¶12 That said, we must still insist upon an immediate consequence of the ‘democratic’ idea, which is the negation of the elite in its only legitimate acceptation;1 it is not for nothing that ‘democracy’ is opposed to ‘aristocracy’, the latter word designating precisely, at least when taken in its etymological sense, the power of the elite.2 The latter, by definition as it were, can only be the small number, and its power — its authority rather — which comes only from its intellectual superiority,3 has nothing in common with the numerical force on which ‘democracy’ rests, whose essential character is to sacrifice the minority to the majority, and also, thereby, as we said above, quality to quantity, and therefore the elite to the mass. Thus, the directing rôle of a true elite and its very existence — for it necessarily plays this rôle as soon as it exists — are radically incompatible with ‘democracy’, which is intimately linked to the ‘egalitarian’ conception, that is to say to the negation of all hierarchy:4 the very foundation of the ‘democratic’ idea is that any one individual is worth as much as another, because they are equal numerically, although they can never be equal except numerically.5 A true elite, as we have already said, can only be intellectual; that is why ‘democracy’ can only be established where pure intellectuality no longer exists, which is effectively the case of the modern world. Only, since equality is impossible in fact, and since one cannot practically suppress every difference among men, in spite of all levelling efforts, one arrives, by a curious illogicality, at inventing false elites, moreover multiple, which claim to substitute themselves for the only real elite;6 and these false elites are based on the consideration of any superiorities whatsoever, eminently relative and contingent, and always of a purely material order. One can easily see this by noticing that the social distinction that counts most, in the present state of things, is that which is founded on wealth, that is to say on a superiority entirely external and of an exclusively quantitative order,7 the only one in sum that is reconcilable with ‘democracy’, because it proceeds from the same point of view. We shall add, moreover, that even those who currently present themselves as adversaries of this state of things, likewise bringing no principle of a superior order into play, are incapable of remedying effectively such a disorder, if indeed they do not risk aggravating it still further by going ever further in the same direction;8 the struggle is only between varieties of ‘democracy’, accentuating the ‘egalitarian’ tendency more or less, just as it is, as we have said, between varieties of individualism, which, moreover, comes exactly to the same thing.
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Summary

Guénon identifies an immediate consequence of the democratic idea: the negation of the elite in its legitimate sense, since democracy opposes aristocracy, meaning the power of the elite. The elite can only be the small number, and its authority comes from intellectual superiority, not from numerical force; democracy essentially sacrifices the minority to the majority, quality to quantity, and thus the elite to the mass. A true elite can only be intellectual, so democracy can only be established where pure intellectuality no longer exists, which is the case in the modern world. Because equality is impossible in fact, false elites are invented, based on purely material and contingent superiorities such as wealth, which is the only form of superiority reconcilable with democracy as it proceeds from the same quantitative viewpoint. Guénon adds that even those who claim to oppose this state of affairs, invoking no superior principle, are incapable of remedying the disorder and may even aggravate it, since the struggle is only between varieties of democracy and individualism, which amounts to the same thing.

General notes

  1. négation de l’élite (acception légitime) — Rendered as ‘negation of the elite (legitimate acceptation)’. Guénon distinguishes the authentic elite (founded on a real intellectual and spiritual superiority) from modern pseudo‑elites (built on wealth, political power or media notoriety). Democracy, by principle, denies the very existence of a legitimate elite because it rests upon numerical equality. ↩︎
  2. « aristocratie » (sens étymologique) — Rendered as ‘“aristocracy” (etymological sense)’. From the Greek aristos (better, superior) and kratos (power). Authentic aristocracy is not a closed hereditary class, but the government of those who possess a real excellence — intellectual and spiritual, not merely social or economic. ↩︎
  3. supériorité intellectuelle — Rendered as ‘intellectual superiority’. Guénon means here superiority in the order of pure intellection (metaphysical and principial knowledge), not mere erudition or discursive intelligence. The legitimate elite is that which has access to essential truths and can guide society according to the principles of the traditional order. ↩︎
  4. conception « égalitaire » — Rendered as ‘“egalitarian” conception’. Guénon places the term in quotation marks to indicate that it is not a true principle but a chimera. Democratic egalitarianism postulates that all individuals are interchangeable and that their opinions have the same value, which amounts to denying all ontological hierarchy among beings. ↩︎
  5. égaux numériquement seulement — Rendered as ‘equal only numerically’. Guénon concedes that individuals can be counted as equivalent arithmetical units (one man = one man), but emphasises that this numerical equality is purely formal and says nothing about their real qualitative value. Democracy absolutises this mathematical abstraction. ↩︎
  6. fausses élites — Rendered as ‘false elites’. Guénon means by this all the artificial hierarchies that the modern world engenders to fill the void left by the absence of a true elite: political, economic, media, trade‑union, academic elites (when not founded on true intellectuality). These elites are ‘false’ because their authority rests on no superior principle. ↩︎
  7. fortune — supériorité quantitative et extérieure — Rendered as ‘wealth — quantitative and external superiority’. Guénon identifies material wealth as the principal criterion of distinction in modern democracies. Wealth is a ‘quantitative’ superiority (measurable in number of monetary units) and ‘external’ (it does not modify the inner nature of the individual). It is therefore perfectly compatible with the democratic principle, unlike intellectual superiority which is qualitative and internal. ↩︎
  8. adversaires de cet état de choses (pseudo‑oppositions) — Rendered as ‘adversaries of this state of things (pseudo‑oppositions)’. Guénon targets here critics of liberal democracy who, for example, advocate a stronger State or more equal redistribution. These critics, because they remain within the framework of individualism and materialism, only accentuate the disorder instead of remedying it. The only true opposition would be a return to a transcendent spiritual authority. ↩︎