Social death is the condition of people not accepted as fully human by wider society. It is used by sociologists such as
Orlando Patterson
Horace Orlando Patterson (born 5 June 1940) is a Jamaican historical and cultural sociologist known for his work regarding issues of race and slavery in the United States and Jamaica, as well as the sociology of development. He is the John Cowl ...
and
Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman (; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. He emigrat ...
, and historians of slavery and
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
to describe the part played by governmental and social segregation in that process. Examples of social death are:
*
Racial
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
and
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
exclusion, persecution, slavery, and
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
.
*Governments can exclude individuals or groups from society. Examples: Protestant minority groups in
early modern Europe
Early modern Europe, also referred to as the post-medieval period, is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roughly the late 15th century to the late 18th century. Histori ...
;
ostracism
Ostracism ( el, ὀστρακισμός, ''ostrakismos'') was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the ci ...
in
Ancient Athens;
Dalits
Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...
in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
; criminals; prostitutes,
outlaw
An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them ...
s
*Institutionalization and segregation of those labeled with a
mental illness
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
.
*Change in the identity of an individual. This was a major theme during the Renaissance.
It could be said that the
degeneration theory and theories similar to this theory are the most extreme examples of social death. The idea of degeneration has been popular in both right-wing and left-wing politics. Both left-wing and right-wing politics have used the word
decadence
The word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, honor, discipline, or skill at governing among the members of ...
to describe social groups whose social, moral, religious, aesthetic, or political commitments tend towards the inhibition of any or all forms of progress (as used by some critics on the left to describe their opponents on the right) or towards the undermining of fundamental forms of order (as used by some critics on the right to describe their opponents on the left). In either political optic, the forces of decadence may be internal or external. Internally, the members of political opposition may represent those who have allowed essential ideals to lapse from their view of the world. Externally, members of another society may be considered as cherishing ideals which introduce forces of collapse into the worlds wherein they are immigrants.
''Slavery and Social Death''
The chief proponent of the relationship between social death and slavery is
Orlando Patterson
Horace Orlando Patterson (born 5 June 1940) is a Jamaican historical and cultural sociologist known for his work regarding issues of race and slavery in the United States and Jamaica, as well as the sociology of development. He is the John Cowl ...
, who states his findings in his 1982 book, ''Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study''. Patterson first defines slavery as "one of the most extreme forms of the relation of domination, approaching the limits of total power from the viewpoint of the master, and of total powerlessness from the viewpoint of the slave." Social death had both internal and external effects on enslaved people, changing their views of themselves and the way they were regarded by society. Slavery and social death can be linked in all civilizations where slavery existed, including China, Rome, Africa, Byzantium, Greece, Europe, and the Americas.
The beginning of social death comes from the initial enslavement process, which would most likely come from capture during a battle. A captive would be spared from death and created a slave, although this was a conditional commutation since death was only suspended as long as the slave submitted to his powerlessness. This pardon from death was replaced with social death, which would manifest both physically and psychologically.
Externally, slaves would undergo the loss of their identities through such practices as replacing their names, being branded to indicate their social condition, given a specific dress code that further established them as slaves to the public, castration, and having their heads shaved. Each of these acts alienated the slaves from their previous identities and symbolized their loss of freedom and power and their total dependency on their master’s will. The psychological process of social death included the effect of rejection as a member of society and becoming genealogically isolated through the loss of heritage and the right to pass on their ancestry to their children. In fact, all social bonds were seen as illegitimate unless they were validated by the master. Enslaved people were denied an independent social structure and were not even deemed fully human, as they were only seen as a representation of their master and had no honor or power of their own. The degree to which these practices took place was based on the two modes of social death, intrusive and extrusive. In the intrusive mode, rituals were developed for the incorporation of an external enemy into the culture as a slave. In the extrusive mode, traditions evolved for including those who have "fallen into slavery" from within society into the slave status. Both of these modes provided a process for the institutionalization of socially dead individuals.
