Slaves as Active Subjects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Hard Work ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Running Away ◽  
Collaborative Strategies ◽  
Rewards And Punishment

This chapter considers the strategies that ancient Greek and Roman slaves adopted in response to the conditions of their enslavement. Some of these involved collaboration with their masters, since slaves could ease their oppression most easily and predictably through compliance and hard work and masters relied on systems of rewards and punishment to control their slaves. Such collaborative strategies were common, but the interests of slaves and masters were hardly congruent. So some slaves acted contrary to their masters’ interests: stealing food, avoiding work or doing it slowly, and asserting themselves to the greatest extent possible. Other slaves gained their freedom by running away rather than by working diligently towards manumission. Of course, these contrary strategies cannot be understood without considering the countermeasures available to masters, whose resources and power were far superior to those of slaves. Finally, some strategies depended on the involvement of people outside the slave–master dyad.

The return of the Black Hunter

2008 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 188-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ma
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Evening Meal ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Greek Society ◽  
Running Away ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The City

The ‘Black Hunter’ is an expression proposed by P. Vidal-Naquet, to understand certain phenomena within ancient Greek society: it designated a cunning, youthful figure haunting the borders, which was meaningful in implied opposition to a ‘normal’ adult male citizen living in the civilised world. He represents an attempt to interpret Greek culture through Levi-Straussian structural polarities.As examples of Black Hunters, Vidal-Naquet pointed to the Spartan kruptos (young Spartiates sent out for a short time to roam the countryside and kill helots) and the Athenian ephebe (young men, about to become adult, sent into military service for two years, between eighteen and twenty). The kruptos and the ephebe belonged to Greek rites of passage, where youths become inverted ‘Black Hunters’ before integrating in the community. Another, very interesting case occurs in late Hellenistic Chaironeia, where a local youth, Damon, threatened with rape by a Roman officer stationed in the city, banded up with coaevals and ambushed the Roman: the youths smeared their faces with soot, drank pure wine and slaughtered their man at dawn during a sacrifice, before running away and plundering the territory (they returned to kill the city magistrates at their evening meal) – all marks of anomie, marginality and extremeness.

The Birth of Hedonism

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Lampe
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Hard Work ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Walter Pater ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
And Behavior

According to Xenophon, Socrates tried to persuade his associate Aristippus to moderate his excessive indulgence in wine, women, and food, arguing that only hard work can bring happiness. Aristippus wasn't convinced. Instead, he and his followers espoused the most radical form of hedonism in ancient Western philosophy. Before the rise of the better known but comparatively ascetic Epicureans, the Cyrenaics pursued a way of life in which moments of pleasure, particularly bodily pleasure, held the highest value. This book provides the most comprehensive account in any language of Cyrenaic ideas and behavior, revolutionizing the understanding of this neglected but important school of philosophy. The book reconstructs the doctrines and practices of the Cyrenaics, who were active between the fourth and third centuries BCE. The book examines not only Aristippus and the mainstream Cyrenaics, but also Hegesias, Anniceris, and Theodorus. Contrary to recent scholarship, the book shows that the Cyrenaics, despite giving primary value to discrete pleasurable experiences, accepted the dominant Greek philosophical belief that life-long happiness and the virtues that sustain it are the principal concerns of ethics. The book also offers the first in-depth effort to understand Theodorus' atheism and Hegesias' pessimism, both of which are extremely unusual in ancient Greek philosophy and which raise the interesting question of hedonism's relationship to pessimism and atheism. Finally, the book explores the “new Cyrenaicism” of the nineteenth-century writer and classicist Walter Pater, who drew out the enduring philosophical interest of Cyrenaic hedonism more than any other modern thinker.

Systems of Oppression in Geriatric Clinical Service Delivery

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Diane L. Kendall
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Clinical Setting ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Hard Work ◽  
Clinical Service ◽  
Meaningful Change ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Medical Institutions

Purpose The purpose of this article was to extend the concepts of systems of oppression in higher education to the clinical setting where communication and swallowing services are delivered to geriatric persons, and to begin a conversation as to how clinicians can disrupt oppression in their workplace. Conclusions As clinical service providers to geriatric persons, it is imperative to understand systems of oppression to affect meaningful change. As trained speech-language pathologists and audiologists, we hold power and privilege in the medical institutions in which we work and are therefore obligated to do the hard work. Suggestions offered in this article are only the start of this important work.

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