing a variety of tactics that emphasized how strikes undermined "harmony" and "Americanism".[82]

[edit] Lowest wages

In the 21st century Dubai, employers pay low wages to many workers—often less than £120 ($178.83) a month, for a 60-hour work week. Often 'employment contracts', if they are given, "are not worth the paper they are written on," and collective bargaining and trade unions are illegal in Dubai. It all starts in their home countries, often India or Bangladesh, where local recruitment agents promise them high salaries and generous overtime payments. In these workers' home countries they are charged a "visa" or "transit" fee, averaging 200,000 taka, or £2,000 ($2,980), which in these home countries is supposed to be illegal.

The workers pay the fee because they believe the figures they've been promised of future wages. However in most cases, it will take them the entire two-to-three year contract for them just to pay back that fee and break even.[83]

In another contemporary case unions representing teachers in Louisiana have filed a complaint with state authorities alleging that a Los Angeles recruiting firm broke the law by holding more than 350 Filipino teachers in 'virtual servitude' in order to hold onto their jobs in five Louisiana parish school systems, including New Orleans' Recovery School District.[84]

[edit] Stress and degradation

Investigative journalist Robert Kuttner in Everything for Sale, analyzes the work of public-Health scholars Jeffrey Johnson and Ellen Hall about modern conditions of work, and concludes that "to be in a life situation where one experiences relentless demands by others, over which one has relatively little control, is to be at risk of poor health, physically as well as mentally." Under wage labor, "a relatively small elite demands and gets empowerment, self-actualization, autonomy, and other work satisfaction that partially compensate for long hours" while "epidemiological data confirm that lower-paid, lower-status workers are more likely to experience the most clinically damaging forms of stress, in part because they have less control over their work."[85]

Wage slavery, and the educational system that precedes it "implies power held by the leader. Without power the leader is inept. The possession of power inevitably leads to corruption… in spite of… good intentions … [Leadership means] power of initiative, this sense of responsibility, the self-respect which comes from expressed manhood, is taken from the men, and consolidated in the leader. The sum of their initiative, their responsibility, their self-respect becomes his … [and the] order and system he maintains is based upon the suppression of the men, from being independent thinkers into being 'the men' … In a word, he is compelled to become an autocrat and a foe to democracy." For the "leader", such marginalisation can be beneficial, for a leader "sees no need for any high level of intelligence in the rank and file, except to applaud his actions. Indeed such intelligence from his point of view, by breeding criticism and opposition, is an obstacle and causes confusion."[86] Wage slavery "implies erosion of the human personality… [because] some men submit to the will of others, arousing in these instincts which predispose them to cruelty and indifference in the face of the suffering of their fellows."[87]

[edit] Materialistic notion of self

Erich Fromm noted that if a person perceives himself as being what he owns, then when that person loses (or even thinks of losing) what he "owns" (e.g. the good looks or sharp mind that allow him to sell his labor for high wages), then, a fear of loss may create anxiety and authoritarian tendencies because that person's sense of identity is threatened. In contrast, when a person's sense of self is based on what he experiences in a state of being (creativity, ego or loss of ego, love, sadness, taste, sight etc.) with a less materialistic regard for what he once had and lost, or may lose, then less authoritarian tendencies prevail. The state of being, in his view, flourishes under a worker-managed workplace and economy, whereas self-ownership entails a materialistic notion of self, created to rationalize the lack of worker control that would allow for a state of being.[88] [89]

Due to this lack of control, the exploited worker, according to Marx, "puts his life into the object... [and thus] the greater his activity...the less he possesses...[H]is labour becomes an object...[and] the life which he has given to the object sets itself against him as an alien and hostile force"[90] And since the worker could be working for wages or saving money instead of enjoying life or having fun, (which in a capitalist society often costs money), "all passions and all activity is submerged in avarice...[and] the less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life."[91]

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Now for my definition of modern slavery.

A modern slave is a individual dispossessed of their own independence and sense of self but more importantly from the rest of society at large.

They are forced to work for low wages because they are unable and denied to do any other kind of job or occupation within society.

They may quit a job that they don't like but once they look for another position to survive off of they are left with only similar jobs that have the same exact conditions of the ones they worked prior. They can choose different masters but at each end they are still reduced to slaves.

The poverty of their occupational income becomes the poverty of their lives.

The sense of forced social identity from their occupations becomes the very existential depression of their lives.

There is of course the modern sense of education which people can utilize to improve their situation if they're able to but this assumes that everybody has the same equal capacities for knowledge or intelligence. Those who cannot conform or comprehend the standardized demands of higher education automatically become reduced to slaves within every modern society.

