1. Authoritarianism [oligarchy] would appear to be a certain lust for power that is greedy for power and profit. An oligarch is the sort who:
2. When the people are debating who should be selected to assist leading a parade, steps right up and declares that absolute control is required. If others propose ten people to do a job, he declares that “one is enough, provided he is a real man”. He can recall only that one Homeric verse—“the rule of many is not good, there should be one ruler’—and he understands nothing of the rest.
3. Don’t miss out that he uses these kinds of statements: “We should get together and deliberate about this on our own and avoid the democrat mob and the assembly. Stop being insulted or honored by them when we hold public offices” or “They should run the state or we should.”
4. In the middle of the day he goes out finely dressed with his hair hanging at mid-length and his fingernails finely done, peacocking around, laying about with words like this:
5. “Thanks to all these whistleblowers, this country is unlivable!” “We are being treated the worst in the courts because of their corruption!” “I can’t imagine what these people pursuing politics even want!” “The people are completely ungrateful—all they want is a handout!” He says he is ashamed in the assembly whenever some skinny person sits next to him.”
“For men often claim that disease and a life
of a bad reputation should be feared more than Tartaros.
And they claim they know that the nature of the soul is like blood
Or even air, if that fits their current desire.
And they claim that they do not need our arguments.
But what follows will make you see these things as a matter of boasting
rather than because the matter itself has been proved.
The same men, out of their homeland and in a long exile
From the sight of others, charged with some foul crime,
live as they do, even afflicted with all possible troubles.
But, still, wherever they go the outcasts minister to their ancestors
and slaughter dark cattle and make their offerings
to the departed ghosts and when things get worse
they focus more sharply on religion.
For this reason it is better to examine a man in doubt or danger:
Adverse circumstances make it easier to know who a man is,
for then true words finally rise from his deepest heart; when the mask is removed, the thing itself remains.”
nam quod saepe homines morbos magis esse timendos
infamemque ferunt vitam quam Tartara leti
et se scire animi naturam sanguinis esse,
aut etiam venti, si fert ita forte voluntas,
nec prosum quicquam nostrae rationis egere,
hinc licet advertas animum magis omnia laudis
iactari causa quam quod res ipsa probetur.
extorres idem patria longeque fugati
conspectu ex hominum, foedati crimine turpi,
omnibus aerumnis adfecti denique vivunt,
et quo cumque tamen miseri venere parentant
et nigras mactant pecudes et manibus divis
inferias mittunt multoque in rebus acerbis
acrius advertunt animos ad religionem.
quo magis in dubiis hominem spectare periclis
convenit adversisque in rebus noscere qui sit;
nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo
eliciuntur [et] eripitur persona manet res.
Demons From The Livre de la vigne nostre Seigneur, 1450 – 70
1. Authoritarianism [oligarchy] would appear to be a certain lust for power that is greedy for power and profit. An oligarch is the sort who:
2. When the people are debating who should be selected to assist leading a parade, steps right up and declares that absolute control is required. If others propose ten people to do a job, he declares that “one is enough, provided he is a real man”. He can recall only that one Homeric verse—“the rule of many is not good, there should be one ruler’—and he understands nothing of the rest.
3. Don’t miss out that he uses these kinds of statements: “We should get together and deliberate about this on our own and avoid the democrat mob and the assembly. Stop being insulted or honored by them when we hold public offices” or “They should run the state or we should.”
4. In the middle of the day he goes out finely dressed with his hair hanging at mid-length and his fingernails finely done, peacocking around, laying about with words like this:
5. “Thanks to all these whistleblowers, this country is unlivable!” “We are being treated the worst in the courts because of their corruption!” “I can’t imagine what these people pursuing politics even want!” “The people are completely ungrateful—all they want is a handout!” He says he is ashamed in the assembly whenever some skinny person sits next to him.”
“Skilled men recognized gold and silver in fire
But wine exposes a man’s mind
Even when he is wise should he drink beyond the limit,
[wine] makes shameful even one who used to be wise.”
