Does it matter at all what Aristotle really said? We don’t know, really. All translations, he didn’t write in English, end up being adaptations, no harm done, we adapt even what we hear first hand, you and I can hear the same thing, at the same time, and we adapt it immediately, and entirely differently. I might then say, well I saw this in that, I might persuade you, but nine times out of ten, you will say I’m crazy. Once more, no harm, the world is wide and various, to me, not narrow and definite. It is at least half the fun.
At the end of watching Oleanna, the David Mamet play, I felt the man had been abusing her the whole time and deserved what happened to him, across the aisle a very impressive man said to his impressive friend, “I’da hit her two hours ago.” This was early nineties not fifties, and I think there are similar reactions today. But…..
This morning I listened to a very bright man, Will Durant, of voice stentorian and vocabulary impeccable, talking about Aristotle and Socrates and Plato, heroes of the Western world, and though he painted an Aristotle very unpleasant in my judgement, totally unwelcome in my “philosophy,” I did understand why these chaps are heroes of the Western World.
They are and have been for the longest time, called geniuses, fathers of this and that. Quickly Jesus is added though uncomfortably, to the genius club, and on goes my historian, telling me of their commonalities, and shortly, I realize he is talking about himself. Still no harm, could he but say so, but he can’t, he wouldn’t you see, he is above such subjectiveness. He is using reason.
A friend of mine, a poet of talent complained today about another gritty Batman movie. Yup. Another one is due, even grittier than the height of grit in the one before. We read grit and immediately we smell truth. I joked with him that a character I had played in a play he made, could be a Batman, a little long in the tooth but still, a fit 70 year old, then i realized I wasn’t joking. He thinks I was. No harm. The only difference, apart from muscle mass is that Arnold, my character was not the child of millionaires. He was a fascinating man born, we worked out, around 1905. So he had been through prohibition, the depression, first and second WWs and Korea. Fighting WW2 when he “was too old to be drafted but not old enough to hang back and have any self respect,” or 35. All good batman stuff. Except he is not good Batman stuff for the Aristotelean myth makers: he was not from the Aristocracy. His parents were not millionaires and no, no Alfred! (What that story might be, have been, had Alfred been Bolshy? How’s that for grit? “Get out there and fight crime you pretentious, spoiled git. You think you’re the only person ever to have murdered parents?”
So, there we have it. The premise of the golden age, Greek civilization’s contribution to the European thing, inextricably tied to us by the minds that matter, who echo it’s fame, and so our fame, down the ages, was, is, adapted or accurately interpreted, any way you like, the premise is, that the superior among us should lead.
That that is the stock, trade and duty of the naturally superior.
For Durants Aristotle the success of Ancient Athens, success for the few, but model nonetheless for European elites, was in her remarkable leaders. Themistocles, Pericles, Philip, Alexander. I do admire these chaps but conditionally. As much as QE 1 beat the Spanish Armada.
I recommend the Durant piece, whole heartedly, Will Durant The Philosophy of Aristotle. On youtube. It is brilliant, sliding invisibly from what Aristo and Plato said to personal contemporary comment. Telling us in no uncertains, that these incomparable men, the founders of our Founders, the fathers of the exceptional west, actually scorned democracy. And…. They did.
Except as a pressure valve allowable, as long as the Prince was enlightened and the Imperialist wars won, to the lesser mere citizen. The rowers of the Triremes at Salamis. But no no slave, woman, nor foreigner, who were , according to our trio of genii, incapable.
What would they have thought of Jesus? Crucify him, I’d say. No batman he. A carpenter! Until, Hellenically, we make him a descendant of King David, now he works in the Marvel Universe.
I thank Will, he has dotted the i’s. He clarifies the contradiction we still, don’t, struggle with: a Democracy based on an Aristocratic and Feudal culture. The many get to choose who, of the few, should rule. While, our lives, are, in fact, run by the rich. Here Jesus did make a major contrib. He or his adaptors made 90% of us ok with being underlings. It is super clever, Jeffersonian in genius, when the deepest believers in that tosh engineer insurrections to install monarchs and overthrow a democracy that didnt go their way. Both sides! Lousy people on both sides! Democrats claiming the Russians did it in 16, or Comey did it, or Facebook. Then the Trumpy version done by natural if inept real authoritarians
As our great ancestors would advise: find that philosopher prince and install him, for as long as it takes….. the Athenian Oath keepers.
When you complain about threats to your democracy, in name only, remember Aristotle. He is your man, and always has been. Thanks to Will, I now know he is not mine.