On the pleasures of owning persons: The hidden face of American slavery

The real reason Americans owned slaves was not just financial. They did it because they liked it. To understand America’s struggles with race relations, we must take an uncensored look at our country’s involvement with slavery. We examine three questions: * What were the pleasures of owning slaves? * How did freedom-loving American Christians explain ownership to themselves? * How did they defend themselves against this double contradiction? Answering those questions will help us face our future with greater clarity. “Much has been written about the horrors of American slavery. But rarely, if ever, has a serious writer examined what psychologically ‘normal’ people who owned slaves derived from their power, or how they justified their participation in the South’s peculiar institution even as they saw themselves as genuine Christians. Volney Gay’s On the Pleasures of Owning Persons is a remarkable and penetrating look at that question and an important book for anyone trying to fully understand the nature of slavery and slaveholding in the United States.” (Mark Potok, Senior Fellow, Southern Poverty Law Center) “Volney Gay’s achievement in applied empathy focuses upon the pleasures that Erich Fromm saw in numerous encounters: the exercise of power over another, “the power which makes him do what we want, feel what we want, think what we want; which transforms him into a thing, our thing, our possession” Dr. Gay’s courageous investigation . .. reveals the fascination, revulsion, excitement, and indignation of this tragedy of the human condition.” (Gilbert Herdt, PhD, Graduate Program in Human Sexuality, California Institute for Integral Studies; Chair of the Board, International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society, Lima, Peru) Volney Gay, professor of religious studies, psychiatry, and anthropology at Vanderbilt University, also served as the director of psychotherapy training in the Department of Psychiatry. In addition to many op-ed and professional journal articles, he has authored nine books on topics including occult religion, literature and psychology, religion and science, psychotherapy and values, and now American slavery and the psychology of ownership.