Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

The preoccupation with freedom is a predominately Western concept. How did it come about? Was it because of the institution of slavery? Bernard Bosanquet is quoted as saying, "It will not lead us far wrong if we assume that the value we put upon liberty and its erection into something like an ideal comes from the contrast with slavery" and that it can be taken "as the practical starting point in the notion of freedom." Freedom, according to Patterson, has three components: personal, sovereignal and civic. With personal freedom, the individual is not dominated by another human. He has the choice of doing what he wants, subject to the wishes of others, which functions as a constraint. Sovereignal freedom more or less defines the slave-slave master relationship. An individual can do what he wants without the constraint of the wishes of...