“Slavery,” by Fritz Erler, from Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration
I’ve always been annoyed when modern historians use the term “enslaved persons” to describe slaves. I know their intention is to imply that slavery is imposed rather than innate, but it strikes me as somehow disingenuous.
The phrase “enslaved persons” has always made Dr. Boli a little queasy, too. But why is using the term “enslaved persons” so objectionable?
First, because it deprives us of a useful distinction. A person who has been enslaved has gone from a state of not-slavery to a state of slavery. (We avoid the term “freedom” here so as not to provoke an endless debate with the Calvinists over what “freedom” means and whether anyone has it.) The verb “enslave” has precisely that meaning: to make a slave of someone who previously was not a slave. In the eventful record of human history, which is a catalogue of the crimes committed by humans against humans, it is necessary over and over to mark this passage from not-slavery to slavery in individuals and in whole populations. We need a word for it, and we had a perfectly good one.
But that is not what makes Dr. Boli cringe when he hears the term “enslaved persons” when what is meant is “slaves.” So what is it, then? Is it just the multiplication of syllables—four syllables where one would do the job better? No; Dr. Boli himself (you may have noticed) is sometimes willing to multiply syllables when the multiplication serves his purposes. The grating thing is the implication that, by inventing a new term, we have made it all better. We have restored human dignity to the generations of people who groaned under the yoke of slavery.
No, we haven’t. They were slaves. Millions of them were born slaves, lived slaves, and died slaves. They were human beings with all the natural rights that human beings inherit, and all the power of a civilized nation was marshaled to make sure they exercised none of those rights. That happened, and nothing we do can make it all better for them; our only consolation is the near certainty that they are now in a better condition than many of their former masters. We have a duty to come to terms with the fact that some very bad things have happened in history, and we can’t go back and kiss them better with a word. The only thing we can do is insist that those things will never happen again.
That is the thing we neglect, precisely because, when we say “enslaved persons” rather than “slaves,” it makes us feel as though we have already exercised all the virtue in the world, and there is nothing left to do. No—we have done nothing for anybody by saying “enslaved persons.” We have only rubbed a little ointment on our itchy conscience, without asking ourselves why we have that itch. Is it there because some little voice in the back of our minds is saying something we don’t want to hear? Do we hope to silence the voice by substituting “enslaved persons” for “slaves”? Then perhaps it is time for us to recognize that silencing the voice of conscience is exactly what has allowed slavery to fester over and over again throughout history. Perhaps we ought to listen to the voice instead of trying to shut it up by burying it under mounds of soothing syllables. Perhaps it has a message we need to hear. It might, for example, be trying to tell us, “You’re doing it again.”