"It is between the two [the saint and the profligate], in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never surrender himself to either lust or asceticism...
"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...
"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...
"It is clear that this weak and anxious being, in whatever numbers he exists, cannot maintain himself, and that qualities such as this can play no other role in the world than that of a heard of sheep among free roving wolves. Yet we see that, though in times when commanding natures are uppermost the bourgeois goes at once to the wall, he never goes under; indeed at times he appears to rule the world...
"In fact, the vital force of the bourgeoisie resides by no means in the quality of its normal members, but in those of its extremely numerous 'outsiders', who by virtue of the extensiveness and elasticity of its ideals it can embrace. There is always a large number of strong wild natures who share the life of the fold...
"He who is developed far beyond the level of the bourgeois, who knows the bliss of meditation no less than the gloomy joys of self-hatred, he who despises law virtue and common sense, is never the less captive to the bourgeoisie and cannot except it. And so all through the mass of the real bourgeoisie are interposed numerous layers of humanity, many thousands of lives and minds, every one of whom, it is true, would have outgrown it and have obeyed the call to unconditioned life, were they not fastened to it by sentiments of their childhood and infected for the most part with its less intense life; and so they are kept lingering, obedient, and bound by obligation and service. For with the bourgeoisie the opposite of the formula of the great is true: He who is not against me is with me...
"Most intellectuals and artists belong to this type. Only the strongest of them force their way through the atmosphere of the bourgeois earth and attain to the cosmic. The others all resign themselves or make compromises. Despising the bourgeoisie yet belonging to it, they add to its strength and glory; for in the last resort they have to share their beliefs in order to live...
"The few who break free seek their reward in the unconditioned and go down in splendor. They wear the thorn crown and their number is small. The others, however, who remain in the fold and from whose talents the bourgeoisie reaps much gain, have a third kingdom left open to them, an imaginary and yet a sovereign world, humor."
(Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf)
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