Aristocratic conquerors
Wherever we find in the real world a truly «aristocratic attitude» or morality, it seems to have been imposed from outside by a conquering tribe or elite. A very vivid image, that is especially useful for the argument developed here, appears in the Congo-born Pierre L. van den Berghe’s recent study of the history of Tutsi-Hutu relations in Rwanda:
One thing, however, that Rwanda clearly lacks is nationhood. Rwanda is a sharply hierarchized society divided into three quasi-caste groups: the dominant Tuzi who, until the revolution of the early 1960’s made up some 17% of the population, the Hutu peasantry with some 82%, and a small pygmoid group, the Twa, making up 1% of the total. The monarchy, established by the pastoralist Tuzi conquerors who came down from Ethiopia in the 16th century, was entirely the political instrument of the Tuzi as an ethnic ruling elite. [...] The Tuzi, who are Nilotic pastoralists similar in physical features to the Galla and other peoples of Ethiopia, are a racially and socially self-conscious ruling group, deliberately use the state machinery they monopolize (except at the lowest village level), to dominate and exploit the Hutu peasantry. They developed a genuine racist ideology, taking pride in their slender, tall stature (some 15 cm taller than the Hutu, and 30 cm taller than the Twa on average) and their distinctive facial features (such as their aquiline nose) and looking down on both the Hutu and the Twa as coarse, ugly, and inferior. [...] The Tuzi regard themselves and are regarded by others as intelligent, astute in political intrigue, born to command, refined, courageous, and cruel. The Hutu are viewed by their Tuzi masters much as peasants are all over the world. They are seen as hardworking, not very clever, extrovert, irascible, unmannerly, obedient and physically strong. [...] These attributes are regarded as inherent in the nature of each group, though somewhat modified by learning; i.e., Rwanda developed a genuine brand of indigenous racism. Each group has its fixed, defined place in the social order. The Twa are a small pariah caste of hunters, potters, iron-workers, and archers in the Tuzi army. They are strictly endogamous and looked down upon by both Tuzi and Hutu. The Hutu till the land, tend the cattle owned by the Tuzi and are the source of the surplus production on which the Tuzi live parasitically. The Tuzi, headed by the Mwami (king) are the ruling aristocracy. They specialize in warfare and administration, despise manual labor and endeavor to spend as much of their lives in conspicuous leisure as possible. Tuzi women spend their time playing music, weaving fine artistic baskets, and supervising domestic servants. Both Tuzi men and women avoid even walking long distances; instead they are carried in basketry litters by their Hutu or Twa servants. [...] The basic relationship between the Tuzi lord and the Hutu peasant is a feudal, paternalistic one. Underlying the political structure, there is, much as in medieval Europe or Japan, a vast network of patron-client ties that link individuals in private contracts where protection is exchanged for loyalty...
This passage is quoted at length because it is a typical, indeed archetypal, case of how an aristocratic class develops through conquest of an indigenous population: the parallels in attitude and behavior to what one could call «true aristocracies» across the world, and indeed to the ancient Greek case in particular, are very striking. Indeed these parallels extend to matters that may not at first sight be obvious or important. To begin with, the way the Tutsi are said to be seen by themselves and by others — «intelligent, astute in political intrigue, born to command, refined, courageous, and cruel» — could be said of aristocracy (as distinct from a mere elite, or even a mandarin elite) generally. In particular the two essential qualities mentioned — political ability or intelligence, and military courage — could be directly translated as phronesis and andreia, the two primal qualities of the Greek aristocrat in Homer or Pindar: the ability to give good counsel in assembly, and manliness or prowess in battle. The parallel even extends to the past-times of aristocratic women — the persistence of political character, even in details, across time and cultures is truly remarkable — as the Homeric ideal seems to be a woman who weaves (fine cloths, not baskets, in the Greek case) and sings beautifully; the literary image that includes both elements and therefore must have appealed most to Homer’s audience was that of Penelope. The disdain for manual labor, and in particular for farmwork, is also universal, as we are about to see.
The matter of contempt for farming and manual labor is crucial. In the Greek world one of the most emphatic statements containing an attitude similar, maybe identical, to that in the passage above exists in the archaic drinking song occasionally called «The Song of Hybrias»:
My wealth is my great spear and sword
And the good rawhide shield, bulwark of hide.
With this I plough, with this I reap,
With this I drink sweet wine from the vine,
With this I have gotten the name «Lord of the serfs».
Those who have not the courage to wield a spear and sword
And the good rawhide shield, bulwark of hide,
All of them fall and kiss my knee,
Calling me «Lord» and «Great King».
This emphasis on martial virtue as a replacement for the drudgery of farm-work and as proof of the holder’s vitality, freedom from the responsibility for the cares of life, and of his superiority to lesser men who must eke out a paltry living from the earth is, again, fundamental and universal to the development of aristocratic morality. The mentality here consists in a lack of equality to a lower class of people, who are felt to be not merely alien ethnically, but who are seen as radically different in way of life, in particular as tied to the earth and to the preservation of mere life, to servile domesticity, in a way that the aristocrat is not. This characteristic contempt of farmwork and of mere life understood as drudgery and preservation appears also in Tacitus’ description of the early Germanic tribes; these still lived a non-agricultural, semi-nomadic life, when he says of them that:
Nor are they as easily persuaded to plough the earth and to wait for the year’s produce as to challenge an enemy and earn the honour of wounds. Nay, they actually think it tame and stupid to acquire by the sweat of toil what they might win by their blood. [...] Whenever they are not fighting, they pass much of their time in the chase, and still more in idleness, giving themselves up to sleep and to feasting, the bravest and the most warlike doing nothing, and surrendering the management of the household, of the home, and of the land, to the women, the old men, and all the weakest members of the family. [...] The master requires from the slave a certain quantity of grain, of cattle, and of clothing, as he would from a tenant, and this is the limit of subjection. All other household functions are discharged by the wife and children.
Costin Vlad Alamariu, Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy (2023). Chapter I - Emergence of the Idea of Nature out of Greek Aristocratic Morality.