In a world of technological, mechanical, and industrial obsession individuals unable to comprehend or conform to the tenets of it's status quo become existentially considered obsolete by collective society as a whole when it concerns the notions of prejudices where they are seen as useless bottom feeders.

Such obsolete individuals become herded up stamped under the label of poor and given the ultimatum that they can only exist by endlessly laboring away for those with more wealth or power then themselves.

The ultimatum is they can only hope to survive, exist, and live in servitude only.

The establishment will tell you that they abolished slavery where all individuals are "free" but the fact of the matter is that they didn't. What happened instead is that slavery later became redefined and transformed where instead of enslaving people upon their race or ethnicity what came about later was the enslavement of individuals based upon their capabilities or perceived worth.

Modern society is becoming more and more stratified between specialists and nonspecialists.

The specialists actually have independence and money to exist in very fulfilling lives because they are valued in worth but the nonspecialists on the other hand are forced into poverty where they have no independence at all where they are forced in menial jobs that might as well be called slavery for all intents or purposes.

Education, vocation, and occupation becomes the new segregation.

Income becomes the new chains in which today's slaves are enslaved by a wage.

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This is a thread I plan on discussing the phenomena of modern slavery where I will write my thoughts about the subject from time to time.

Modern slavery is of course menial wage slavery and it exists everywhere without question by society that generally looks the other way.

I feel confident about writing on this topic as it is a lifestyle I have lived through for a very long time.

The greatest slaves of course are those that deludes themselves to be free.

Modern slavery of course differs from that of ancient versions in that as a modern slave you are payed and compensated. Of course what you are payed is very little and with taxation or paying off basic monthly expenses you are left with hardly anything at all where the lack of ownership of course is just another mark of slavery.

Not only are you payed very little but the jobs of menial slaves are the most miserable, dull, and labor intensive. You are literally forced to survive and exist doing a miserable oppressive job that you cannot stand.

Nothing is of course more fascist than the work environment in that the manager to the employee is the supreme dictator.

If you of course do not obey and perform such jobs you are threatened to be homeless or a ostracized nonperson which is why many obey grudgingly accepting their own slavery.

If you rebel acting violently towards the state and the rest of society you are classified as a criminal where you become imprisoned or executed.

Since the state practically claims ownership of the family with the children in it that is just another way modern slavery is enforced getting people to accept being the menial slaves of others. Get out of line and they can take your children away from you for instance.

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A suggestion...instead of flooding the forum with endless posts on multiple topics which are related, try posting them in one thread with one all encompassing title.

Your mind is about as chaotic as the world you imagine you will thrive in.
If this is the kind of focus you will exhibit in a world with no authorities then I think you will soon find yourself dead and forgotten.

Loki wrote:

Modern slavery of course differs from that of ancient versions in that as a modern slave you are payed and compensated. Of course what you are payed is very little and with taxation or paying off basic monthly expenses you are left with hardly anything at all where the lack of ownership of course is just another mark of slavery.

Or you could describe it as a clever way of exploiting the underclass, one which does not physically suppress them, but allows them to be the victims of their own instinct driven nature and inability to postpone gratification.

Satyr wrote:

A suggestion...instead of flooding the forum with endless posts on multiple topics which are related, try posting them in one thread with one all encompassing title.

Your mind is about as chaotic as the world you imagine you will thrive in.
If this is the kind of focus you will exhibit in a world with no authorities then I think you will soon find yourself dead and forgotten.

I do not think all these threads are the same although some are similar but not all are identical. Chaotic mind? Thanks, I guess...

Flooding? I cannot help it that people are slow to respond back.

You forget that in times of lawlessness the slaves revolt in rising up against and killing off their so called masters. The fake pretentious masters who cower behind the illusion of power and authority will be the first to become slaughtered.

History is full of examples in this.

Every underdog will have their day....

Recidivist wrote:

Loki wrote:

Modern slavery of course differs from that of ancient versions in that as a modern slave you are payed and compensated. Of course what you are payed is very little and with taxation or paying off basic monthly expenses you are left with hardly anything at all where the lack of ownership of course is just another mark of slavery.

Or you could describe it as a clever way of exploiting the underclass, one which does not physically suppress them, but allows them to be the victims of their own instinct driven nature and inability to postpone gratification.

As clever as it is to exploit generations of people in getting away with it there comes the time where it stops working and people wise up on the game.

I think it's pretty obvious from the current state of Europe that it would take the collapse of the current economic model for things to change. Not people "wising up", but the exploitation becoming non-viable from an economic standpoint.

the machine will die before it is pulled apart.

