The Ineffable Ideology of Slaves

In perhaps his most famous statement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau proclaims Man is born
free, but everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains
more of a slave than they are. The question that remains for us to answer is this: but who among
us are the slaves and who, the masters? The answer is that we are all slaves.
But if we are all slaves, then who is our master? The answer is not to be conceived of in
terms of who, but of what. And that which we are all enslaved to is the ineffable ideology of
slaves. The first comment that I will make on this prevailing ideology is that one should not
make the mistake of associating Rousseaus idea of slavery with American slavery. We are slaves
not in the sense of one man owning another, but in the sense that we all are beholden by an
ideology, and if we dissent from this ideology we are vituperated with such vehemence that we
become actual slaves, forced to exist in a society that deprives us of a voice.
Recently it has come to my attention that certain students and alumni of the University of
Hartford have expressed a feeling that there is an inherent bias in the educational system. One
alumnus in a post on Scribd lamented the notion that very few professors give equal time to all
opinions, instead trying to promulgate their own (generally liberal) opinion. Referring to the
university he writes: An environment where political ideologies are being thrust on students and
dissenting views are quickly shot down with no discussion is not an environment conducive to
learning, thoughtfulness, diversity or tolerance. What real learning can take place if students are
being told what to think? This type of thinking is nothing new, but it is the product of a growing
and subversive narrative that will not rest until it makes ideological slaves out of us.
But what do I mean by this? Nietzsche prophetically writes about how sycophants (those
of us which are too weak to understand truth) manipulate morality to gain power within society.
If we may have one point of agreement, there are truths in the world and there are untruths. In
politics, we may either appeal to truth, or, if truth does not corroborate our ideology, we must
appeal to something beyond truth. We must appeal to something that appeals to emotion, and the
most common way to appeal to emotion is through morality. Essentially, those of us who are too
weak to understand the truth must devise other means of attaining power, and this is essentially
what is occurring through the narrative that the university is biased in their views. It is, in effect,
a will to power that stipulates my feelings are just as good as your facts (even if they are in
opposition to your facts. What is truly subversive about the quoted claim is that it appeals to a
morally ineffable position. It stipulates that all thoughts should be given equal bearing, and that
open discourse is the most noble thing, and that only in free and open discourse can true learning
be achieved. Truly, no respectable academic could say that we should not have discussion. But
what if open discourse is actually the means by which people are enslaved?
This is the essence of what Nietzsche calls the slave morality. It is an ideology that claims
to have ineffable moral authority, and it uses this claim to moral authority to wield power within
society. The reason that this ideology must wield power through a claim to morality is because it
is incapable of wielding power through a claim to truth. In fact, it is an ideology that hates truth
so much that it desires not only to wield power over society, but also truth itself! The moral code
is a slave morality because it treats people as slaves. If they refuse to become sycophants, then
they are ostracized from society. It is a morality in which only those that prostrate themselves in
front of ideology are validated by society. It is a morality that seeks to enslave people because
those who seek to promulgate it are they themselves slaves to ideological untruths. Most
significantly, it is the morality wielded by the political Right.

Be afraid of those who come claiming to have an open mind! When such people (can
such slaves even be considered people?) write and say that they respect the right of professors to
have biases and that they respect the right of the university to have a political agenda or that they
welcome dissenting views, this claim is disingenuous at best and at subversively pernicious at
worst. The truth is that the author of the Scribd article in question is being disingenuous when he
says he welcomes dissenting views, but there are a pair of sinister reasons motivating this
statement that perhaps he does not even realize. The first is that it gives him a claim to moral
ineffability. This is important because if we remember, such an ideology that does not wield
power through truth must instead wield it through morality. If one outwardly claims to want to
embrace dissenting opinions, this is a claim to morality that inoculates him from further
criticism. But why should we allow him this luxury? Why not acknowledge the mendacity of
such a statement? If we do not acknowledge the unscrupulousness of such a claim, then we have
tacitly agreed to play a game whose outcome is rigged in the favor of their ideology. The second
sinister motivation for claiming to want open discourse is equally inimical. It has to do with the
fact that so long as something is in the process of being debated, no action can be taken on it. It
is not necessary to win a debate to have your beliefs prevail, particularly if your beliefs coincide
with inaction. A good example that can be used to conceptualize this is the debate (or artifice of
debate) that surrounds Global warming. If we have any sort of respect for fact (doubtful!) we
understand that a debate concerning if global warming is occurring is fated to conclude that it is
happening, and happening rapidly. There is no way for any serious person to win a debate if they
are arguing that global warming is not happening. However, seeing as global warming must be
confronted by a radical change in policy, there is another way for those who deny global
warming to achieve their goal of inaction without having to win the debate. All they must do to
ensure that nothing is done is to merely reset the debate. If every time they lose a debate, instead
of conceding and saying yes, we must change policy they say that we must have another
debate, then no progress is made, their goal is achieved, and open discourse and debate has been
used to disempower those who are the heirs to truth. The cruel irony of the open discourse lauded
by conservatives is that it is not used to achieve any sort of dialectical learning, but rather it is
used to force people to accept an already existing ideology. If, in an oversimplification of the
Hegelian dialectic, discourse is comprised of a thesis-antithesis-synthesis, the conservative
ideology is the thesis, and the liberal ideology is the antithesis. In regular discursive debate there
is a winner and a loser, and action is taken based on the victor of the debate. In the type of debate
desired by conservatives, the victor of the debate is deprived of the privilege of acting, as the
debate is merely reset. There is no need to win the debate if ones ideology is the default. In this
sense the political right uses free speech and discourse the very weapon of emancipatory
knowledge to promulgate an ideology that enslaves people to untruths.
To this effect I claim that those of us that are the heirs of truth should not play this game
that the author of the Scribd article proposes we play this game that allows for all opinions to
be treated equally. It is a game rigged for conservative victory, and we should not allow
ourselves to be baited into accepting it! The irony is that the more discussion we have, the further
we validate the moral claim of this slave morality that holds all opinions (here the false
equivocation is made between truth, untruth, and opinion) are equal, the more we consign
ourselves to political impotence. In the conservative ideology all opinions are equal, but, to
paraphrase Orwell, some opinions are more equal than others. It need not be said which opinions
are the most equal. The more we try to engage in a discursive process that is rigged against us,
the more we allow ourselves to be mastered by the ineffable ideology of sycophantic slaves.

We are all slaves: we have nothing to lose but our chains.