2. Aristocrats Disguise as Commoners
The biggest trick of the aristocracy is that aristocrats disguise as commoners. Not just once or twice, but regularly or even permanently. It’s to conceal the fact that the working subjects have to feed about a 100 times more useless loafers than what they’re thinking. And the fact that all of those loafers are related, are handing all top jobs to each other, and are hoarding the looted wealth of humanity for themselves.
Aristocrats disguising as commoners
Today, we’re still ruled by aristocrats, and don’t even know it. But even in ancient times, when aristocratic rule was official, the subjects had to be deceived about the true extent of it.
Most importantly, the subjects weren’t allowed to know just how many useless loafers living in luxury they were feeding with their hard work: Not only the officially ruling aristocrats lived off taxes & privileges. It was also their immediate & wider family, including distant cousins, spouses, lovers, ex-lovers, children, illegitimate children, cronies, toadies… and then the immediate & wider families of those people.
The trick – then as now – was that many aristocrats disguised themselves as commoners: They’d pretend to either be of modest wealth, or to have gotten rich through sheer luck & genius. Only the ones that officially ruled would admit publicly that they were from noble families. And even for them, many other things had to be disguised.
The ancient Sumerian rulers already celebrate this idea, and lament the archaic times when rulers didn’t disguise as commoners:
Making oneself equal to a small citizen, equal to a stranger, equal to an important holyness, this did not exist before.
The Egyptian rulers also proudly state that they can disguise as poor commoners, among other things:
All the supreme patricians, they are enveloped as you appear for them. Their personalities can be that of a poor sufferer, but also that of a first-ranking superior. All paths are open with your appearances.
The Bible also stresses that there must be both both majestic & modest disguises.
And so the rulers created disguises for their representation. They created them to have illusions for their rulership, and created both memorable and modest ones.
And Confucius emphasizes that it’s not shameful for aristocrats to disguise as commoners, and that it’s merely a clever scheme of ruling them:
Confucius says: Imitating the assistants, posing outwardly as a servant, is that not also a way of governing them?
If people do not know him, yet he is not discomforted about this, is he not also still a nobleman?
Because even if a nobleman does not make his origins known, his established position will yet lead the multitudes. Imitating the lower classes, if one is like this, that is just faking the origin of a person, is it not?
The Talmud has a 1000 rules on when & how aristocrats may disguise as commoners:
In those situations where one has to be a nobleman, it is not permitted to be a lowly person. And when one needs to be a lowly person, it is not permitted to be a nobleman. When you need to be a subject, it is not permitted not to be a subject. When you should not be a subject, it is not permitted to be a subject.
Aristocrats disguising their profits
The main thing that had to be hidden were the insane riches owned by the aristocrats, all taxed away from their dirt-poor subjects, or gained through monopolies built on inherited riches, privileges and insider connections. So nobility could be made public sometimes, but not the extent & source of the wealth.
The Bible mentions this early on, but is very brief about it.
And the rulers said: Let us hide the treasures that the powerful people are gathering, that yield wealth, and the schemes of profiteering that yield further interest, according to their kind, which are enriching all by themselves, based on oppression. And it was so.
Homer also says that it’s mainly all the looted wealth that had to be hidden, by disguising aristocrats as commoners:
Because the nobles then appeared in a new sight in the perception of the poor, they could put an end to the attacks on themselves.
They displayed ignorance of their own riches, and made it look as if they belonged to men of low degree, or cast-out immigrants, by using mockery.
The Talmud describes best what has to be disguised even about the official aristocracy: It’s first & foremost all the corruption & profiteering that’s rampant among aristocrats:
These things are not forbidden by themselves: official nobility, first rank by birth, rulership, payments that are socially accepted, and oppression by one’s official rank.
By contrast, these are things for which a man can consume some profits in the official world, but for which the principal must remain in the hidden world: the riches of one’s father and mother, payments that are shameful, and payments between a man and his associates.
Allowing such secrets to be breached is like confessing them. So one should not reveal one’s aristocratic rank just out of pride.
And even though it is not forbidden to be a nobleman, everything must be done according to the greatness of one’s office, according to how numerous the poor people are, and according to how great their suffering is.
Aristocrats disguising their nepotism
The fact that all leaders & governors are related must also be hidden, because otherwise their nepotist connections would be very obvious:
These should be separated for the public appearance of the nobility: inheritance and ruling, secret ranks and public ranks, public leadership and secret leadership, if one is permanently among the people as an observer, or among the people as a spy, or is the offspring of someone prosperous, or is the offspring of a nobleman.
If one harvests profits by simple corruption, then that must also be separated off, says lord Meir. But the advisors say: It does not have to be separated off, except if it is done too clumsily.
Lord Yehudah says: If there are resistant people who make it impossible to harvest profits like a true nobleman, then that should be separated off. But all noblemen who are safely surrounded by helpers, whom the human cattle is unable to overcome with their simple tools, they can show official nobility for everything.
