Race in the problem of Freedom (Frg.)

One of the biggest problems of the racial conflict, is the relationship of black people with their past, over slavery; seen as a shameful state of being, regardless of the humanity, although justifying the quest for freedom in Humanism. The contradiction is evident but comes as a reference to an intrinsic nature of humanity, as a free will being; which contradicted by bondage, gives the person the right to fight for his freedom over any other debt in its conventionality.

The matter is complicated, as it mixes the Christian Humanism with modern Romanticism and Rationalism; despite the direct contradiction between Rationalism and Romanticism, being the last a form of Irrationalism. The contradiction is solved with the ineffable nature of the human being, supposed by the limitations of Rationalism; as its ability to explain the reality, which excludes the inexplicable to primitiveness, making it comprehensible as such.

As primitive, the need for freedom prevails over any kind of bond, unless this bond comes from human conventions; like the obeying of the law, regulating the satisfaction of existential needs, progressively conciliating the contradictions. The problem comes as the condition of freedom itself is artificial in its conventionalism, not natural nor spontaneous; but simply elaborated in order to explain the apparent needs of modern ethics, based in traditional Humanism.

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In that sense, freedom is a concept, and thus conventional as any other, rather than a real condition of the being; becoming so problematic as social contradictions collide in the political structure, requiring constant adjustment. In this sense, the limits of freedom —as subordinating the individual to society—, contradicts its own nature; unless it recognizes slavery as one of those same conventions of society, and thus a moral limit for personal freedom.

This contradiction is overridden with the spontaneous rebellions of slaves, as proof of their intrinsicality to humanity; of course, with the expression of human specialty as spiritual, different from that of animals, as having a soul. This last explains the old debates of slavery, about  the slaves being humans —having souls— or not; but about all, recurring to that so called spontaneous rebellions of slaves, as a proof of this difference.

The problem would be that those rebellions were never spontaneous nor natural, no matter their recurrence; because it involved always a warrior or an aristocratic individual, unable to adapt to slavery, and thus rebelling. More common and even recurrent was the ability of slaves to adapt to their condition, even relatively thriving on it; at least as they didn’t come from a specialized cast, like that of warriors, priesthood or any form of aristocracy.

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What is normal in every nature is to adapt in any circumstance, and rebel as the last resource for survival; not because a concept like that of freedom, so elaborated as contradictory in its Modernity, contradicting natural behaviors; but for the practical need of survival, in an environment that threatens that ability, and not a social condition per se. This is not to justify slavery in any form, but to understand the conventional nature of freedom, as a rational concept; which can even be unnatural, as seen in the spontaneous reproduction of authoritarian bondage among maroons and rebels. More interesting still is the willingness of black maroons to submit to servitude under aboriginal Seminoles in the United States; as this kind of bondage —of indented servitude— gave them range enough to live in relative prosperity, besides the condition.

This may explain the contradiction, incomprehensible as a beginning, about slavery between Africans and Europeans; in which African people where not dealing with that problem of people being human —with a soul— or not, as Europeans; since slavery is still a part of the economic structure, without the other conflict of Christian Humanism. This is the problem of chatter slavery, as different from indented servitude, and in which the slaves are mere objects, no human beings; with the other being the normal bondage between serfs and masters, all with the same human dignity, and even a contractual relationship.