It's useful to contrast the ability of one to actualize his will and the ability of one to authentically know his will.
The ability to actualize one's will refers to one's strength as measured relative to external opposition, which includes the unhospitable parts of nature and others overtly trying to exploit him, among other things.
Authentic self-knowledge can be developed best by one largely uncorrupted by things like miseducation, irrational responses to fear, and resentment, which is an irrational response to anger.
Self-knowledge allows to one to create a higher level will largely based on his innate will.
The innate will is a simplification of the aggregate, often competing, wills within a person.
To the extent the self-knowledge is authentic - uncorrupted, one's higher level will reflects the evolution of innate potentials that actualized in one's ancestors as they obtained self-knowledge.
Following from that one can then explicate his will in terms of stated goals regarding himself and his environment. These stated goals, in themselves, can be called his will.
So in terms of will there can be said to be three levels, the basic innate will, the innate potential to will, as only developed through self-knowledge, and the stated, or explicated, will. These levels are somewhat arbitrary and have no clear boundaries between them, but are useful for explaining this subject.
As well as self-knowledge being needed to know one's innate will and develop higher level will, self-knowledge is an aspect of oneself that allows one to gain power to actualize his innate will. This relates to the knowledge of one's strengths and weaknesses. It also helps one guard himself against later internal and external corruption of his will.
Stated earlier were the things which can inhibit the development of one's authentic will. They include miseducation from others and self-created delusions. These delusions originate from an inability to strong emotions from manifesting into things like irrational fear and resentment. How much the innate propensity to form delusions is based on harsh circumstances and how much is based on miseducation from others, itself, is beyond this post.
One can be a slave because one's will was subverted through miseducation by others and others' effort to make one form his own delusions. This involves the highest level of consciousness, that which is involved with the use of language, being made to misuse reason. One misunderstands himself and so forms a highest level will which doesn't reflect either level of his innate will.
One can also be a slave because the actualization of his will was largely inhibited by others for their purposes.
These two ways of being a slave aren't necessarily independent. One can have the necessary conditions to be a slave based on some combination of the two. But, to better explain the two types of slaves consider two extremes.
The first extreme is one who knows himself very well and so has a highly developed authentic will, but is used like an ox on a farm for other's gain. He has a clear sense of identity, and doesn't feel resentment towards his slavers, only disdain.
The other extreme is one who has much money and property to his name and positions of government and corporate office, but has nearly no self-knowledge. He has had miseducation from others, and delusions, create a highest level will distant from his innate wills. He's then used as a puppet by people, for their own purposes, whose goals are not inline with his innate wills.
- Dan~~ wrote:
- Slavery in its many forms,
is common in history.
So common, that i feel the need to speak out against it.
How common it is among the species might not be the best reason to speak against it. Rather as it's something you'd not wish for those you value, you might try to help them overcome or avoid slavery as much as possible.
Perhaps this is basically what you had in mind anyway.
You don't want anyone to be treated like an ox, and that is understandable, but there's not much you can do about it. As for the more mental form of slavery, you might wonder if it might actually be in your advantage that some continue to have a will subverted by other people so long as you're not taking part in the process of subverting wills.