The Aristos

11 THE ARISTOS IN THE INDIVIDUAL

1 I hope it is now clear what kind of acceptances and sacrifices and changes I believe we must make to arrive at the Aristos, the best for our situation at this time. But the word aristos is also an adjective and can be applied to the individual. What can be said of the ideal man to achieve this best situation?

2 First and foremost we cannot expect him always to be the aristos. We are all sometimes of the Many. But he will avoid membership. There can be no organization to which he fully belongs; no country, no class, no church, no political party. He needs no uniform, no symbols; his ideas are his uniform, his actions are his symbols, because above all he tries to be a free force in a world of tied forces.

3 He knows the difference between himself and the Many cannot be one of birth or wealth or power or cleverness. It can only be based on intelligent and enacted goodness.

4 He knows everything is relative, nothing is absolute. He sees one world with many situations; not one situation. For him, no judgement stands; and he will not permanently join because if he permanently joins with others, however intelligent, however well-intentioned, he helps to constitute an elect, a Few.

He knows from history that sooner or later every congregation of the elect is driven to condone bad means to good ends; then they cease to be a congregation of the elect and become a mere oligarchy.

5 He accepts the necessity of his suffering, his isolation, and his absolute death. But he does not accept that evolution cannot be controlled and its dangers limited.

6 He believes that the only human aim is contentment; and that it is the best aim because it can never be fulfilled. For progress changes, but does not reduce, the enemies of human contentment.

7 He knows the Many are not only a besieged army; but starved of equality, a seditious besieged army. They are like prisoners vainly and laboriously trying to file their way through massive iron bars in order to reach a blue sky in which they could not possibly exist; while all the time, just behind them, their cell waits to be properly lived in.

8 He knows we all live at the crossroad of myriad irreconcilable poles, or opposing factors. Their irreconcilability constitutes our cell, and the discovery of living with, and utilizing, this irreconcilability constitutes our escape.

9 He knows all religious and political creeds are faute de mieux; are utilities.

10 He knows the Many are like an audience under the spell of a conjuror, seemingly unable to do anything but serve as material for the conjuror’s tricks; and he knows that the true destiny of man is to become a magician himself.

11 And he knows all these things because he himself is one of the Many.

12 To accept one’s limited freedom, to accept one’s isolation, to accept this responsibility, to learn one’s particular powers, and then with them to humanize the whole: that is the best for this situation.