Getting on near
April again, and fools and appearances are, as they say, against us! They don’t
whisper, nor do they murmur, they yell! We gnash our teeth at the “hardness of
our fate,” yet fools and appearances speak against us. In this world in which
we have to fear and love, they’re always getting in the way (at least, in the
way of a free lunch).
In our “modern
age,” in our present evolutionary state, fools and appearances can’t be helped.
Although we may defend against clumsy spectators and familiar curiosity, we’re
always exposed! As Freddie always said: “We have been woven into a strict yarn
and shirt of duties and cannot get out of it...”
Well, we may have
rent and torn at that yarn since his day... to the extent that the fabric of
society is more than frazzled (if one is to be mistaken for a naïve fool, as
one more of the bleating who actually believe what the media reports).
In the
tumult and uproar, it may have gone unnoticed, but it’s through duty that idiots are woven into our lives, right into the very stitch of our social
fabric, into the yarns of clumsy spectators and nasty observers. What is this
“duty” which no longer hounds us as in Freddie’s day, nor tugs at our collars,
nor yanks at our conscience? Where have our moral obligations to our brethren,
our community, our living environment, to the noble gods, gone?
Nevermore! They’re
no more. No one owes anyone anything (except the banks, of course!). It used to
be that everyone was looking for someone
(that must have been during the Summer of Love), today, it’s everyone looking at themselves! The youthful narcissists
and their “selfies” (as in: “Here I am with that unloved, dour hijacker! Hey,
we didn’t get blown up?”). We are no longer duty-bound, bereft of self-less
love, and all we have left are the bitter dregs of fear... the great masses of
spectators, those not-so-meek herd-animals have nothing to live for; nothing to
die for either.
And so it was,
that before the word “idiot” took on its more vulgar meaning of “stupid,” “lacking
intelligence,” and worse (in the States, until the ‘50s, idiot was used as a technical-legal term for “mental retardation”),
it had a more poignant meaning (not that “idiot” isn’t poignant when it’s use
properly and to identify and describe the proper individual or collective). The
word comes to us from the Greek. You can always leave it to them to endow
everything with a clear and salient meaning. The Greeks knew a thing or two
about idiots in general, and “idiot” had a very special meaning, which has
since been lost in the transit of time.
“From these
things therefore it is clear that the Polis (city-state) is a natural growth,
and that man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and
not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above
it (like the “clanless, lawless, hearthless,” man reviled by Homer, for one by
nature unsocial is also ‘a lover of war’).” -Aristotle- Politics, ca. 350 B.C.
We want to recall
Aristotle’s axiom about human beings being political animals, especially today,
when we reference idiots... (idiots such
as: The Donald or Hillary, who are not “above it” but rather they are below the
evolutionary stage of mere animals, for they are “war lovers,” and therefore, not
worthy of being called “political” in any real sense of the word. Idiots is by far more accurate and
should be the term used henceforth.).
You’ve got to hand
it to Homer too! He was no slouch... Blind as a bat he may have been, but he listened! He could sense the throbbing
of the blood, the pulsing of the ka-double, the vibrations in the wind, and in
the air itself he sensed the gods singing and dancing. Undisturbed by sight or
the brightness of day, his ears touched at the same time as they heard, and
that’s how Homer got the rhythm for the hexameter!
Citizens and
Idiots Lend Me Your Ears
Back to our friend
Aristotle... He said that we were political animals for a reason – to be a
“political animal” was something vaunted and desired in the “citizen” of the
Polis. An idiot, therefore, was someone who cared nothing for, was totally
disinterested in, or did not partake in the affairs of the Polis. In other
words, someone alien to the affection of their fellow brothers and sisters –
someone whom the ancient Greeks despised since they felt such an individual was
“too individual” and not a part of their community, and was as if living apart
from humanity. After all, such an idiot, as Aristotle observed, was either on a
higher evolutionary path then the rest of humanity, or relegated to be lower
than an animal... more than likely the latter.
“For it is the special property of man in
distinction from the other animals that he alone has perception of good and bad
and right and wrong and the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in
these things that makes a household and a city-state.” -Aristotle- Politics
Hmm... “the good
and bad and other moral qualities,” those very values which have disappeared
from the modern state and even the household of the modern herd-animal. It’s as
if selfishness and egotism have silenced the individual’s conscience, removed
the word “morality” from the vernacular, and from everyday social behavior as
well... To act “morally” was the duty of the citizen of the Polis. This is why Freddie was right when he said
we’re “bound by duty” to the fabric of our communities. But alas, we’re certainly
not in Athens anymore... and we’re not in Kansas either!
We’re in a state – a stasis – which the Greeks would consider to be utter chaos. Going even further back in time, I doubt the Ancient Egyptians would have had much stomach for it either. They didn’t even have the word idiot – since there wasn’t anyone remotely resembling an idiot among the Black People. Their “Polis” was like the energized buzzing of a harmonious beehive (something as diametrically opposed to our current state and how it conducts its affairs would be unimaginable!).
It’s not simply
the fact that the “modern state” (what used to be the Polis) is ungovernable...
Aristotle’s insight that the natural growth of the “city-state” is ultimately
human, seems to indicate that it’s not the institution per se, but the
individuals, its so-called leaders and those making up its membership that are lacking;
in other words, they also happen to be idiots.
Let us take a moment
to consider what made the Polis governable in antiquity. Not to intimate that
in ancient Greece, or even in Athens, there was any semblance of “democracy” as
modern idiots understand the term (in Athens there were many women and slaves,
which amounts to the same thing – non-citizens). No, it had nothing to do with
power. It had to do with duty (to the Ancient Greeks it was a sacred duty – an expression
of philo – or self-less love). The
only essential thing that made an ancient Polis governable, therefore, was the
small number of idiots around – the rest were either slaves or citizens.
It’s not that
complicated... it’s almost mathematical. Today, things are mathematically
“unbalanced,” you may say, to the detriment of the State and of Politics in
general – the “political animal” has degenerated considerably. There’s no art
or power, and certainly not any “art of governing” or “political science,”
required to figure it out. Whether a nation or a people can be governed depends
on Number – the ratio of idiots to citizens the nation or territory possesses. How
can anyone govern today when selfish idiots
outnumber dutiful citizens a million
to one? (Make that a billion to one).
Governing is a
duty, and that naturally, doesn’t enter into the modern political calculus. All
that matters is the attainment of selfish, personal power. Governing, dealing
with the proper management of the “household” (a.k.a. Economics), which
explains why women were the only ones to manage such, was the highest duty. When
it comes to the “common good,” that is the “household” of the many, that’s
something first-rate idiots like Trump or Hillary cannot fathom. They fail to take
the “human household” into account... and once in power, they’ll never take
account of anything, and much less responsibility for anything! Like most first-rate
idiots they haven’t paused yet to think things through (thinking things through is simply not within the skill set of the
normal, run-of-the-mill, first-rate idiot!).
Is it any wonder
then that we are surrounded by idiots? We’re not only surrounded by them, but
being led down the slippery slope to Armageddon by them! It’s exasperating, but
true. It’s a demeaning and unsavory task to have to deal in or with Politics,
so I won’t belabor the point, and I won’t be going down that rat hole any time
soon. To speak of or about first-rate idiots and politicians (well, they amount
to the same thing), is beneath a mere slave anyway. Nevertheless, the state of
affairs in our decadent age (and not just in Politics and Economics!) is such
that fools and appearances are always against us...
Happy April Fool’s
Day!
