insofar as the concept of ‘aristocracy’ recognizes an inequality of intelligence and talent between people, it is legitimate. but when the content of that intelligence and talent - how/why it is put to use in society and to what ends - is found to be extraneous and superfluous, it is no longer qualified as something necessary as a legislative or administrative power. when ‘aristocratic’ effort becomes an effort to sustain its own power in a context in which it’s absence wouldn’t make any difference in the functioning of that society in which it exists, it becomes an aberration… a vestigial organ of the polis. what then follows is a gradual recognition of the superfluous nature of the aristocratic element in society, by those whom would otherwise be able to sustain the workings of that society themselves. so for example, ordinary working citizens… and this includes specialists/experts from legitimate fields that contribute to the real material relations of that society - take notice of the existing aristocratic class, and that through the mandate of laws which the aristocratic class set up, they are made exempt from any requirement of productive labor. that is to say they neither contribute to menial labor or specialized labor. well, what is it then that they do, asks the citizens. and the answer is; nothing. how then did they rise to power and take their positions as the ‘rightful’ proprietors of society? here’s how. they set to working on a way to convince ordinary citizens that they had a special skill, and that the citizens needed them in order to preserve and organize their society. but this skill wasn’t just a working knowledge of politics… it couldn’t be, because ordinary citizens themselves were quite able to observe social and economic phenomena and make the appropriate adjustments when problems arise. politics and economy is a relatively simple empirical field of study… no special intelligence needed for this. no, the skill this aristocratic class had to convince the citizens they had, was something beyond the knowledge of the natural sciences (in which politics and economy would be included). enter the ‘philosopher’, and the philosopher was a special kind of person who had access to super-empirical truths that ordinary folks didn’t have access to. the ruling class either had to become philosophers, or employ philosophers, to produce a principled mandate that would give them the authority to maintain their positions in society without requiring them to actually produce anything substantial. remember; governing is not a special ‘talent’, not something the ordinary classes couldn’t do themselves.
we see the origins of philosophy in every culture that has advanced enough to develop a surplus of wealth, and is therefore a society in which a ‘leisure’ class can evolve. that is, a class that doesn’t contribute directly to production. for example, shamanism and priesthood, both pseudo-scientific fields that add nothing necessary to the workings of the societies they exist in. when a society reaches a point where it is able to accumulate such surplus (these would be the agrarian cultures as opposed to hunter-gatherer cultures), it requires a more complex political organ which has as its task the organization and administration, the ‘governance’, of that society. it is here that the ‘philosopher’ slips in… the class that has been afforded the luxury of performing a ‘skill’ which, due to the general lack of sophistication of the working classes that do not have such luxury, is believed to be necessary in and for their culture. the task of this new class - a class who’s absence wouldn’t be noticed - is to lay claim to special knowledge that ordinary people can’t have, and therefore convince the working classes that they are necessary in that society. every society - with the exception of the nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes in which the warrior represented every level of the hierarchy (he was worker, soldier, and spiritualist simultaneously) - one variation or another of the philosopher/priest class evolves, a class which has as it’s task only legislative and governing authority. the ‘aristocracy’, at this point in the development of society, is equivalent to a parasitic organism. traditional philosophy since the emergence of agrarian culture has invariably been the means of preserving the existence of this parasitic organism. the first philosophers were the priests - the liaison between the gods and the people. once the atheistic and/or skeptical movement evolves, the philosopher then becomes the liaison between the ‘rational order of the universe’ and the people, substituting ‘god’ for such things as logos, for instance. the very best example of this would be in plato’s ‘philosopher king’, a foundation for the notion of ‘aristocracy’; that only the ‘best’ should rule, and the best have a unique characteristic that those from the lower classes cannot have; special knowledge. this special knowledge is exhibited in the uncanny ability to make a spectacular word salad out of ordinary language… and even invent words that represent nothing in the real world.
take your time. i know this is a lot to throw at you at once, but i wanted you to gain a level. you now have +4 to your save-throws and the ability to regenrate mana.
oh i love german philosophy, and german beer (i went to an oktoberfest once). one can come up with some pretty far-out metaphysics while drunk on german beer, as nietzsche noted. but i’ve always loved that pomp gregariousness of the german people… something of a personality trait that i share with them (perhaps this is the celtic-half speaking in me?). in fact, i have always thought of the world as my sofa.