Now what we call "bourgeois," when regarded as an element always to be found in human
life, is nothing else than the search for a balance. It is the striving after a mean between the
countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct. If we take any one of these
coupled opposites, such as piety and profligacy, the analogy is immediately comprehensible. It is
open to a man to give himself up wholly to spiritual views, to seeking after God, to the ideal of saintliness. On the other hand, he can equally give himself up entirely to the life of instinct, to
the lusts of the flesh, and so direct all his efforts to the attainment of momentary pleasures. The
one path leads to the saint, to the martyrdom of the spirit and surrender to God. The other path
leads to the profligate, to the martyrdom of the flesh, the surrender to corruption. Now it is
between the two, in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never
surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism. He will never be a martyr or agree to his own
destruction. On the contrary, his ideal is not to give up but to maintain his own identity. He
strives neither for the saintly nor its opposite. The absolute is his abhorrence. He may be ready to
serve God, but not by giving up the fleshpots. He is ready to be virtuous, but likes to be easy and
comfortable in this world as well. In short, his aim is to make a home for himself between two
extremes in a temperate zone without violent storms and tempests; and in this he succeeds
though it be at the cost of that intensity of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. A man
cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more
highly than the self {rudimentary as his may be}. And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his
own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed
by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that
deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak
impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted
majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility.
life, is nothing else than the search for a balance. It is the striving after a mean between the
countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct. If we take any one of these
coupled opposites, such as piety and profligacy, the analogy is immediately comprehensible. It is
open to a man to give himself up wholly to spiritual views, to seeking after God, to the ideal of saintliness. On the other hand, he can equally give himself up entirely to the life of instinct, to
the lusts of the flesh, and so direct all his efforts to the attainment of momentary pleasures. The
one path leads to the saint, to the martyrdom of the spirit and surrender to God. The other path
leads to the profligate, to the martyrdom of the flesh, the surrender to corruption. Now it is
between the two, in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never
surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism. He will never be a martyr or agree to his own
destruction. On the contrary, his ideal is not to give up but to maintain his own identity. He
strives neither for the saintly nor its opposite. The absolute is his abhorrence. He may be ready to
serve God, but not by giving up the fleshpots. He is ready to be virtuous, but likes to be easy and
comfortable in this world as well. In short, his aim is to make a home for himself between two
extremes in a temperate zone without violent storms and tempests; and in this he succeeds
though it be at the cost of that intensity of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. A man
cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more
highly than the self {rudimentary as his may be}. And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his
own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed
by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that
deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak
impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted
majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility.
( Hermann Hesse )
[ Steppenwolf ]
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