Only once one has understood the aristic ethos will one comprehend that there are many ways of mistreating or abusing another person that one cannot permit oneself, not merely because the other has rights (in his limited status, and specific to that status) and long-term needs to be properly taken care of, but also because oneself is an aristos and absolutely has to be above all such intemperate and myopic behavior. We are talking about something incomprehensible to most moderns, an ethics of character: an autonomous ethics, enforced out of one's sense of shame and guilt at not being true to oneself--not a heteronomous banausic or slavish sense of shame in the eyes of others' opinions about oneself. To have higher expectations of oneself is the decisive thing.
