Mastership and slavery

Nowadays, it is a public presupposition that the slavery and in this case the mastership have been abolished and, no longer nobody is the onwner of someone else, anybody couldn’t be bought and sold as a part of someone’s property, and also everyone is a free and equal person as someone else is. As opposed to this opinion, many ancient Greek philosophers and Nietzsche assert that there are natural distinctions between human beings, and the slaves and the masters have existed all over the ages, and also will be in the future so that this is a matter of nature. Even more, many ancient Greek philosophers and similarly Nietzsche believe that we need the slavery or a caste of workers in order to be able to build a high culture. Each one of these two contrary claims is grounded on a peculiar human and value understanding. However, each human and value understanding entails different economical, social and political conclusions that directly affect human-beings’ style of life. For this reason, and especially for those who search for a new way concerning these issues, we must frst of all give an answer to the question “who is right?”. Therefore, in this article, by setting aside the contemporary approaches, we shall primarily identify the similar points that we can trace within the arguments of ancient philosophers and of Nietzsche about the issue of “natural slavery”, and then examine the grounds of these views; and also the relationship between “natural slavery” and working activity shall be expounded in the contex of contrariety among the free spirited person and servile people. According to both ancient Greek philosophers and Nietzsche, human beings are divided into to two casts, free ones and slave ones and also beyond the conventional slavery, freedom and likewise slavery is accepted as a natural quality of some human-beings. It is asserted that slavery people by nature should live under the hegemony of free persons by nature, and this condition is natural and useful for both sides. Secondly, both ancient Greek philosophers and Nietzsche emphasize that for the creation of a high culture it is necessary that servile people must work in the service of free spirited persons and so they claim that working activity is peculiar to slaves. Yet, nowadays, on the one hand, diligence is presented as a virtue for everybody, on the other hand productive activity of working class admitted as free serves the interests of bourgeoisie whose aim is just to get more capital, not to cultivation of a high culture. Therefore, when we consider together the two facts, one of the rhetoric of accepting every individual as a free person and diligence as a value, and second the industrial society,it must be discussed that whether this new condition serves for improving or decadence of humanity. Starting from these points, at the same time, the guestions like what freedom is, who is free spirited person, what relationship between the free spirited person and servile people will be answered, and so we could clarify whether, as taught us that realy every individual is a free person, what the conditions of being a free spirited person are, and what the role of free spirited person in the having opportunity to live as a human being of working class is.

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