Oligarchic and Democratic Persons

The oligarch gives in to the passion of money-making in an unrestrained way. He also ends up living a fairly comfortable life. Now, the children of the oligarch, not at first out of malice and perhaps not fully conscious of what they are doing, look at their father and they say, “you have followed the passion for money-making in an unrestrained way. Why can we follow our other passions in an unrestrained way?” And so, the seed of democracy is planted in the souls of the children of the oligarch. These children start to explore and experience the pleasures of alcohol, the desire for procreation, to the point of becoming lotus eaters. They see that the best society would be a society that provides for equality, or that gives equal access to all the passions. The best society is one that is multi-colored. In this kind of society, or in a democracy, all the passions are given free reign. No one passion is regarded as different or better than any other passion.

Some of the children of the oligarch, though democrats when they are young, themselves become oligarchs when they are older. They want to buy honor and respect. Thus begins the war or competition between democracy and oligarchy. But this war over time favors the democrats. They have a much larger natural constituency, whereas the oligarchs greatest appeal is to the money makers. So, over time, the democratic passion takes hold of a society.

Now, among the passions, there is also the lust for cruelty and violence. And in a democratic society, that passion has equal access to the society along with all the other passions. Thus enters the demagogue. The demagogue or sophist knows how to appeal to the passions of men so as to gain power for himself. And so, in becoming elected, he can promise all sorts of things to the democrats which will appeal to their passions. In fact, one of the ways he gets elected is by promising the democrats that he will put an end to the oligarchs.

The ultimate demagogue is also a father killer. He will convince the democratic and oligarchic children that they have to kill their honor-loving father in order to be free from the rules or limits that he lives and that if they applied to their lives would make them suffer because it would require them to restrain their passions, whichever passion it is to which they currently let rule in their soul.

Once the demagogue comes to power, he starts killing off the group or groups that brought him to power. Do not forget, it is the desire for power that dominates in his soul. Eventually, he kills off the democrats, and the tyrant rules in a society. The poets, philosophers, musicians and other flatterers start to flatter the tyrant, because they depend on him now for their existence. One might say that democracy can also be tyrannical in this sense, poets and academics often end up flattering those who provide for their existence and subsistence.