Article by Spiros Kakos [2016-01-07]:
Is it important to be a noble? Yes.
Is modern democracy an atrocity? Yes.
Are nobles the hope for the future? Maybe. Perhaps.
Will the no-nobles save us after all? It seems so.
But let's take things from the beginning...
Thesis: The nobles
Once upon a time there were noble people. Kings, barons, lords. People with titles, who did whatever they could to keep them and be worthy of them. Because being noble was directly related to being cultured. Regardless of their political actions (bad examples of which we can see both in people with titles and with no titles alike) these people tried to educate themselves, they were keen in keeping the most rich libraries and even supported philosophers just for the sake of philosophy, like in Kant’s case.
Everything looked good.
But then something happened.
Then came money...
Antithesis: Money. The "people"
And power passed on to the hands of uncultured people. Because making money is not even related to being cultured. (no, education is not related to culture) The exact opposite actually: the more cultured you are, the less you want to participate in the processes generating big wealth. The lowest layers of society learned about the power they could hold. Without educating themselves of course.
Imposing the “correct” to the many always entails a kind of power that the many despise. Nobody wants to be told what to do. People speak against monarchy or aristocracy not because there was no progress with these regimes (science was cultivated in these regimes) but because they want no one above their heads. And yet they do not realize that the tyranny of a king or of an aristocracy is not even compared to the tyranny of democracy which has proved much less susceptible to change and much more hereditary (when kingdoms spread to Europe a revolution changed everything every one or two decades, with the advent of democracy the same people steal the money of people for years and years without anyone doing anything) than any monarchy regime. Yes, democracy is a stupid and dangerous regime. Because it gives the power to people for the benefit of the people. And the people are by majority uncultured. The right regime should somehow give the opportunity to the wise people to take decisions in their related sectors. The ideal regime would have the best of monarchy (someone with power to impose the proper decisions), aristocracy (the best of the best decide on the things they know) and politeiocracy (power stems from the people for the benefit of the state and not the people, in which the cultivation of people by already cultured people should be of prime importance). Socrates said it so many times and that is why he was killed: Wise people should take all the decisions for things they know. Is it hard to find these wise people? Yes. But that does not mean that we should give up all the power to the uncultured.
In the old days you had barons celebrating art in their castles. Nobles coming together to listen to room music or exchange opinion on metaphysical matters. Lords holding hundreds of precious books in huge libraries. Kings who tried to stay in history by sponsoring culture in any possible way. Now we have every random, illiterate, unaesthetic guy classified as “educated” because they just finished the obligatory education the state provides, travelling on first class, running businesses, funding universities, deciding whether the ideas of others will be implemented, deciding on the fate of whole people.
Illiterate people were always the majority.
The difference is that now they hold the power.
Good luck to us all.
Synthesis: The masses listen to the wise people?
Is it important to be a noble? Yes.
Is modern democracy an atrocity? Yes.
Are nobles the hope for the future? Maybe. Perhaps.
Will the no-nobles save us after all? It seems so.
But let's take things from the beginning...
Thesis: The nobles
Once upon a time there were noble people. Kings, barons, lords. People with titles, who did whatever they could to keep them and be worthy of them. Because being noble was directly related to being cultured. Regardless of their political actions (bad examples of which we can see both in people with titles and with no titles alike) these people tried to educate themselves, they were keen in keeping the most rich libraries and even supported philosophers just for the sake of philosophy, like in Kant’s case.
Everything looked good.
But then something happened.
Then came money...
Antithesis: Money. The "people"
And power passed on to the hands of uncultured people. Because making money is not even related to being cultured. (no, education is not related to culture) The exact opposite actually: the more cultured you are, the less you want to participate in the processes generating big wealth. The lowest layers of society learned about the power they could hold. Without educating themselves of course.
Imposing the “correct” to the many always entails a kind of power that the many despise. Nobody wants to be told what to do. People speak against monarchy or aristocracy not because there was no progress with these regimes (science was cultivated in these regimes) but because they want no one above their heads. And yet they do not realize that the tyranny of a king or of an aristocracy is not even compared to the tyranny of democracy which has proved much less susceptible to change and much more hereditary (when kingdoms spread to Europe a revolution changed everything every one or two decades, with the advent of democracy the same people steal the money of people for years and years without anyone doing anything) than any monarchy regime. Yes, democracy is a stupid and dangerous regime. Because it gives the power to people for the benefit of the people. And the people are by majority uncultured. The right regime should somehow give the opportunity to the wise people to take decisions in their related sectors. The ideal regime would have the best of monarchy (someone with power to impose the proper decisions), aristocracy (the best of the best decide on the things they know) and politeiocracy (power stems from the people for the benefit of the state and not the people, in which the cultivation of people by already cultured people should be of prime importance). Socrates said it so many times and that is why he was killed: Wise people should take all the decisions for things they know. Is it hard to find these wise people? Yes. But that does not mean that we should give up all the power to the uncultured.
In the old days you had barons celebrating art in their castles. Nobles coming together to listen to room music or exchange opinion on metaphysical matters. Lords holding hundreds of precious books in huge libraries. Kings who tried to stay in history by sponsoring culture in any possible way. Now we have every random, illiterate, unaesthetic guy classified as “educated” because they just finished the obligatory education the state provides, travelling on first class, running businesses, funding universities, deciding whether the ideas of others will be implemented, deciding on the fate of whole people.
Illiterate people were always the majority.
The difference is that now they hold the power.
Good luck to us all.
Synthesis: The masses listen to the wise people?
Wise men did try to break the barriers of stupidity and inform the masses of their following a wrong path. But how much they actually achieved is hard to know. Masses are stupid and that is why they can be led quite easily with the right methods. (I am not discussing here how good the people composing these masses are: being kind is related to being able to think or have the choice to be bad so there is not one straightforward answer to that question – usually when a “good” person gets power he becomes worse than an animal) Masses may have killed Socrates and Jesus Christ, but they now try to comprehend their teachings. Masses may not understand Kant and Heidegger but what these people said and wrote exert a metaphysical pressure towards the correct direction. Masses may never admit it, but they subconsciously understand that they are stupid and recognize their need to be led by wiser people. The masses have the tendency to think less and this makes them more susceptible to accepting the cosmos and its meaning and true purpose. Simple people are the ones who understand better the teachings of wise people related to love, compassion, forgiveness. Perhaps in this essence masses are the hope of the world.
Epimetron of hope: The "crazy" people will save us
In every era and while all "civilized" people tried to impose their opinion on the others, some "madmen" who wandered around ragged between the people, teaching "irrelevant" and phenomenally "meaningless" things about love. But kings always respected and in a curiously manner feared these people. People of power always looked with a kind of awe these picturesque "lunatics" who wandered alone in the desert. After all it were simple fishermen who transmitted the message of Christ to all the nations. And at the end, wise people do not care for any of the above.
We are all One.
As above, so below.
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