Some Aristotle for this morning. I don’t think I actually believe the third point–because I suspect that insisting that human character is constant and consistent is actually (1) wrong and (2) impacts mental health negatively. But I like the beginning and the emphasis on that Aristotelian notion that doing something makes you something...
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.2-4
“Or is this also true in the arts? For spelling a word accidentally or with someone else guiding you is possible. Then, one will be a scholar if he spells something the way a scholar does, by which I mean according to the scholarly art itself. In addition, there is no real similarity between the arts and virtue. For the products of art are good in themselves—it suffices if they develop while having their own quality.
But acts of virtue don’t have their own intrinsic quality and are performed wisely or justly, but if the person who does them acts in a certain way. First, he must understand what he does. Second, he must choose to do it and for its own nature. And, third, he must act from a fixed and constant character. None of these conditions are necessary for the other arts apart from understanding the act. But knowledge is of little or no importance for the virtues while the other conditions are not minor but rather everything, if truly [virtue] emerges from repeatedly doing just and wise things.”
“It is understandable that he brought a prejudice on the highest offices in the land, which would no longer allow people to return the characters they started with, but instead could make them mean, boastful, and inhumane. Whether this is a movement or a change of nature because of chance or it is an unmasking of the truth when there is evil in authority, some other investigation will discover.”
Plutarch, Fr. 203, recorded in Themistios’ On the Soul (From Stobaeus, iii.13. 68)
“Others will decide whether Diogenes spoke rightly about Plato “What good is a man who has practiced philosophy for a long time and pissed off no one? Perhaps it is right that the philosopher’s speech has a sweetness that wounds like honey.”
“[Epicurus] used to call Nausiphanes an illiterate jellyfish, a cheat and a whore. He used to refer to Plato’s followers as the Dionysus-flatterers; he called Aristotle a waste who, after he spent his interitance, fought as a mercenary and sold drugs. He maligned Protagoras as a bellboy, and called Protagoras Democritus’ secretary and a teacher from the sticks. He called Heraclitus mudman, Democritus Lerocritus [nonsense lord].
Antidorus he called Sannidôros [servile-gifter]. He named the Cynics “Greece’s enemies”; he called the dialecticians Destructionists and, according to him, Pyrrho was unlearned and unteachable.”
Nepos Cornelius also writes to the same Cicero thus: it is so far away from me thinking that philosophy is a teacher of life and the guardian of a happy life, that I do not believe that anyone needs teachers of living more than the many men who are dedicated to philosophical debate. I certainly see that a great number of those who rush into speeches about restraint and discipline in the classroom live amidst the desire for every kind of vice.”
Nepos quoque Cornelius ad eundem Ciceronem ita scribit: tantum abest ut ego magistram putem esse vitae philosophiam beataeque vitae perfectricem ut nullis magis existimem opus esse magistros vivendi quam plerisque qui in ea disputanda versantur. video enim magnam partem eorum qui in schola de pudore <et> continentia praecipiant argutissime eosdem in omnium libidinum cupiditatibus vivere. (Lactant. Div. inst. 3.5.10)
On Timon, D. L. 9.12
“Antigonos says that Timon was fond of drinking; and, whenever he had free time from philosophizing, he wrote poems”
“The problem: Polytropos [“many-wayed”] Antisthenes claims that Homer doesn’t praise Odysseus as much as he criticizes him when he calls him polytropos. He didn’t make Achilles and Ajax polytropoi, but they were direct [‘simple’] and noble. Nor did he make Nestor the wise tricky, by Zeus, and devious in character—he simply advised Agamemnon and the rest and if he had anything good to counsel, he would not stand apart keeping it hidden; in the manner Achilles showed that he believed the man the same as death “who says one thing but hides another in his thoughts.”
“Antisthenes in interpreting this asks “why, then, is wretched Odysseus called polytropos? Really, this is the way to mark him out as wise. Isn’t it true that his manner never indicates his character, but that instead it signals his use of speech? The man who has a character difficult to penetrate is well-turned. These sorts of inventions of words are tropes/ways/manners”
“If wise men are clever at speaking to others, then they also know how to speak the same thought in different ways; and, because they know the many different ways of words about the same matter. And if wise men are also good, then this is reason Homer says that Odysseus who is wise is many-wayed: he knew how to engage with people in many ways.
