The Democratic Man

The son of the miserly and oligarchical father is trained in the habits of oligarchs.

• Necessary pleasures are those that we cannot get rid of.
• Unnecessary pleasures are those that we get rid of.
• The desire of eating simple food is a necessary pleasure as it is needed for life.
• The desire of eating more delicate food is hurtful to the body and soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue and are unnecessary.

He forcibly keeps down the unnecessary pleasures.

• The drone was the slave of the unnecessary desires.
• The miserly and oligarchical only has necessary desires.

The oligarchical principle in a young man will change into the democratical after he tastes the drones’ honey.

He has been brought up in a vulgar and miserly way, but has come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide him pleasures.

These external desires assist his unnecessary pleasures, just as like helps like. His father or his family assists the rival oligarchical principle, creating an opposite faction in his soul. He goes to war with himself.

There are times when the democratical principle gives way to the oligarchical. In such a case, some of his desires die or are banished. A spirit of reverence enters into the young man’s soul and order is restored.

After the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them.

They become fierce and numerous because their father does not know how to educate him. They draw him to his old associates and breed and multiply in him until they seize on the young man’s soul. They see it void of all accomplishments and true words.

False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place. And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters and lives there.

His real friends send help to the oligarchical part of him. But his vain conceit shuts the gate. His vanity will not allow them to enter. He will not listen to the fatherly counsel of private advisers.

There is a battle and his vain desires will win. They will:

• call modesty as silliness and exile it
• call temperance as unmanliness and trample it
• persuade men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness.

By a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the border. The young man is now under the power of desires. They:

• empty and sweep clean his soul
• initiate him in great mysteries
• bring back to their house the following with garlands:
  • insolence, which they call ‘breeding’
  • anarchy, which they call ’liberty'
  • waste, which they call ‘magnificence’
  • impudence, which they call ‘courage’

And so, the young man passes out of his original nature. From being trained in necessity, he goes into the libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. He spends his money, labour, and time on unnecessary pleasures.

He lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour. Sometimes he is lapped in drink.

• Then he becomes a water-drinker, and tries to get thin.
• Then he tries gymnastics.
• Then he lives the life of a philosopher.

Often he is busy with politics. He starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head. His life has neither law nor order. This distracted existence he calls joy and bliss and freedom.

He answers to the State as fair and spangled. He is a collection of many constitutions and manners. Many will imitate him.

He is truly the democratic man.