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self-control and moderation were not exclusively or even particularly aristocratic values. Indeed, as we shall explore in more detail, they are frequently seen as central civic virtues in the polis, playing a key role in uniting citizens across class. So too, I agree with those who argue that pederastic homosexuality and its proprieties belonged to the culture of polis citizenship generally, ratherthan being specifically aristocratic. I shall argue that the parasite stands in con-tradistinction not to the aristocrat but to the citizen, that the social boundaries,relations, and values that define the parasite are those of the middling civic society of the polis(..)
over time the discourse increasingly emphasized the moral rather than material aspect of the hanger-on at table. At the heart of his condition was a lack of autonomy with respect to want, and this might be want in its sense either of need or of desire. And even neediness in the parasite was a consequence of self-indulgence. The pathos and pity that is present in Homer, where thebeggar may speak of the universal fragility of human fortune, disappears fromthe later discourse as parasitism comes definitively to be seen not as a productof circumstance but of a particular pathology of moral character. Where the parasite is poor, this is owing to his softness and indolence. And he may not be poor at all, no longer the hungry beggar, but the incontinent seeker afterpleasure and profit. This development, I believe, must be understood in thecontext of the development of the polis.
In the polis ideal, each citizen shared an equal political status over and abovetheir socio-economic differences, as free, self-determining men. The commitment to self-determination precluded the separation of government from citizenry, so that each citizen was master of himself and of his household, and together with his fellows constituted the city and shared in direct, collective self-government. In the famous Aristotelian formulation, ruling implied also being ruled.
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As an ethical ideal of self-mastery, the middle could be shared in by all citizens, from the smallholder to the socio-economic elite, uniting them as free, self-determining men in contradistinction to non-citizens, to the dependency of the landless, women, and slaves.
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Parasitism is concerned with class incidentally; it is, in essence, a discourse about citizenship: more specifically, about freedom in a citizen-state. The very commitment to independence on which the polis was predicated implicated the citizen in strong bonds of interdependence and community. To be a free means to share in the city, but how is one to be autonomousand yet live a shared life? How may one submit to others and yet be free, whereto be free among other free men is to rule and be ruled?
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The parasite is the anti-symposiast, defining the terms and boundaries of convivial society. He is nominally a guest, but does not make a contribution and lacks an invitation. He does not participate in the reciprocity of association.He is admitted to the banquet circle but only for his services, and so he performsthe role of servant and entertainer, slave and hired help. He consequently finds himself the object of laughter and abuse.
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His anti-type is not the aristocrat but the middling man. A servile free man and a false fellow, not master of himself but living only for himself, the parasite is the bad citizen.
Sean Corner (2013)
https://www.academia.edu/26037425/The_Politics_of_the_Parasite_Part_One_
https://www.academia.edu/26037424/The_Politics_of_the_Parasite_Part_Two_