Thus Pythagoras is said to have known the right way to address speeches to children, to make those addresses appropriate for women to women, those fit for leaders to leaders, and those appropriate for youths to youths. It is a mark of wisdom to find the manner best for each group of people; and it is a mark of ignorance to use a single type of address toward people who are unaccustomed to it. It is the same for medicine in the successful use of its art, which fits the many-wayed nature of therapy through the varied application to those who need assistance. This manner of character is unstable, much-changing.
Many-wayedness of speech is also a finely crafted use of language for different audiences and it becomes single-wayed. For, one approach is appropriate to each. Therefore, fitting the varied power of speech to each, shaping what is proper to each for the single iteration, makes the many-wayed in turns single in form and actually ill-fit to different types of audiences, rejected by many because it is offensive to them.
1. Authoritarianism [oligarchy] would appear to be a certain lust for power that is greedy for strength and profit. An oligarch is the sort who:
2. When the people are debating who should be selected to assist leading a parade, steps right up and declares that absolute control is required. If others propose ten people to do a job, he declares that “one is enough, provided he is a real man”. He can recall only that one Homeric verse—“the rule of many is not good, there should be one ruler’—and he understands nothing of the rest.
3. Don’t miss out that he uses these kinds of statements: “We should get together and deliberate about this on our own and avoid the democrat mob and the assembly. Stop being insulted or honored by them when we hold public offices” or “They should run the state or we should.”
4. In the middle of the day he goes out finely dressed with his hair hanging at mid-length and his fingernails finely done, peacocking around, laying about with words like this:
5. “Thanks to all these whistleblowers, this country is unlivable!” “We are being treated the worst in the courts because of their corruption!” “I can’t imagine what these people pursuing politics even want!” “The people are completely ungrateful—all they want is a handout!” He says he is ashamed in the assembly whenever some skinny person sits next to him.”
Plutarch’s “To the Uneducated Ruler” has no relevance today, at all (780a-c)...
“The majority of kings and rulers are stupid–they imitate those artless sculptors who believe that their over-sized figures seem large and solid if they make them with a wide stance, flexing their muscles, mouths gaped open. For these types of rulers seem merely to be imitating the impressiveness and seriousness of leadership with their deep voice, severe glance, bitter manners and their separate way of living: but they are not really any different from the sculpted colossus which is heroic and godly on the outside, but filled with dirt, stone or lead within.
The real difference is that the weight of the statue keeps it standing straight, never leaning; these untaught generals and leaders often wobble and overturn because of their native ignorance. For, because they have built their homes on a crooked foundation, they lean and slide with it. Just as a carpenter’s square, if it is straight and solid, straightens out everything else that is measured according to it, so too a leader must first master himself and correct his own character and only then try to guide his people. For one who is falling cannot lift others; one who is ignorant cannot teach; one who is simple cannot manage complicated affairs; one who is disordered cannot create order; and one who does not rule himself cannot rule.”
“Among the weak, base and private citizens, ignorance when combined with a lack of power yields little wrongdoing, as in nightmares some trouble upsets the mind, making it incapable of responding to its desires. But when power has been combined with wickedness it adds energy to latent passions. And so that saying of Dionysus is true—for he used to say that he loved his power most when he could do what he wanted quickly. It is truly a great danger when one who wants what is wrong has the power to do what he wants to do.
As Homer puts it “When the plan was made, then the deed was done.” When wickedness has an open course because of its power, it compels every passion to emerge, producing rage, murder, lust, adultery, and greedy acquisition of public wealth.”
“It is not possible to hide wickedness in power. But, as when someone with vertigo* might go up in a high place and move around, only to become dizzy and uncertain, thus revealing their suffering, so fortune amplifies the untaught and ignorant a little with some wealth, reputation or offices and, once they have risen up, it shows them falling. Or rather, it is the same as when you cannot tell which of some containers is solid and which is cracked but when you pour water into them, the culprit leak is clear: rotten minds cannot manage power, but they ooze out random desires, rages, improprieties, and base manners.”
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