"The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication"
About this Quote
Youth, Aristotle suggests, is a kind of built-in drunkenness: not a weekend lapse but a standing condition. The line lands because it’s both observationally funny and philosophically surgical. Intoxication isn’t just slurred speech and bad decisions; it’s a distortion of proportion. You overrate the thrill, underrate the cost, and mistake intensity for truth. That’s his real target: the way adolescent certainty can feel like insight when it’s really chemistry plus inexperience.
The intent isn’t simply to scold the young. Aristotle is mapping character formation, the slow training of desire that sits at the center of his ethics. In his world, virtue isn’t a vibe; it’s a practiced steadiness, the ability to hit the “mean” between extremes. Youth tilts naturally toward the extremes because it’s powered by appetite, status-hunger, and a sense that consequences belong to someone else. Calling it intoxication smuggles in a medical model: you don’t argue a drunk into clarity; you sober them, you wait, you build habits that make relapse less likely.
The subtext is political, too. A polis run on youthful impulse becomes a city run on adrenaline: quick to worship novelty, quick to pick fights, quick to mistake momentum for direction. Aristotle isn’t anti-youth; he’s anti-ungoverned energy. The line is a warning dressed as a wry metaphor: if you want freedom that lasts, you need self-command first, because raw passion doesn’t just burn bright. It burns through.
The intent isn’t simply to scold the young. Aristotle is mapping character formation, the slow training of desire that sits at the center of his ethics. In his world, virtue isn’t a vibe; it’s a practiced steadiness, the ability to hit the “mean” between extremes. Youth tilts naturally toward the extremes because it’s powered by appetite, status-hunger, and a sense that consequences belong to someone else. Calling it intoxication smuggles in a medical model: you don’t argue a drunk into clarity; you sober them, you wait, you build habits that make relapse less likely.
The subtext is political, too. A polis run on youthful impulse becomes a city run on adrenaline: quick to worship novelty, quick to pick fights, quick to mistake momentum for direction. Aristotle isn’t anti-youth; he’s anti-ungoverned energy. The line is a warning dressed as a wry metaphor: if you want freedom that lasts, you need self-command first, because raw passion doesn’t just burn bright. It burns through.
Quote Details
| Topic | Youth |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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