MonoExplosion wrote:

I think it's pretty obvious from the current state of Europe that it would take the collapse of the current economic model for things to change. Not people "wising up", but the exploitation becoming non-viable from an economic standpoint.

the machine will die before it is pulled apart.

People will wise up which they generally do when society collapses but by then it is always too late.

I agree with what you say but do not forget the condition of the United States also.

At any rate I celebrate the global economic collapse and overall stagnation of civilization.

It is very easy to do existing from it‘s existential bottom.

Society is no where near collapse.

What's going on is simply the weaker countries failing to service their debts due to overspending and inefficiency. Ultimately they'll either repay what they owe or go backwards.

For the rest its business as usual, an economic downturn is simply part of the economic cycle that nations must ride out. Clearer waters lie ahead.

Recidivist wrote:

Society is no where near collapse.

What's going on is simply the weaker countries failing to service their debts due to overspending and inefficiency. Ultimately they'll either repay what they owe or go backwards.

For the rest its business as usual, an economic downturn is simply part of the economic cycle that nations must ride out. Clearer waters lie ahead.

I am sure at the fall of the Roman empire along with prior dead civilizations people tried comforting themselves saying the exact same things.

I assure you that all hope is gone where nations will inevitably fall.

Debts too far gone cannot be repaid nor re -structured.

One more simple mind dreaming of the "end of the world"...where, he thinks, he shall fair well.

"Menial slavery"...what an old story this is.

There is a way to break free, even if partially and slowly, form the slavery this young boy claims living like a bum is an escape from.

The forum's title: Know Thyself holds the secret to this liberty form systemic slavery.

Remember in The Matrix....let's use that pop-cultural focal point....the "heroes" could enter and exit at will from that artificial world of the asleep?


Now, how can you live amongst the brain-dead zombies with as little effort as possible, amongst them yet so apart?
How can you free yourself from their enslaving rules and values and principles and communal condemnations?

Would you live amongst the cattle and abide by their shared sentiments and rules?
Did Tarzan feel at home amongst the apes?


The answer is quite simple once you break free from the remnants of your old identifications.
Do you see these boys trying to break free, to avenge themselves, to destroy, those they claim to be superior to and still use as reflective mirrors to judge themselves by?

Would Tarzan want to slaughter the apes whoa re stronger and more numerous than he?
Would a real Neo, in the Matrix, want to awaken the masses of man?

@Loki,

'Menial, 'Dignified', etc. are merely pre-determined social labels imposed; no work is degrading in itself, when you rely on your own honour to elevate it.

Satyr wrote:

"Menial slavery"...what an old story this is.
Now, how can you live amongst the brain-dead zombies with as little effort as possible, amongst them yet so apart?
How can you free yourself from their enslaving rules and values and principles and communal condemnations?

Diogenes showed a way...

The Cynic "Seeking of Dishonour" as effacing of the herd-consciousness within oneself:

"One of the most fascinating attempts to link Greek and Indian traditions was Ingalls' argument that elements of Cynic behaviour in Greece replicate the practice of the Seeking of Dishonour and seem to
derive from the same source. Ancient sources tell us that "the Cynic exposed himself regularly to scorn; he actively sought dishonour even at the cost of blows (Dio VIII.16). Cynic methods of exciting censure
were various: the wearing of filthy garments, the use of violent and indecent language, the imitaion of animals, the performance in public of acts that were ridiculous or obscene or which gave the impression
of madness. The Stoic Epictetus preserves this Cynic tradition when he says that in order to be a philsopher "you must keep vigils, work hard, overcome certain desires, abandon your own people, be despised
by a paltry slave, be laughed to scorn by those who meet you" (Disc. III.15.11-12).

...Diogenes repeatedly plays mad and gets beaten for it; when he called himself "Socrates gone mad" he may have been using, in effect, a technical term. "When he was told that many people laughed at him,
he said, "But I am not laughed down" (D.L.VI.54). Diogenes held to a principle called parrhesia, or shocking freedom of speech, which involved deliberately mocking and offending strangers in the street;
Gosala's practice of public derisiveness to incite censure is not so different.

The tradition of the asceticism of dishonour involves the dishonouring of the corpse through the breaching of traditional funereal taboos and injunctions. Socrates, Diogenes, and Gosala are all recorded to have
wishes to avoid any ritual honouring of their corpses. Socrates instructed his friends just to throw his body on the dump. When Diogenes was old and nearing death he refused to make any preparations
for it. When asked, "When you die, who will carry you out to burial?" he replied: "Whoever wants my room". The more primitive Gosala went farther in his karmic black magic. He instructed his disciples to
"desecrate his body upon his death. ...".
...The tradition of the madness and shocking behaviour of Heracles in Greek mythology relates to the Saiva practices of behaving like madmen or animals and seeking dishonour.

