VOLUME III, SEMESTER 1, CHAPTER 13, SECTION 1

VOLUME III, SEMESTER 1, CHAPTER 13, SECTION 1

Slave and Master Are Positions, Not Identities

Twelve chapters are walked. From that master who could not cook, to this morning’s alarm at six thirty, four thousand years, that position changed seven or eight layers of skin. This chapter sets down, in due form, the most important stroke of the whole semester. This first section stands up twelve characters. Slave and master are not two kinds of people. They are two positions.

First, set the twelve characters out

The one who takes the constraint is the slave. The one who lays the constraint is the master.

Read these twelve characters over slowly, one at a time.

They say not a word about who is good and who is bad. They say not a word about who is noble and who is base. They say not a word about who ought to be pitied and who ought to be cursed.

They say one thing only. The direction of the constraint.

Whoever is taking the constraint, in this relation, at this moment, on this matter, stands in the slave’s position. Whoever is laying the constraint, in this relation, at this moment, on this matter, stands in the master’s position.

That is all.

This is a description of position, not a judgment of person.

Think back to the way this whole volume works. Only position things, never judge them. These twelve characters are that way of working, drawn down to one line.

Why say position and not identity

Because identity is stuck to the person, and cannot come off. Position is on the matter, and changes as the matter changes.

Say a man is a slave, and it sounds as though he is base by birth, base to the bone, and will be a slave his whole life through.

Say a man is, in this relation, in the slave’s position, and it means something wholly different. It means, quit this relation, or turn this relation round, and he is a slave no longer.

The eleven chapters before spent their whole strength proving one thing. That the high and low, the noble and base, pasted onto the person, is all wei. It is a coat of paint laid on by force. It is not the person himself.

Peel that paint away, and underneath there is no one born a slave, and no one born a master.

There is only, in a given relation, who is taking the constraint, and who is laying it.

Hold this. This is the ground the whole chapter stands on. What we look at from here on is never a person. It is always a position.

The first corollary, one person holds many positions at once

Off these twelve characters grow four corollaries. Take them one at a time.

The first. One and the same person, at the one same moment, holds several slave positions and several master positions at once.

Go back to that person in the last chapter, the one in the eight nets.

Before his boss, he takes the constraint. He is in the slave’s position.

Before the new hand he leads, he lays the constraint. He is in the master’s position.

Before the bank, he takes the constraint. Slave position.

Before his cat, morning and evening he shovels its dung. By the reckoning of who serves whom, he is in the slave’s position, and the cat in the master’s.

Before his five year old child, he decides the child’s meals, hours, schooling. He is in the master’s position.

Count them over. On this one person’s body, at this one moment, several slave positions and several master positions are stuck at once.

So the question, is this person a slave or a master, has of itself no answer. Because the question is wrongly put. There is no such thing as a person who is purely slave, nor a person who is purely master.

There are only, on one body, many positions running at once.

The second corollary, in one relation two people are each the other’s slave and master

The second. Take out any single relation, and often the two people in it are, each to the other, at once slave and master.

Go back to the room at the opening of this volume, and look once more.

The master holds the slave’s deed of sale. On the matter of the body’s freedom, the slave takes the constraint. Here the slave is in the slave’s position.

The slave holds the master’s three meals, holds his stomach, holds his life. On the matter of staying alive, the master takes the constraint. Here the master is in the slave’s position.

See it clear. In this one relation, on the matter of the body, the slave is slave and the master is master. On the matter of life, the master is slave and the slave is master.

The constraint runs both ways.

This is the very thing the second chapter of this semester set up. The check runs both ways. Here it is stood up once more, and stood at the sharpest place. Even in the relation of a slaveholder and his slave, the constraint is not one-way.

Whenever you see a relation that looks purely one-way, look once more. Nine times in ten there is another rope, running the other way, that you did not see.

The third corollary, the unit of reckoning is the relation, not the person

The third. And this one is the most useful.

To look at this matter, the unit is not the person. The unit is the relation.

Ask, is he a slave. This question cannot be answered.

Ask, in this relation, on this matter, who takes the constraint. This question can be answered, clean and clear.

Change the unit, and much that was tangled comes untied.

There is no need to argue whether a man is, when all is reckoned, a good man or a bad man, a person to be pitied or one to be blamed. Set the person down. Pick the relation up. Look at this one relation, and see only which way the constraint runs, and whether the one taking it still keeps the means to say no.

Think back to the rod of the eleventh chapter. Formal freedom and substantive freedom. That rod, too, is laid not on the person but on the relation. In this relation, does he have the means to say no.

The unit of reckoning changed, and the eye clears.

The fourth corollary, the law is a great codebook of positions

The fourth. Look up once, from the single relation to the whole of a society, and you see a thing.

The whole legal system is a great codebook that writes the slave positions and the master positions down.

Property law lays down who may lay a constraint on a thing. Contract law lays down how two men set up between them a relation of constraint. The law of debt lays down how the one who owes takes the constraint of the one who is owed. The law of labor lays down the bounds of the constraint the one who hires may lay on the one who is hired.

Read a body of law with this eye, and it turns transparent. It is a book, writing down, relation by relation, who in this society may lay a constraint on whom, and to what degree.

Think back to the ninth chapter of this semester. Roman law wrote the person into the column of things. That was the coldest single entry in this codebook. And today’s labor law, which holds the working hours down to eight, is a later, warmer entry, an entry won back inch by inch by the ones who once took the constraint.

The law is not the sky’s own reason. It is a record of positions, and the record is edited, age upon age.

This is not out to flatten all things into one

Said this far, stop, and set the words straight. Here is the easiest place to slide.

To say slave and master are positions is not to say all cedings are the one same thing, is not to say a mother raising her child and a mine owner working a five year old are to be spoken of in one breath.

They are worlds apart. The measure of that distance is the rod the last chapter handed over. Does the one taking the constraint keep the means to say no. Is this ceding clear-eyed, or unwitting. What does the one taking the constraint get back, and does he own that account.

The mother cedes for her child, clear-eyed, owning it, and what stands at the other end is a weak one who cannot yet fend for itself. The mine owner lays the constraint on the child, and at the other end is a five year old who gets back only a wage that cannot keep him alive, and has no means at all to say no.

Both, said in the frame of position, are relations of constraint. But their weights are not for one instant the same.

To see them as positions is not to wash the weight away. It is to put down the club of cursing first, and pick up the rod of weighing instead.

What this section set up, and the turn to the next

This section set up three things.

The first. The twelve characters. The one who takes the constraint is the slave, the one who lays the constraint is the master. This is a description of position, not a judgment of person. Slave and master are not two kinds of people, they are two positions.

The second. The four corollaries. One person holds many slave and master positions at once. In one relation two people are each the other’s slave and master. The unit of reckoning is the relation, not the person. And the whole law is a codebook of positions.

The third. This is not to flatten all cedings into one. To see by position is to put down the club of cursing and pick up the rod of weighing.

Then, the deepest line of this chapter has not yet been spoken. In the four corollaries a shadow already stirred. That person before his boss is a slave, and before the new hand a master. But is that master position of his truly a comfortable seat.

The next section speaks the deepest line of this whole semester. The slaveholder is a slave too. The master position is a constraint too, and often the heavier one, the one harder to lay down.

The next section, the slaveholder is a slave too, the master position is a constraint too.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.

SECTION 2. The Slaveholder Is a Slave Too, the Master Position Is a Constraint Too