Post 79: Ideology, Slave Ownership and Manumission
One of the interesting things about writing a dissertation proposal is that you get a very good sense of all the things that you have to read in order to actually become an expert on your particular topic. One of the topics that it became clear that I needed to have a much better grasp on is ideology.
In my dissertation I’ll be arguing about Greek and Roman ideology and its connection to manumission in two different ways:
1) Because of the Greek ideology of exclusive citizenship, in large part because the different Greek poleis described themselves as belonging to a particular lineage, created barriers to manumission that Greek slaves had to maneuver around both before and after manumission. (If this seems a bit vague it’s because I’m still working out exactly how I want to express this).
2) There is a connection between how Romans talked about the inferiority of conquered peoples, such as the Rhodians, and how they thought about the inherent inferiority of slaves. These kinds of inherent inferiorities again set up barriers to manumission and after manumission.
3) For both the Greeks and the Romans, a particular ideology of ownership, that is, a justification of why it was okay for them to own slaves, was necessary because it’s pretty clear that if you think hard about slavery it’s impossible to come up with a coherent defense of it.
These thoughts are very much influenced by Eagleton’s Ideology: An Introduction. Eagleton’s book has a number of advantages to it, such as its clear and coherent language, and its (for its time) comprehensive overview of scholarship about ideology. Eagleton also doesn’t hide his own cards: he makes clear that he is a committed socialist who thinks that while ideology can explain quite a bit about why the world is a fucked up place, ideology can’t explain all of politics or economics. He is also willing to posit a number of basic desires, such as hunger and the need for shelter, as being pre-ideological.
One of the interesting things about writing a dissertation proposal is that you get a very good sense of all the things that you have to read in order to actually become an expert on your particular topic. One of the topics that it became clear that I needed to have a much better grasp on is ideology.
In my dissertation I’ll be arguing about Greek and Roman ideology and its connection to manumission in two different ways:
1) Because of the Greek ideology of exclusive citizenship, in large part because the different Greek poleis described themselves as belonging to a particular lineage, created barriers to manumission that Greek slaves had to maneuver around both before and after manumission. (If this seems a bit vague it’s because I’m still working out exactly how I want to express this).
2) There is a connection between how Romans talked about the inferiority of conquered peoples, such as the Rhodians, and how they thought about the inherent inferiority of slaves. These kinds of inherent inferiorities again set up barriers to manumission and after manumission.
3) For both the Greeks and the Romans, a particular ideology of ownership, that is, a justification of why it was okay for them to own slaves, was necessary because it’s pretty clear that if you think hard about slavery it’s impossible to come up with a coherent defense of it.
These thoughts are very much influenced by Eagleton’s Ideology: An Introduction. Eagleton’s book has a number of advantages to it, such as its clear and coherent language, and its (for its time) comprehensive overview of scholarship about ideology. Eagleton also doesn’t hide his own cards: he makes clear that he is a committed socialist who thinks that while ideology can explain quite a bit about why the world is a fucked up place, ideology can’t explain all of politics or economics. He is also willing to posit a number of basic desires, such as hunger and the need for shelter, as being pre-ideological.