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A mythologic of conspiracy theories
By Salimullah Khan
‘What? Do you seriously think you can stand up against a whole nation?’
‘Moscow was burnt by a farthing candle, you know,’ Bazarov replied.
Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, Chapter X
I
August, partly overlapping Bhadra in our calendar, is a time of high fertility in this part of the world. August 2007 takes no break in its traditional fecundity. Not unlike August 2005 it is breeding conspiracy theories once more. Incidents in Dhaka and the peripheries this past August add the immediate ground to these theories. What spawned them, these untoward, unexpected events? What at any rate determined their course?
While we anxiously await much promised judicial reports and keep chewing on those offhand, instant thinkers of our times, known as columnists, who quite understandably make judicious understatements, I would like to propose a harmless diversion to good old Aristotle, perhaps just as a way of killing time. As we all know, Aristotle has not been a popular thinker for sometime, rendered somewhat unfashionable by the ravages of time and of fashions. However, the ‘sheer intellectual quality’ of his work is still rated ‘very high’ (Sinclair 1992: 29).
What help can we ask him? Aristotle is known to have written, probably with the help of others, historical and descriptive studies of 158 state constitutions in and around the Greek world. One of these, the Athenian, has survived largely intact on a series of papyrus-rolls discovered in 1891. In addition he studied not only the Republic and the Laws of Plato’s but the work of many other teachers, mostly forgotten today but for his references to them (Sinclair 1992: 23).
I admit, with Sinclair, that there is a tendency when reading Aristotle’s Politics to interpret what he says about the Greek city-state in terms of the modern nation-state. I also admit that there is a high risk involved in soliciting arguments by analogy. KM Panikkar, famed Indian historian, once argued that the idea of India falling under the spell of Communism in the manner of China was based on a false analogy and provided a proof of a failure to appreciate the basic differences between the two countries (Panikkar 1963: 214-215). ‘Perhaps the greatest mistake based on argument by analogy,’ argued Panikkar, ‘was the parallel between the Kuomintang and the Congress which became a dogma with the Communists from 1947 to 1952’ (Panikkar 1963: 202).
Aristotle advises that the constitution of a state should be of such a kind that the majority of its members will wish it to remain in place and will like the life which it provides for. ‘For’, says Aristotle, ‘even the most beneficial laws, mutually agreed upon by all members of the polis (state), will be of no use at all, unless all are reared and drilled in the politeia (constitution).’ (Sinclair 1968: 231; Aristotle 1957: 1310)
Aristotle regards the life of each member as based on the life of the state itself. It is not without a reason that he calls the state the ‘supreme form of human association’. The Aristotelian idiom – politikon zoon – makes sense only in this fold. The polis, for our philosopher, was obviously good.
But whatever is ‘good’, for him or for the ancient Greek world in general, is in accordance with nature, or ‘natural’ for short. The polis is made by man, but man acting in accordance with his nature. Man, therefore, has an obligation to live the life of the polis, not a life simply his own or life as he likes. It is because the state is natural which is the same thing as just.
Justice, according to Aristotle, is the ultimate or structural foundation of the state. Since justice and homonomia (fellow-feeling) are the moral bases of the state, injustice and ill-will are the most potent causes of discontent and instability. The absence of rational (or proportional) equality or fair deal, leads to a lack of fellow-feeling and splits the state into conspiracies. There can be no fellow-feeling when one section of the community is convinced that its rights are being denied to it and that justice is not being done (Sinclair 1968: 229).
Aristotle traces the origin of political revolutions to injustice. But he defined justice itself as a function of (what he considered) nature. But there was a problem, as revealed in the problem of slavery as an institution. Aristotle was sure that slaves were indispensable in creating the culture of the state. At the same time he only knew too well that previous thinkers had persuasively shown that enslavement of human beings (if only of Greek human beings) was contrary to nature. Aristotle’s arguments to prove nature’s approval of slavery did not succeed, even if these arguments survived him, for instance till the end of the nineteenth century in the United States of America.
