THE ARGUMENT FROM EGYPT

by M.Giordano

There is no man among us who is free
By Nature or within the State.
The State aside, Necessity
Determines everything in Nature.
Man must eat and drink, sleep
Where the weather lets him, farm
Where it gives him sun and rain, lastly
Take where he finds those weaker
Or steal from those less cautious than himself.
He is free
To accommodate Necessity as he chooses.
Society is what he chose. The State therefore
Relieves him of his hard necessities,
Tames the chaos of his nature with just laws
Or unjust. Unjust laws also
Socialize a man--they teach him patience.
Slavery's not a bad initiation, for example,
For savages. Harmless if temporary,
Harmful only when it then corrupts
The masters. But to return...
Not merely laws but company
Socializes man. He must learn to please
Whoever pleases him conclusively and there's always
someone in that role. Not just laws
But company, all of the affections
That devolve from others, vanity,
In short, persuades man to be social.
Laws are just the just requital
Society exacts from him. Conscience
He learned from laws, not vice versa.
Freedom, Liberty are words for an intoxication:
Too much of others' good opinion of himself
Made man high. He confused himself
With some else's uninspected
Imagination of him. They confused themselves
With what they had imagined.
People seeing that their good opinions,
By stimulating someone's vanity to extremes
Created what they dared to call a leader,
Reasoned that they could create themselves
A little after and a little higher
Than that image. Widespread insanity
Found a name: Democracy--that its image-name,
Equality its mechanism, vanity
Its not-too-secret source, the Individual
Its idol--not its god. God
Is what we used to call Society.

 

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