Season 4 Podcast 79, “The Golden Mean and the Decline of Democracy”
Season 4 Podcast 79, “The Golden Mean and the Decline of Democracy”
The popular Greek Myth of Daedalus and Icarus tells the story of a father and son imprisoned in the Labyrinth on the isle of Crete by the wicked king Minos. Daedalus, upon being commanded by Minos, had designed the Labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur, a monster bull that devoured all prisoners. In danger on land and sea, to escape, Daedalus created wings of bird feathers held together by wax for him and his son Icarus.
Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun or the wax would melt, and he would fall into the sea and drown. Icarus was young, however, and once he learned how to fly, he soared high in the azure sky and low to the frothy waves of the turbulent sea, dashing past his troubled father who stayed a steady course.
Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax melted, the feathers flew to the wind, and Icarus, under the watchful eye of his horrified father, plunged into the sea and drowned.
The story is about moderation. The story of Icarus illustrates what happens when man violates the golden mean. The ancient Greeks preached moderation. The Greek view of freedom would be a perfect balance between any two extremes.
On the Temple of Apollo at Delphi were written three Delphic Maxims:
1. Know thyself
2. Nothing in Excess
3. Give a pledge and trouble is at hand.
Of the three maxims, “Know thyself” is probably the most quoted and the most written about. The Golden Mean, however, refers to the second maxim, “Nothing in Excess.” We see this philosophy in In Milton’s Paradise Lost. In Bk XI, the Archangel Michael shows Adam the future of man and the coming of Christ. Adam, painfully aware that he has brought death into the world, wonders if death can be less painful. Adam asks Michael:
I yield it just, said Adam, and submit.
But is there yet no other way, besides
These painful passages, how we may come
To Death, and mix with our connatural dust?
Michael echoes the same principle that was so important to the Greeks, “Nothing in Excess.” Michael said to Adam:
There is, said Michael, if thou well observe
The rule of not too much, by temperance taught
In what thou eatst and drinkst, seeking from thence
Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,
Till many years over thy head return:
So maist thou live, till like ripe Fruit thou drop
Into thy Mothers lap, or be with ease
Gathered, not harshly pluckt, for death mature:
Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, BOOK II, explains the Golden Mean. The text is published by the Guttenberg Project.
In all quantity then, whether continuous or discrete, one may take the greater part, the less, or the exactly equal, and these either with reference to the thing itself, or relatively to us: and the exactly equal is a mean between excess and defect. Now by the mean of the thing, i.e. absolute mean, I denote that which is equidistant from either extreme (which of course is one and the same to all), and by the mean relatively to ourselves, that which is neither too much nor too little for the particular individual. This of course is not one nor the same to all: for instance, suppose ten is too much and two too little, people take six for the absolute mean; because it exceeds the smaller sum by exactly as much as it is itself exceeded by the larger, and this mean is according to arithmetical proportion.
Aristotle emphasizes that the Golden Mean is relative to the individual. What is too much for one may be too little for another. When Aristotle uses the word mean, substitute Golden Mean, meaning the perfect balance between the two. He continues.
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