Aristotle, however, founds his theory of instability and change on the notion of justice. Constitutions are founded by revolutions, says Aristotle, but revolutions themselves are made because even people who agree on the definition of justice can hardly agree on what justice is in actual practice. Justice is equality, no doubt, but equality as such is not justice, Aristotle would say. Equality has more than one aspect. ‘Thus it is an error when men unequal in one respect, e.g. money, suppose themselves unequal in all, just as it is an error when men equal in one respect, e.g. in being free, suppose themselves equal in every respect. To argue thus is to neglect the decisive point.’ (Aristotle 1992: 195-196; Aristotle 1957: 1280A)
II
But, as Aristotle notes, there are more types of states than one. As the Greek tradition had it, states were classified into three types according to the numbers of those who ruled them. There were states ruled by one, ruled by a few and ruled by many. In Aristotle’s time their genetic forms were known as kingship, aristocracy and polity respectively. A degenerate form of kingship was known as monarchy, a further degenerate form went by the name tyranny. Degeneration of aristocracies led to oligarchies or plutocracies. Finally, for Aristotle, middle-class polity degenerated into a democracy or, even worse, to an ochlocracy (mob rule).
For Aristotle, both democracy and oligarchy degenerate forms of polity and aristocracy indeed. ‘Democracy arose from the idea that those who are equal in any respect are equal absolutely. All are alike free; therefore they claim that they are all equal absolutely. Oligarchy arose from the assumption that those who are unequal in some respect are completely unequal: being unequal in wealth they assume themselves to be unequal absolutely.’ (Aristotle 1992: 296; Aristotle 1957: 1301A)
A conspiracy (or stasis, to use Aristotle’s own native idiom) raises its ugly little head, postulates Aristotle, from this archaeology of human communities. On the ground that they are equal, all the poor claim equal participation in everything and the rich seek to grab a larger share, because ‘larger’ means unequal. So, a la Aristotle, conspiracies arise from their own fundamentals at the level of ideas. Breeding grounds of revolutions, in general, are to be sought in the winter of our discontents, in the dissatisfaction of either the whole or a part of the body politic with things as they are.
Here we go. This dissatisfaction, avers Aristotle, in either case is apt to express itself in violence, the occasion for which is often provided by some accident or disaster, not unlike a football-match or an umbrella-riddled gallery on a little tipsy, topsy-turvy rainy afternoon. However trifling the immediate occasion, admits Aristotle, the danger and the seriousness of the issues are all the same (Sinclair 1968: 229).
Conspiracies do arise from small matters. But, says Aristotle, their real concern is not those matters at all; they are concerned with large issues. Then, let us say, how can a farthing candle cause a Moscow fire? Even small conspiracies matter, soberly answers Aristotle. He goes on record as saying: ‘when they occur among those in sovereign power.’ An example of this happened at Syracuse in early times, as cites Aristotle, when a revolution occurred in consequence of a conspiracy between two young men, both from among those who hold sovereign power, otherwise known as ‘office’. ‘When one of the two was away from home, the other seduced the boy-beloved of his friend. He in turn showed his indignation by inducing the other’s wife to come to him. As a result, all members of the citizen-body enlisted on one side or the other, and was divided into two conspiracies.’ (Aristotle 1992: 306; Aristotle 1957: 1303B)
Another example of the Greek’s concerns a dispute in a state named Hestiaea between two brothers over inheritance from their father that arose after the Persian Wars. It caused a revolution that dragged all the notables generally of that nation. ‘One of them, the poorer, when his brother did not openly declare the amount of the property or reveal the cache which their father had discovered, won the support of the democrats. The other, who possessed a great deal, was supported by the wealthier class.’
A third illustration concerns a quarrel arising from a marriage alliance at Delphi, of the oracle fame. That quarrel became the bottom of all later conspiracies. The bridegroom, Aristotle reports, ‘forecasting bad luck by an omen which he saw when he came to fetch his bride, went away without her.’ Her family considered that they had been humiliated and insulted. When that young man, on another occasion was sacrificing in a temple, the bride’s family planted some temple-property in his baggage, and subsequently put him to death for the guilt of sacrilege.
Aristotle is a writer who cannot so easily run out of examples. He cites a good many examples of matrimonial affairs out of which many a political revolution and not too few wars arose in ancient Greece. A conspiracy at Mytilene arising out of heiresses was at the root of many troubles, wrote Aristotle, including a war with the Athenians in which Paches captured Athens. As the story runs, Timophanes, a wealthy man died leaving two daughters. A certain Dexander wanted them for his two sons, but was rejected and came away empty-handed. Then, being local commissioner for Athenian affairs, he started a conspiracy, which spurred Athens into action.
Conspiracies do not necessarily arise out of imaginary causes alone. They can certainly arise, justly or unjustly, out of more reasons than love affairs or matrimonial discontents. Conspiracies take place when the power-base itself changes. In Athens, for instance, democracy was strengthened by the crowd who served in the navy and who had been responsible for the victory at Salamis, because the leadership of Athens thus gained rested on sea power. In Argos the rich gained much credit for the battle against Sparta at Mantinea and tried to use the occasion to put down democracy; while in Syracuse credit for the victory in the war against Athens belonged to the people, who made a revolution of people’s democracy.
The important thing to remember, in Aristotle’s view, is that those who are responsible for the acquisition of power, no matter what private individuals, officials, tribes, or whatever aggregate or part you will it is they who provoke conspiracies. They may do so indirectly, as when the rest, jealous of the honour bestowed on them, start up the conspiracy, but also directly, when they themselves are so dominant that they are no longer to remain on terms of equality with the rest.
Revolutionary changes are provoked also when what are regarded as opposing sections of the population are evenly balanced, such as the rich and the poor. The division of a state between the rich and the poor, for Aristotle, is structurally more enduring. An increase in the quantity of the poor, for instance, may cause a revolution. Aristotle illustrates this by means of the human body. The body consists of parts, and all increase must be in proportion, so that the proper balance of the whole may remain intact.
III
IN GENERAL the causes of revolutions must be looked for in the ideas of equality or inequality, in other words in ideas of justice resting in the minds of the citizens, be they many or a few. So, asks our philosopher, is it not essential that agreement about what is equal must be reached? What is equality, then?
Aristotle locates the roots of differences between a state of the poor and a state of the rich in the two alternating notions of equality that he postulated. One he calls ‘numerical equality,’ the other ‘equality of value’ or ‘rational’ equality. By ‘numerical equality’ he means that which is equal in respect of either size or quantity, and ‘equal in value’ implies that which is equal by ratio. One may call them notions of ‘arithmetic’ and ‘geometric’ equalities after a later day fashion. ‘Thus numerically the difference between three and two is the same as the difference between two and one, so that the amounts of difference are numerically equal. But the relationship of four to two is, by ratio, equal to the relationship of two to one: two is exactly the same fraction of four as one is of two, namely a half.’ (Aristotle 1992: 298; Aristotle 1957: 1301B)
Aristotle discovers conspiracies as rooted in these alternative notions of equality. However, he himself thinks that they are not alternatives in fact, but only complements to each other. ‘To lay it down that the equality shall be exclusively of one kind or the other,’ says Aristotle, ‘is a bad thing, as is shown by what happens in practice: no constitution that is constructed on such a basis lasts long.’ (Aristotle 1992: 298; Aristotle 1957: 1302A)
To use one or the other notion of equality exclusively, according to Aristotle, is a sure guide to disaster at the end, for ‘to start from an initial and fundamental error makes it impossible to avoid the disaster at the end.’ Both the states of the poor masses and the states of the rich few share this myopia, Aristotle would say. In the upshot he, nevertheless, opts for democracy because it is a lesser evil, because it is ‘safer and less prone to conspiracies.’ ‘In oligarchies, two conspiracies arise, one between the oligarchs and the people, and one of the oligarchs themselves. In democracies, on the other hand, the only conspiracy that may arise is against the oligarchy; internal conspiracies within a democracy never occur.’ (Aristotle 1992: 299; Aristotle 1957: 1302A, translation modified)
Aristotle is a very frank man indeed. He sides with a state of the middle-class people alone, which he considers to be nearer to ‘democracy’ and ‘of all such states’ is ‘the safest.’ The philosopher sees a source of conspiracy in democracies and even in polities (i.e. middle-class states) in a disproportionate increase in the number of those who are not ‘well-off’ (i.e. the poor) also. If feet four cubits long grow on a body two spans high, or if a human body were to change into the shape of some other animal that body becomes useless, because of the disproportion in the kind of growth not just in the amount as such. Hence all increase must be in proportion. Disproportionate growth may take place, it is true, due to chance events. But that happens only once in a while. Such a situation then leads to a conspiracy either of equals or of non-equals, as the case may be.
In oligarchies the poor masses rebel on the ground of not being justly dealt with, that is on the ground that although they are equal they are not getting equal treatment, says Aristotle time and again. Likewise, in a democratic state too it is the notables, or the rich who rebel in turn, because though they are not equal, they get nearly equal treatment (Aristotle 1992: 305; Aristotle 1957: 1303B). Aristotle reiterates his commitment to moderation, for both democracies and oligarchies alike; though as we have seen, he would chose democracy as safer from the evil of conspiracies. Aristotle avers that conspiracies become more inevitable when the distinction between the wealthy and the man of the people is abolished, that is when a middle class gets thinner and thinner as a result either of democratic or oligarchic policies. If the distinction between them is abolished by the levelling of possessions, the revolutionary state will of necessity be a different one; that is to say, states are themselves destroyed by the destruction of that very distinction, through legislation carried to excess (Aristotle 1992: 331; Aristotle 1957: 1309B-1310A).
For Aristotle, as Sinclair observes, a good government will have the dual aim of protecting the poor from oppression and the rich from confiscations. This will involve the separation of office-holding from profit-making, among other things. It is only in this way that we may perhaps ensure that the majority of citizens would desire no change in the constitution, for that is the best guarantee against conspiracies. ‘Aristotle objects to what we may call a Fascist motto,’ writes Sinclair, ‘Given power and a willing populace, what need have we of virtue?’ (Sinclair 1968: 230-231; Aristotle 1957: 1309B)
IV
Aristotle, it may be recalled easily, does not believe in revolutions. He is a prophet of stability. Believe it or not, democracies should try to remain democracies and oligarchies should try to remain as they are, says he. He warns against making fundamental mistakes. Whenever a man of the people has sovereign power over the laws, that is in a democracy the leader – whom Aristotle calls a ‘demagogue’ – ‘they make one state into two by their attack on the rich.’ But they ought to do the opposite, says Aristotle, for the sake of stability. They ought always to appear ‘to be speaking on behalf of the rich.’
So too in oligarchies its members should always appear to speak on behalf of the people; and the oath which they take should be the very reverse of that which is in fact taken by them today – or as in some oligarchies today their oath is : ‘I will be hostile to the people and do all I can against them.’ Both their assumption and their ostensible conduct ought to be the opposite of this, and the declaration they ought to take on oath is: ‘I will do no wrong to the people.’ (Aristotle 1992: 331; Aristotle 1957: 1310A)
Apparently it looks like oligarchies around the world have lately taken to Aristotle’s good counsel. Our modern world has in a simple move renamed ‘oligarchies’ as ‘democracies’. In the nineteenth century, for instance among defenders of chattel slavery in the United States of America, the arguments Aristotle used in favour of that infamous institution were made use of widely: ‘the difference between black and white races gave them just that outward manifestation of nature’s supposed intention that Aristotle had looked for in vain.’ (Sinclair 1992: 21)
If the ultimate safeguard or the most important guarantee against conspiracies and revolutions is to be sought in the minds of the people, then justice should not only be done, but it must also appear to have been done. Aristotle never cares to speculate on whether the state is ruled by a few or many, by the rich or the poor. He is concerned that both systems of government are subjected to revolutionary pressures. Their deserts, he knows, are mostly awards of their own making.
