Human. All Too Human

SECTION EIGHT

A Look At The State

438

Leave to speak. All political parties today have in common a demagogic character and the intention of influencing the masses; because of this intention, all of them are obliged to transform their principles into great frescos of stupidity, and paint them that way on the wall. Nothing more can be changed about this-indeed, it is superfluous even to lift a finger against it; for what Voltaire says applies here: "Quand la populace se mêle de raissoner, tout est perdu."¹ Now that this has happened, one must adapt to the new conditions, as one adapts when an earthquake has moved the old limits and outlines of the land, and changed the value of property. Moreover, if the business of all politics is to make life tolerable for the greatest number, this greatest number may also determine what they understand by a tolerable life; if they think their intellect capable of finding the right means to this goal, what good would it do to doubt it? They simply want to be the architects of their own fortune and misfortune;² and if this feeling of self-determination, this pride in the five or six concepts their heads contain and can bring to light, does indeed make their life so agreeable that they gladly bear the fatal consequences of their narrowness, then there is little to object to, provided that their narrowness does not go so far as to demand that everything should become politics in their sense, and that everyone should live and act according to their standard. For, first of all, some people must be allowed (now, more than ever) to keep out of politics and stand aside a little; the pleasure of self-determination is driving these people, too, and there may even be a little pride involved in being silent when too many-or only many-are speaking. Second, one must overlook it if these few do not take the happiness of the many (whether defined as peoples, or classes of population) so seriously, and are now and then guilty of an ironic attitude; for them, seriousness lies elsewhere; they have a different concept of happiness; their goal cannot be embraced by any clumsy hand with just five fingers. Finally (and certainly this is hardest to grant them, but must also be granted), they too have an occasional moment when they emerge from their silent isolation and try the power of their lungs again; then they call to each other, like men lost in a forest, to make themselves known and encourage each other; of course, when they do, various things are heard that sound bad to ears not meant to hear them.
Soon afterwards, it is quiet in the forest again, so quiet that one can again hear clearly the buzzing, humming, and fluttering -of the innumerable insects that live in, above, and below it.