Generally, that the nobles command the military was not hidden, only the fact that the generals were from the same families as the merchants & bankers:
Lord Gamliel says: This custom existed in the house of my father: We would show the nobility as one family for each group of nobles which would be in each line of profitable business, and for the military ranks as one family for all that were associates to each other.
Disguising the selling & trading of nations as wares
Okay, so the aristocrats oppress the people, tax them for nothing, and give all top jobs to each other. But hey, at least they defend the country, and provide stability, right? Only they don’t. At some point in early history, the aristocracy saw that it was more profitable to attack & plunder their own nations, and pretend it’s some enemy, so people would accept it. They would also barter their nations back & forth, partly or whole.
The aristocratic scum did and still do the following:
- Several aristocratic clans own one nation.
- One aristocratic clans owns several nations.
- Aristocrats break up nations for increased profit.
- Aristocrats sell harvesting rights on nations to others, partly or whole.
- Aristocrats mortgage nations for credit.
- Aristocrat harvest their own nations by waging war on them.
To disguise all this, the aristocrats only ever showed one ruler per nation to the public, even when one nation was owned by several clans, or when several nations were owned by one clan. When nations are sold or mortgaged, partly or whole, then the new owner was shown as being from the same clan, to feign continuity & stability.
Today, if you cannot make sense of sudden changes in national & international politics, just think of nations as administrative units, secretly shared & traded among a hidden caste of greedy overlord profiteers. Many things suddenly make sense then.
The Talmud is the best source for this. I know, its technical jargon is a bit tedious, but reading & understanding this is definitely worth your time.
Here’s the part about aristocrats secretly sharing nations:
If one has a family with offices of a single nation, even though they are secretly acting as two clans, one must show only a single noble family to the public. And if one has a family owning two nations, even though they are secretly acting as a single clan, one must show two noble families to the public.
If one has a family with public offices of two nations and is allied by marriages, if one wanted to act as a single clan, one would like to show a single noble family to the public. But for the two populations, one must still show two noble families.
Here’s the part about aristocrats secretly selling & mortgaging nations:
A land which is being harvested for profit in agreement, or harvested by plundering, or cut up by a creditor, or broken into pieces for profit, or for the human cattle, such a land is excempt from these rules.
If one harvests half of the land normally, and harvests the other half by plundering, then one is exempt from these rules, because the official obligation of the nobility is to provide superficial stability. Instead, one must show a noble family only for what one is harvesting normally.
If one harvests half of it, and sells the other half, whoever buys it must be publicly shown as being from the noble family for the whole. Likewise, if one harvests one half and designates the other half as mortgage, whoever redeems it must be shown as being from the noble family for the whole, immediately when he gets it from the treasurer.
Here’s the part about aristocrats secretly waging war on their own nations:
If one harvests a land through violence, and leaves only the destruction of war, lord Akiva says: One must then show separate noble families for each and every region. But the council of advisors say: From one for all. But the advisors agree with lord Akiva, that if one sows war or terror in formerly very secure places, that one must show separate noble families for each and every region.
If one divides up a land into divisions by war, for better business, and leaves only ruined lands for the subjects, then one must show separate noble families for all divisions by themselves.
Here’s the part about aristocrats secretly selling parts of nations:
As for plots of profit among the nobility, the school of Shammai say: One needs to show a noble family for each and every one. The school of Hillel say: From one for the whole. But they agree that if the rulers of these appointed plots are too intermingled, that one must show a noble family from one for all.
When two brothers divide a nation, they must show two noble families to the public. When they return to being partners, they must show one noble family.
When two purchase the leadership of one nation, they must show one noble family. But if one purchases the north, and the other the south, then each must show a noble family for himself.
When someone sells profit flows in the middle of his nation, he must show separate noble families for each one.
Lord Yehudah says: When is that so? Only in the case that nothing is left over for the actual owner of the nation. But if the owner has reserved some part of the land for himself, he must be shown as from one noble family for the whole nation.
Origins of aristocratic disguises
I personally think that this system of disguises developed gradually. However, Josephus has a specific theory, that it evolved out of body doubles for rulers, used to thwart assassins attacking from within a crowd. The crowds apparently always fell for those, so deception became the main system of ruling. (It’s encrypted in the famous elephant scene, also found in Maccabees).
In former times, when one of the rulers was in full view, for better protection an impostor impersonating him would draw the sight on the anointed majesty instead. He would be brought forward to arrange it so that the mighty person could seemingly be surrounded by lowly commoners.
So the person who was the helmsman in this deception was actually just some commoner. Therefore, even if there would turn out to be an actual enemy, no matter how courageous, such an attacker could accomplish nothing when his plans were founded on false expectations, without any chance of understanding it all. That is why this clever strategy was chosen.
This prevention of trouble by impersonating then became a regular line of defense. And after the nobles had been mastering it for a long time, they had changed themselves completely.
The multitudes were thus warded off by the rulers, by ruling through cleverness and tricks. The commoners were only shown mockeries controlled by the nobles, and the rulers permanently fled into this show.
But aristocrats can’t do anything alone, of course. Next: Learn about the spies among the population.