Steven > Recent Status Updates

This previous chapter discussed the ways in which female slave owners owned their slaves and practiced slave discipline in their own right. It seems that a lot of sexist ideas have pervaded the historical research about this topic, which is a shame, because it distorts the picture we have of the culture of slavery. Not only did white women punish their slaves, some did so with exceptional cruelty and violence

Technically there was a law of coverture in the South which submitted wives to their husbands, this was essentially a legal fiction, and the courts knew it. Slaves were often the cause of marital quarrels, particularly if a husband mistreated slaves that were owned by his wife. Wives sometimes treated their slaves better than husbands, but this was mostly because they wanted to protect their economic investiture.

This first chapter is about how white southern children were groomed into slave ownership. Some of the behaviors that they exhibited mimicked that of their parents in terms of cruelty, but much of the decision about how to treat their own slaves was their personal decision, since slaves were not considered to be human. Some slaves were instructed to refer to white infants as "master" and "mistress" or be punished

I can already tell that this book is so important. It's often assumed that white women had little control over slaves in the South. This is categorically not true--Although there were extra legal barriers in terms of the ownership of slaves, white women can and did own them, whether it was via inheritance or other means. They were often just as cruel as male slave owners.

The effect does not exist essentially, in whole or in part, in its causes. If the former were the case, such as a cloth residing in the thread, loom, and scissors, each cause could give rise to the complete cloth on its own. If the latter were the case, and part of the effect existed essentially in each of its causes, then the effect would arise in differentiated parts (multiple causes would equal multiple effects)

Tsongkhapa says here that the arising of an effect and the ceasing of the cause are simultaneous. He also states that the ceasing of one moment of consciousness is the immediate cause of the proceeding moment of consciousness, meaning that a cause can only be considered a cause once it is no longer existent. Since ceasing cause and rising effect are simultaneous, they are both necessarily empty and completely unborn

This author's portrayal of Buddhism is, surprisingly, mostly correct, although it's a very simplified outlook on the religion for the sake of brevity. He's wrong when he says that Buddhism can be a complete replacement for psychiatric medicine, though--I'll talk about that later on down the line when I review the book

Excited to dig into this one. My reading progress will be significantly effected by the fact that I'm reading a different edition than the one listed here on goodreads.

Emma Goldman is one of my personal heroes--She led a remarkable life of non-conformity in several different countries.

I changed my mind, this isn't essential reading for all leftists and I'll explain why once I finish the book

I'm gonna shelve this one for a while. As much as I respect Mark Fisher's ideas, it's not super compelling to read about art that he likes but that I don't really care about. I'm not sure that I agree with his thesis fully either.

Love that he profiles Emma Goldman in this book--She's one of my personal heroes. I'm a little worried about the author's portrayal of antipsychotic medicine in this book, but it seems like he goes out of his way to say that he only opposes it to treat Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Surely that isn't the proper use of this medicine so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt