Aristotle's Warning

American Thinker ^ | March 21, 2010 | Ed Kaitz

[neverdem]

"We know that the moment of greatest danger to a society is when it comes near realizing its most cherished dreams." - Eric Hoffer

From its origins in Athens some 2,500 years ago, it has been obvious to some astute observers that democracy, like all other forms of government, carries with it a certain type of energy. Barack Obama rode this unique democratic energy into the White House over a year ago. He called it a "righteous wind" and promised something rather vague that he called "change."

To many otherwise innocent American voters, "change" likely meant the change from Bush-era recession to a vibrant new Obama-era prosperity. But when candidate and President Obama began stirring up class warfare against Wall Street, bankers, insurance companies, and the "rich," my instincts led me to Aristotle, who saw and wrote about various populist "demagogues" and their effect on democratic society many times during his lifetime in Athens.

Aristotle's observations are both sobering and chilling. He watched and recorded with scientific detachment the rise and fall of dozens of creatively organized city-states in ancient Greece. His keen empirical eye evaluated close to 160 different types of constitutions. In other words, Aristotle did his scholarly work each day in a living, breathing political Petri dish of inestimable value to both ancient and modern political philosophers.

For over a year, my copy of Aristotle's great work Politics has lain open at the beginning of Book Five -- as if Aristotle is imploring me once again to review a rather painful series of claims about just where Barack Obama and the Democrats might be taking America. Simply put, a righteous wind unshackled in a democracy will change our way of life beyond recognition. Trust Aristotle -- he's seen this before.

Aristotle's main purpose in Book Five is to identify the "causes of factional conflict and constitutional change." He's interested in how constitutions that start out one way change into something different. In other words, Aristotle wants to know the causes of constitutional change in order to discover the secrets of constitutional preservation: "It is clear, to begin with, that to know the causes which destroy constitutions is also to know the causes which ensure their preservation."

Following Aristotle through this section is both enlightening and, in light of the many socialists who populate the modern Democratic Party, exceedingly disturbing. For the remaining conservatives in both political parties who believe in "conserving" our brilliant Constitution, however, Aristotle provides us with some rather priceless knowledge in this regard.

First, Aristotle recognizes that "tyranny grows out of the most immature type of democracy." An immature democracy is one in which demagogues and other politicians fail to recognize the direction "to which [democracy] tends." This is a critical point that Aristotle devotes much energy investigating.

Democracies, says Aristotle, tend to be pulled in one direction: toward a vilification of everything involving merit, hierarchy, inequality, proportion, and worth. For Aristotle, this type of democratic "energy" actually begins at birth: "People are prone to think that the fact of their all being equally free-born means that they are all absolutely equal."

The duty of a mature legislator and statesman, says Aristotle, is to spend much of his time pulling his country in the opposite direction from where the righteous wind tends to blow in a democracy. That means blocking legislation that undermines the ability of talented, qualified, and hardworking individuals to receive the benefit of their exertions in due proportion. 

On the other hand, the easiest thing for a demagogue to do in a democracy is to sweep up the populace with rhetoric about what people are owed in life simply because they are equally born. For the demagogue, the easiest targets are those individuals who have achieved a higher and wealthier position in society through their own efforts. But the mature statesman must recognize this and refrain from igniting democratic energy with rhetoric about redistributing wealth:

In democracies the rich should be spared. Not only should their estates be safe from the threat of redistribution: the produce of the estates should be equally secure; and the practice of sharing it out, which has insensibly developed under some constitutions, should not be allowed.

Targeting the rich and meritorious divides society and threatens to uproot the very people who place a drag on democracy's excessive egalitarian energy:

Demagogues are always dividing the city into two, and waging war against the rich. Their proper policy is the very reverse: they should always profess to be speaking in defense of the rich.

By defending the rich, the statesman establishes much-needed ballast against the tendency in democracy to introduce "radical legislation" and "systems of equal ownership" that invariably make it a "worse constitution." And although for Aristotle the marrow in a democracy is its stable, productive, and virtuous middle class, the rich must survive as well if the constitution is to survive.

Second, Aristotle argues that without term limits, demagogues have a much better chance of harming the constitution:

Those who hold office with a short tenure can hardly do as much harm as those who have a long tenure; and it is long possession of office which leads to the rise of tyrannies in oligarchies and democracies. Those who make a bid for tyranny are either the [demagogues] or else the holders of the main offices who have held them for a long period.

One need only mention one name as an example in this regard: Nancy Pelosi.

Third, Aristotle regards the "education of the citizens in the spirit of their constitution" as the greatest of all measures for ensuring the stability of the regime:

There is no advantage in the best of laws, even when they are sanctioned by general civic consent, if the citizens themselves have not been attuned, by force of habit and the influence of teaching, to the right constitutional temper.

In other words, if the academic environment in a democracy betrays hostility toward its founding philosophy, then the citizens at some point will need to brace themselves for a major constitutional transformation. While guest-lecturing to a senior class of business and economics majors at a local college recently, I was surprised to learn that no one in the class of thirty-five had ever read the Federalist Papers, John Locke, or even Adam Smith.

About forty years ago, Ayn Rand watched as student radicals began "establishing ideological beachheads" on college campuses "for a full-scale advance of all the statist-collectivist forces against the remnants of capitalism in America." Their mission -- "ideological control of America's universities" -- was reinforced by cowardice and compromise among the conservative faculty and administrators. Echoing Aristotle, Rand observed:

If the universities -- the supposed citadels of reason, knowledge, scholarship, civilization -- can be made to surrender to the rule of brute force, the rest of the country is cooked.

Fourth, Aristotle made the interesting observation that when your enemies are "close at hand," you have an equally good chance of preserving your constitution as when your enemies are far away. He says that when the defenders of a constitution are anxious about their more proximate enemies, they tend to watch over their constitution "like sentinels on night-duty."

Ronald Reagan left office a hero among most conservatives in 1988 for his "victory" over the forces of international socialism. A mere twenty years later, we have the most hard-left, socialist-leaning political faction in American history reshaping the nation at will. I think that what Aristotle is saying here is that had Reagan and other conservative politicians spent more time "creating anxieties" about the legions of hard leftists in our own backyard, then we'd have a better chance of preserving individual freedom and limited government today. 

Finally, Aristotle argues that there are three qualifications necessary for those who wish to serve in government: loyalty to the established constitution, a high degree of capacity for the duties of the office, and goodness of character and justice in the particular form which suits the nature of "[the] constitution."

Back in 2001, Barack Obama noted that during the fight for civil rights, the Warren Court didn't "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution." The Warren Court, in other words, interpreted the Constitution the same way in which the Founders did -- as a document that assigns negative, not positive liberties to state and federal government. In Obama's words:

[The Constitution] says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you [negative liberty]. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf [positive liberty].

It's difficult to say how many present-day Democrat politicians embrace the "negative liberty" wishes of our brilliant Founding Fathers. Without this "loyalty" to the spirit of limited government, their chances of having the kind of character that embraces self-reliance, competition, and initiative are quite slim. And without these two essential qualifications, Aristotle's third requirement seems moot: "a high degree of capacity for the duties of the office."

Looking back over the last forty or fifty years in America, it seems quite obvious that we have been failing to heed Aristotle's warning. In short, with an unshackled righteous wind behind it, our democracy approaches the dangerous moment Eric Hoffer warned us about: "near realizing its most cherished dreams."

Alexis de Tocqueville warned that although democratic communities "have a natural taste for freedom," their passion for equality is "ardent, insatiable, incessant, and invincible." And nothing, says Tocqueville, can compete with a force of that magnitude:

All men and all powers seeking to cope with this irresistible passion will be overthrown and destroyed by it.  In our age freedom cannot be established without it, and despotism itself cannot reign without its support.

If Americans fail this November to send packing the growing number of congressional Democrats with a statist-collectivist vision for America, then the country, as Ayn Rand predicted years ago, may well be cooked.

[1010RD]

Excellent post and great find. I’ve read his stuff before and he’s an excellent thinker.

Why can’t we get him to replace George Will or Charles Krauthamer on television?

[penelopesire]

Thanks for the ping to this excellent and timely post.

[Condor51]

In short, with an unshackled righteous wind behind it, our democracy approaches ..

someone made an, 'Oops'.
(and he was doing so good until there. oh well.)

[RipSawyer]

We need at least one conservative commentator in this country who will stop referring to America as a democracy! It was never called that until world war one. When this nation was founded as a republic the founders looked at democracy the same way we look at fascism, socialism, communism, whichever variant you want to use. Today we are close to real democracy, meaning mob rule with no set standards, no boundaries on what the government can do.

By referring to America as a democracy we have paved the way to a real democracy and it ain’t no pretty sight, folks.

[GBA]

Thank you so much for posting this! Educational and very sobering. Nothing quite like starting the day with Aristotle confirming your worst fears about the country.

Every conservative and moderate in the country should read this or hear it. Maybe Rush, Beck and the rest will read it to their audiences. The truth is often easy to find. The hard part is believing it.

[chichipow]

Bravo & thank you!

Excellent post! I’m bookmarking this baby.

[chichipow]

I always seem to hit that button too fast. I have to think & read, add what I need, then post. Apologies to everyone.

Now...

It seems that this country’s fate was determined centuries ago. Too bad all men from all ages are afflicted with the ego & hubris to think they will be different & create a good outcome.

[metmom]

ping

[eleni121]

A magnificent Hellene--the Universal Thinker - who would be appalled observing our republic.

Aristotelis

[betty boop]

Simply put, a righteous wind unshackled in a democracy will change our way of life beyond recognition. Trust Aristotle -- he's seen this before.

I read these lines bearing in mind the spectacle I've just seen on TV, of Nancy Pelosi and the House Dems passing through a mass of "Kill the Bill" protesters. I noticed the front ranks of the Dem parade included many people of color, locked arm in arm. One congressman stated the experience of passing through (the passionate but peaceful) gauntlet was like "Bloody Sunday," when he was beaten by police in a race riot.

Hmmmmmmmm.... Would it be fair to say that the Dems are playing the "equality card" here to the hilt? "Equality" being "the righteous wind" that is being invoked to sweep away our constitutional Republic?

Jeepers, you get the impeached former judge, Congressman Alcee Hastings, outright saying that, WRT healthcare "reform," they'll make up the rules as they go along, as needed. Obviously, this guy believes the ends justify the (noxiously corrupt) means.

And none of his colleagues even peeps in protest????

So much for our post-racial "healer, not a divider" president, and his cohorts in Congress.

An ill wind is blowing friends.

Thank you so much, metmom, for the ping to this excellent article!

[Oceander]

Wow! That is a fantastic essay; thank you so much for posting it. As the essay points out, it is rather amazing how much of the current debasement of America Aristotle essentially foresaw, not because he was a seer, but because he was intelligent, wise, an observer, and because human character is strongly innate, not the false blank-slate that liberals would have us believe.

[metmom]

I know Scripture is silent on much of what will happen in the end times, but I just can’t shake the feeling that if this passes, we’re staring at it right in the face.

[Hank Kerchief]

It’s not supposed to be a democracy, though frankly I’ve always considered “representative republic” a fudge, but unfortunately it has become a plain old raw democracy.

Hank

[betty boop]

I know Scripture is silent on much of what will happen in the end times, but I just can’t shake the feeling that if this passes, we’re staring at it right in the face.

Plus a lot of events that Scripture is not silent on are happening; e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic activity, etc. It's as if the whole of creation were groaning right about now.... But I digress.

If this bill passes, it would unleash chaos in the land. It would further expedite the systematic looting of the American people and their descendants unto the generations; it would destroy jobs and businesses large and small; indeed the American middle class and ultimately our system of free enterprise capitalism would be wiped out. Every American would be at the behest and mercy of the federal government, via the instrumentality of a beefed-up IRS and the inevitable bureaucratic rationing boards; the doctor–patient relationship undermined, indeed the very Hippocratic Oath remorselessly destroyed.

And so forth.

Last summer I wrote to my Congresscrittur Niki Tsongas, and told her that this so-called healthcare reform bill was not fundamentally about healthcare. It was about profound culture change. I implored her not to support it. Evidently, my warning and plea cut no ice with her.

The long-simmering culture war may be about to blow up in our faces.

May God bless America — and may He have mercy on us.

[GOPJ]

http://www.erichoffer.net

eric hoffer was a self-educated longshoreman who came to fame in the 1950's with the publication of his first book, the true believer. a caustic analysis of the nature of mass movements and those who are driven to join them, the true believer did what few other books of the mid-twentieth century could: it helped expose the hidden causes of the tumultuous events that nearly destroyed our world at that time. hoffer said of the 1930's, "it colors my thinking and shapes my attitude toward events. i can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac."

Thanks for the ping.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Faschinating. This is a remarkable post, and extremely enlightening.

Human nature never changes. I’m not surprised to see that we are repeating history but to see that Aristotle documented it 2500 years before our turn to rise and fall, is somewhat breathtaking.

Astounding post. Great job and thank you for the Civics lesson.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Yep. You nailed it. Our form of government can only exist with an informed, moral electorate. An ignorant electorate steeped in moral relativism can’t enforce the nation’s laws or police the political class.

As a result, I really feel we are doomed. Not because I enjoy thinking our way is over, or because we have been around long enough to fall. I think we are doomed because such a huge portion of the voting public is dumbed down and immoral, and believes they are owed entitlements from the government. We are at a tipping point where the raw numbers of “them” are outnumbering “us”, and the schools are brainwashing more and more of them while the media puts them to sleep regarding the truth.

[Stat-boy]

Great post. Thanks

[ConservativeMan55]

bump

[Quix]

ABSOLUTELY INDEED.