What actually happens in an oligarchy is that sons (and daughters too, presumably) of the rich enjoy ease and comfort, whereas sons of the poor, being trained and inured to toil, are both willing and better able to introduce innovations. Symmetrically, a democracy too sometimes ends up doing the very reverse of what its own democratic ideals are purported to be. The reason lies in a perverse take of the idea of ‘liberty’ itself.
Aristotle discovers a contradiction in the very definition of ‘liberty.’ Two meanings may be attributed to liberty. It may be seen as the liberty of an individual, as her freedom of doing whatever she wants. And it may also be seen as a second-degree liberty, that is to say, as the ‘sovereignty of the majority’ to define what liberty should mean. As Aristotle himself writes:
‘Just’ is equated with what is equal, and the decision of the majority as to what is equal is sovereign and liberty is seen in terns of doing what one wants. So in such a democracy each lives as he likes and for his “fancy of the moment” as Euripides says.’ (Aristotle 1992: 332; Aristotle 1957: 1310A)
Needless to add, Aristotle does not endorse this latter view. He calls it simply ‘bad.’ Aristotle dictates, quite nicely anticipating JJ Rousseau and GWF Hegel, and Marx for that matter: ‘It ought not to be regarded as slavery to live according to the constitution, but rather as self-preservation.’ (Aristotle 1992: 332; Aristotle 1957: 1310A)
V
‘Conspiracy,’ the signifier that I have used in this essay, I must admit, is an innovation. I have seen many a scholar of classical Greek use anything from ‘revolution’ and ‘constitutional change’ to ‘faction’ in translation of stasis – the signifier Aristotle actually employs here. Similarly politeia – another signifier of Aristotle’s (as of Plato’s indeed) – is variously translated as ‘constitution’ and ‘state.’ I had to employ it here interchangeably.
If we mean business, we must admit, despite whatever is billed in the terrain of education, Bangladesh today fits better as a case in the category of oligarchies, that is as a state of the rich and the few or a degenerate aristocracy. Despite ‘fancies of the moment,’ our nation-state today hardly qualifies as a democracy a la Aristotle. In order to reach a right analogy must we not get rid of the false images first?
That is one reason why I resorted to the term ‘mythologic’ – with apologies to Claude Lévi-Strauss. ‘Myth,’ as Roland Barthes said, ‘is a type of speech,’ after all (Barthes 1993: 109). It is to say the same thing as said Aristotle: ‘for as one individual may be morally incapable, so may a whole state.’ (Aristotle 1992: 331; Aristotle 1957: 1310A)
Now, avers Aristotle, to have been educated for the constitution does not mean simply doing things that members of an oligarchy or a democracy enjoy doing, but what will enable them to live as oligarchs or democrats, as the case may be (Aristotle 1992: 331-332; Aristotle 1957: 1310A). This essay too should aspire at nothing higher than this lesson, sadly neglected today.
Not on the question of education alone, Aristotle is of a particular interest today. What he had to say about unnecessary accumulation, money-making, about the responsibilities of wealth and the possibility of private ownership coexisting with public use of property has attained an additional import today. Habits, methods and ethics of money-making have become subjects of interest for a much larger section of the population than yesterday (Sinclair 1992: 21).
Aristotle’s concept of property, as seen in the case of chattel slavery, has become a little too ridiculous, no doubt. Why then should we take so much interest in what a certain writer had to say on the state-form twenty four centuries ago? The mystery lies in form, because form is also known as the myth.
By the way, Aristotle is responsible for the discovery of not only the state-form, but of the value-form as well. This, as everyone knows, is testified by no less a writer than the author of Das Kapital himself.
Salimullah Khan teaches at Stamford University
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