Social death
Social death is the condition of people not accepted as fully human by wider society. It refers to when someone is treated as if they are dead or non-existent. It is used by sociologists such as Orlando Patterson and Zygmunt Bauman, and historians of slavery and the Holocaust to describe the part played by governmental and social segregation in that process. Examples of social death are: Racial and gender exclusion, persecution, slavery, and apartheid. Governments can exclude individuals or groups from society. Examples: Protestant minority groups in early modern Europe; ostracism in Ancient Athens; Dalits in India; criminals; prostitutes, outlaws Institutionalization and segregation of those labeled with a mental illness. 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 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, 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