In class discussion of Kindred, someone said that everyone in the book was a slave to the system of slavery on the Weylin plantation. To us, outsiders, the concept of slavery seems alien, and as Dezy had said, like part of a dystopia. However, to the people living in antebellum Maryland, it was just a part of everyday life. Tom Weylin unemotionally whips the slaves because that was what was expected of him as a slave master. Unlike Rufus, who receives anti-slave propaganda from Dana, Tom Weylin doesn't know of anything other than the system he lives in.
But aren't we slaves to a system even now?
It got me thinking about how people in the future would view us. I'm almost positive that they'd see us as slaves of the capitalist, consumerist system in America. We know nothing other than spending and buying the more attractive items. We are educated about the third world, and even when we visit these places we never really understand them. We are taught to treat everyone equally and with respect, that everyone has a right to do whatever they want to do, as long as it's within the law.
If these people from the future looked back at us, they would look at our factory farms and polluted seas and say, "They're just slaves of the consumerist system". The people of the future might be vegans who live emission free.
This got me thinking about how aliens would view us, humans on earth. They may say:
"They're just slaves of oxygen."
"They're just slaves of the vocal communication system."
"They're just slaves of their own physical bodies."
My point is that there are so many points of view of a system of living. Tom Weylin was raised in the 19th century and so he went along with slavery. If American society has changed so much that just 150 years after slavery, we are now nondiscriminant to other races (Okay, actually far from it, but in theory we are (I think)). Who knows what we'll be going along with in the future. But because of our attention to the study of history, I am sure that we will never repeat slavery.
But aren't we slaves to a system even now?
It got me thinking about how people in the future would view us. I'm almost positive that they'd see us as slaves of the capitalist, consumerist system in America. We know nothing other than spending and buying the more attractive items. We are educated about the third world, and even when we visit these places we never really understand them. We are taught to treat everyone equally and with respect, that everyone has a right to do whatever they want to do, as long as it's within the law.
If these people from the future looked back at us, they would look at our factory farms and polluted seas and say, "They're just slaves of the consumerist system". The people of the future might be vegans who live emission free.
This got me thinking about how aliens would view us, humans on earth. They may say:
"They're just slaves of oxygen."
"They're just slaves of the vocal communication system."
"They're just slaves of their own physical bodies."
My point is that there are so many points of view of a system of living. Tom Weylin was raised in the 19th century and so he went along with slavery. If American society has changed so much that just 150 years after slavery, we are now nondiscriminant to other races (Okay, actually far from it, but in theory we are (I think)). Who knows what we'll be going along with in the future. But because of our attention to the study of history, I am sure that we will never repeat slavery.
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