Thursday Quote

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 judgment 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 a 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.

‘The Aristos’ (quote from John Fowles’ book of the same name)