...The donning of animal skins, dancing, singing, and imitation of the cries and movements of animals are shamanic practices which go back to the Paleolithic age. "I imagine both the Cynic and Pasupata cults",
says Ingalls, "to have derived from sects of men who performed beast-vows".
Beast imitations with outrageous behaviour existed in ancient Dacia and Scythia. Groups of young males who had pledged to behave for a certain period like dogs or wolves would act like "fugitives and
outlaws". ...In the iconography of some of these cults the club was the common weapon, indeed the common ritual object. Hittites and Spartans, as well as later Germanic peoples, had such cults.

Ajivikas and Cynics also shared certain cultic practices and paraphernalia. The act of "bearing a staff... probably became a regular mark of the Ajivika order", as it was of the Cynics.
An Ajivika Boddhisattva described in the Lomahamsa Jataka specialized in the austerity of not protecting himself from natural heat and cold.
"In winter he would leave his thicket and spend the night exposed to the bitter wind, returning to the shade as soon as the sun rose... In summer he reversed the process, and was scorched by the sun all day,
while at night the thicket shielded him from the cooling breeze."
Diogenes underwent similar heat-practices, standing with his arms around a bronze statue in winter (Plutacrh Sayings of the Spartans 233.16) and walking barefoot on snow (D.L. VI.34), as Socrates had
done before him. In the summer he rolled his tub - a large pithos, or earhenware jar - about on hot sand (D.L. VI.23). He did these things, says Diogenes Laertius, "to inure himself to hardship" (ibid.)."" [Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought]


In many respects, Nietzsche's 'revaluation of all values' can be seen as a "Seeking of Dishonour" in the Dionysian way of the ancient Cynics.

"...for precisely the good will of those who seek knowledge to declare themselves at any time dauntlessly against their previous opinions and to mistrust everything that wishes to become firm in us is condemned
and brought into ill-repute. Being at odds with "a firm reputation", the attitude of those who seek knowledge is considered dishonourable while the petrification of opinions is accorded a monopoly on honour!
Under the spell of such notions we have to live to this day. How hard it is to live when one feels the opposition of many millenia all around. It is probable that the search after knowledge was afflicted
for many millenia with a bad conscience, and that the history of the greatest spirits must have contained a good deal of self-contempt and secret misery." [JW, 296]

"In the 1886 preface, in what is indisputably a homage to Stoic and Cynic practices of the self, Nietzsche describes how he forged his philosophy as an attempt to become the doctor of his own soul. In a passage overloaded with allusions to the figure of Diogenes and to the Stoic soul-doctors, Nietzsche reports that it was their disciplines that enabled him to overcome that pessimistic malaise, whose main symptom he identifies as an oscillation between extreme denial and manic affirmation. It is worth quoting this passage at length in order to gauge the full extent to which Nietzsche identifies his philosophy with Cynicism and Stoicism from this passage:

"Just as a physician places his patient in a wholly strange environment so that he may be removed from his entire ˜hitherto", from his cares, his friends, letters, duties, stupidities and torments of memory and learn to reach out with new hands and senses to new nourishment, a new sun, a new future, so I as physician and patient in one compelled myself to an opposite and unexplored clime of the soul, and especially a curative journey into strange parts, into strangeness itself, to an inquisitiveness regarding every kind of
strange thing¦ A protracted wandering around, seeking, changing followed from this, a repugnance towards all staying still, toward every blunt affirmation and denial; likewise a dietetic and discipline
designed to make it easy as possible for a spirit to run long distances, to fly to great heights, above all again and again to fly away. A minimum of life, in fact, an unchaining from all coarser desires, an independence in the midst of all kinds of unfavourable outward circumstances together with pride in being
able to live surrounded by these unfavourable circumstances; a certain amount of cynicism, perhaps, a certain amount of ˜barrel" but just as surely a great deal of capricious happiness, capricious cheerfulness, a great deal of stillness, light, subtler folly, concealed enthusiasm - all this finally
resulted in a great spiritual strengthening, an increasing joy and abundance of health. Life itself rewards us for our tough will to live, for the long war that I then waged with myself against the pessimism of weariness with life, even for every attentive glance our gratitude accords to even the smallest, tenderest, most fleeting gift life gives us."" [Michael Ure, Senecan Moods: Foucault and Nietzsche on the Art of the Self]
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