Power played an essential role in the relationship between a slave and master, and violence was often deemed a necessary component of slavery. A slave was seen to have no worth. They had no name of their own and no honor. Instead, their worth and honor was transferred to the master and gave him an elevated social status among his peers. Violence within the relationship was considered essential because of the low motivation of the enslaved people, and it was also a factor in creating social death and exercising power over the slaves. Whipping was not only a method of punishment but also a consciously chosen symbolic device to remind slaves of their status. This physical violence had other psychological effects as well, gradually creating an attitude of self-blame and an acknowledgement of the complete control that a master had. Interviews with former American slaves included statements such as "slaves get the masters they deserve" and "I was so bad I needed the whipping", demonstrating the justification that slaves had no right to expect kindness or compassion because of their status in society and the devastating mental effects from social death.
These effects demonstrated the expectations of the behavior of a slave who had experienced social death. The individuals viewed as the ultimate slaves, the palace eunuchs from Byzantium and China, were essentially a paradox. These slaves were trusted by emperors and could be extremely influential. They were expected to be loyal, brave, and obedient, yet they were still considered low and debased and were shunned by society.
While Orlando Patterson gives the most extensive study on slavery and social death, he has several critics of his analysis. Those who reviewed the book disliked his refusal to define slaves as property because other groups could fit this definition as well, including women and children. Patterson also does not compare the treatment of slaves to other socially marginalized groups, such as prostitutes, criminals, and indentured servants. The third critique given about Patterson’s book is the lack of primary sources. Commentators noted that the argument in Slavery and Social Death would have been much stronger had Patterson utilized testimony from enslaved people of their views and meanings of honor, domination, and community.
Other definitions
In the context of
health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
, social death—when the ailing person no longer has the consciousness to communicate with others—can occur. Social death occurs during the progression of
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
and to patients rendered unconscious through
palliative sedation In medicine, specifically in end-of-life care, palliative sedation (also known as terminal sedation, continuous deep sedation, or sedation for intractable distress of a dying patient) is the palliative practice of relieving distress in a terminally ...
(a type of
end-of-life care) to reduce pain before an imminent death.
[Trish Williams, Death, Dying and Grieving, Losing Tom: A Documentary Film]
Employees who retire from their careers can experience another example of social death because of their removal from the daily work lives of co-workers.
See also
*
Herem (censure)
''Herem'' (, also Romanized ''chērem, ḥērem'') is the highest ecclesiastical censure in the Jewish community. It is the total exclusion of a person from the Jewish community. It is a form of shunning and is similar to ''vitandus'' "excommuni ...
*
Disengagement theory
The disengagement theory of ageing states that "aging is an inevitable, mutual withdrawal or disengagement, resulting in decreased interaction between the aging person and others in the social system he belongs to". The theory claims that it is ...
*
Excommunication
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
*
Exile
Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...
*
Ostracism
Ostracism ( el, ὀστρακισμός, ''ostrakismos'') was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the ci ...
*
Shunning
Shunning can be the act of social rejection, or emotional distance. In a religious context, shunning is a formal decision by a denomination or a congregation to cease interaction with an individual or a group, and follows a particular set of rul ...
*
Slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
*
Imprisonment
*
Civil death
Civil death ( la, civiliter mortuus) is the loss of all or almost all civil rights by a person due to a conviction for a felony or due to an act by the government of a country that results in the loss of civil rights. It is usually inflicted on per ...
Notes
References
* Claudia Card
''Genocide and Social Death'' Hypatia, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter 2003)
Key Topics on End-of-Life Care for African Americans, Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life and the Initiative to Improve Palliative Care for African Americans
* Brian Garavaglia
''Avoiding the Tendency to Medicalize the Grieving Process: Reconciliation Rather Than Resolution'' The New Social Worker Online, Summer 2006
* John Edwin Mason
* Jaap W. Ouwerkerk, et al.
The 7th Annual Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology: The Social Outcast: Ostracism, Social Exclusion, Rejection, & Bullying, Mar. 16-18, 2004
Alternate link
* {{Cite book, author=Orlando Patterson, author-link=Orlando Patterson, url=https://archive.org/details/slaverysocialdea0000patt, title=Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, date=1985, isbn=0-674-81082-1, url-access=registration
* Matelita Ragogo
Agence France Presse, Sept. 9, 2002
* Deborah C. Reidy
Alaska Mental Health Consumer Web
* Stuart Waldman
''Surviving a Fate Worse than Death: The Plight of the Homebound Elderly'' Loss, Grief & Care: A Journal of Professional Practice Vol. 6, No. 4 (May 14, 1993), ISSN 8756-4610
* Trish Williams
Losing Tom: A Documentary Film
Social rejection
Sociological terminology