Sublime

Friedrich Nietzsche.

When reflection had thus been once awakened, man no longer wished to believe without giving a reason for his belief, or to be governed without discussing his institutions. He doubted the justice of his old social laws, and other principles dawned upon his mind. Plato puts these remarkable words in the mouth of a Sophist: “All you who are here, I

Poor citizens observed rich ones at close quarters and trusted that they too would one day follow in their footsteps. They were not always wrong. A number of fortunes were made by people from humble backgrounds. However, exceptions did not make a rule. America still had an underclass. It was just that, unlike the poor of aristocratic societies, the

The split that Gaius Gracchus had opened up in the 120s BCE between senators and knights was made complete. The two groups were formally separated, and a new wealth qualification of a million sesterces, as against 400,000 for the knights, was now applied to a ‘senatorial class’. Senatorial status was also made hereditary over three generations.

indignities

The wealthy individual, on the contrary, always escapes imprisonment in civil causes; nay, more, he may readily elude the punishment which awaits him for a delinquency by breaking his bail. So that all the penalties of the law are, for him, reducible to fines. *n Nothing can be more aristocratic than this system of legislation.

Beauvoir paraissait plus sensible que Sartre à ces interzones subtiles de la vie humaine. Le Deuxième Sexe traite presque exclusivement du territoire complexe où le libre choix, la biologie et les facteurs sociaux et culturels se rencontrent et se mêlent pour créer un être humain qui, au fil de sa vie, s’accroche peu à peu à ses habitudes.