You write that an aristocrat will seek stability, and not support revolution. Yet what is to be done in a democratic system that elevates the worst? The example of the Aryan invasion of India also comes to mind - while conquest is not revolution, this was the furthest thing from stability (although it did impose stability), and the social order of the Dravidians was certainly overturned completely. Surely aristocrats do not support every social order - only those worthy of their support, which aim man at that which is highest, can be supported; while by contrast those which drag man down into the mud must be opposed and overthrown.
During law school, I spent quite a bit of time delving into the records of the Constitutional Conventions in conjunction with an academic project on the idea of "civility" in the Early Modern period and its relationship to earlier notions of aristocracy in general and "gentility" in particular. The ideals of the courtly gentleman set down most fully in Castigleone's 1528 work "The Book of the Courtier".
It was abundantly clear to me that the members of the Constitutional Convention were explicitly and self-consciously attempting to create an "aristocracy of letters" to replace the aristocracy of heredity they had just broken away from. You don't have to read between the lines very much to see that a lot of their debates ultimately revolved around how to ensure that it was the Right Sort of Men that sought and held high office.
There were definitely disagreements about what constituted the Right Sort. Everybody agreed that titles of nobility and heredity were out. That was kind of the whole point of the War. But there were differences of opinion about whether the new "aristocracy of letters" was going to be basically a continuation of the ancient institution of the landed gentry with the hereditary serial numbers filed off (Jefferson, et al) or something based more on industry, in every sense of that word (Hamilton, et al), but economic and personal. Still, most of the Founders tended to be looking for a Right Sort that largely answered the to the description you lay out here.
But much if not most of the ink spilled had to do with how to make sure the Right Sort of Men, however conceived, wound up in office. The Founders correctly recognized that there was danger in simply allowing whoever was in power to exercise unchallenged authority. Their solution was divided government, with executive, legislative, and judicial functions split between three nominally co-equal branches. But they still basically assumed that all three branches would be populated by the Right Sort, and their individual failings would tend to be mitigated by constitutional checks and balances. They don't seem to have had a solution for the problems that arise when all three branches are corrupt together. Congressional checks on the Executive are of no real value if Congress can't muster the political will to use them. Or, even worse, actively conspires with the Executive to violate the Constitution.
That's all true. The Age of Reason managed for a while in the US because a majority of the people held to a traditional belief system that INSTINCTIVELY preserved a sane moral order. Unfortunately we've now entered into the Age of Kneeling Nancy.
Impressive put, Ryan. But Lord Acton made short work of their childish hopes. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If history proves anything it is that power must be spread out as evenly as possible, which is what Lincoln meant by "Government of The People , by The People and for The People". Note, this excludes representationalism. Ergo, a fully informed community formulates all policy and judgements. Wow, there goes parliaments and the judiciary. Good riddance.
No: diffuse enforcement. There is no tyrant in Washington as long as local sheriffs refuse to enforce tyranny. That's why Posse Comitatus Act was enforced and the revoked through militarized Alphabet Agencies.
Semantics? I suggest you wise up and read the history of the US Populism Movement which, for twenty years after the assassination of Lincoln, raged against the very anti-democracy propaganda that has been successfully pumped into your empty head.
One issue I have with a caste system is that it is usually based on heredity instead of competency.
History is rife with great leaders followed by terrible leaders because greatness was measured by bloodlines.
An ideal caste system would be one in which competancy determines migration between castes.
One reason the United States became a super power is that innovators were not held back by caste restrictions. Good ideas were not stifled because they came from a "low born" commoner.
Clearly we have gone off the rails but that is in large part due to rewarding incompetency while dis-incentivising competancy. Confiscatory taxes are being used to provide free housing, food, and drug use kits to the self sorted lowest caste people. They can afford to take any Tuesday in November off to vote for the politician that is promising more freebies. Now they can smoke crack while a ballot harvester fills out their ballot and delivers it to the drop box.
This is in large part due to allowing incompetent people the "right" to vote. Certain rights should be reserved for those who attain a level of societal responsibility. People who choose to be irresponsible with their life should only enjoy the bare minimum human rights. Housing, food, health care, and crack pipes should not be among those.
I'm guessing that our current drug addict class would self sort if those current incentives were taken away. True, some would self sort into the dead and buried caste but fentanyl is already doing that in the current system we have.
An arbitrary age (18) at which a person is considered competent and allowed full rights under the law is, in my opinion, a stupid way to go about it.
I totally concurr: the "problem" with aristocracy is not "who" but "how".
I.e. everybody despise the French and Russian Revolutions for their consequences but no one ever inquire why people were so upset to revolt. Although exaggerated, the failing of both aristocracies were astonishing and both Revolutions started with a renunciation, and so dereliction of duty by the king and his companion (the Czar in the eve of the February Russian Revolution is the poster boy of pure dereliction of duty).
I'm not sure combat is the full story ... Much of Europe's nobility fought in the Great War, and the flower of its youth was cut down in the trenches as a result. While the gentle decline had been proceeding for some time already, it was only in the aftermath, when only those too weak or cowardly for the military were left, that the European nobility was fully absorbed into and digested by the bourgeoisie and the managerial class.
Hormesis is a subtle thing ... The trick is just enough of the stimulus, too much is fatal....
Clearly we have gone off the rails but that is in large part due to rewarding incompetency while dis-incentivising competancy.
This is the problem in a nutshell. Ever since FDR, compassion has been measured by how many people are taking government handouts. Trying to get people *off* of the government dole is callous and uncharitable.
Instead of allowing the cream to rise to the top, we actively punish people trying to improve their lives. I can think of no more effective way to destroy a civilization.
"At worst, aristocrats are equated with “dictators” or “murderers,” often by the know-nothing dimwits who write our textbooks."
Perhaps because so many measured down to that standard?
"Aristocrats" such as Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great built a Russian Empire by brutality and bloodshed.
Louis XIV of France governed as if the universe orbited around him--not for nothing did he style himself the "Sun King".
The princes who governed the Germanic states committed the atrocity of genocide at Magdeburg during the Thirty Years War.
Those who believe in the fundamental inequality of men have gifted the world its most barbaric bloodsheds, from Drogheda to Magdeburg to Culloden to Sand Creek to Wounded Knee to the Armenian deportations to the Nazi Holocaust to the ethnic cleansing of Srebrenicia.
The world has no need of such men or their aristocratic pretensions.
I agree aristocracy is a matter of the spirit. In their ideal form they would be servant-leaders of the people.
"...artificially democratic and egalitarian criticisms of aristocracy centered upon “inequality” are irrelevant. They rest on an assumption (the equality of all people) which is itself unnatural and empirically false.."
I disagree here. Equality of the value for human life - no matter the particular talents, skills, ability etc. comes first. That needs to be the larger context - the value of life itself - and is equal among all who are alive. Then within that larger context of innate equality, we see gradations of intelligence, kinds of intelligence, various skills and attributes, etc. This would naturally produce differences in how that life finds it roles in the larger human landscape. If we collapse the innate value of human life (we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal) into measurements of particular abilities, and talents we start with a mis-step.
The false doctrine of equality is the foundation of everything that is poisoning our world. To be equal means to be the same. Men are not the same, therefore not equal. Two things that are not equal by definition cannot have the same value. Accepting that they do leads to madness and suffering:
- during the lockdowns, children's lives were destroyed because they were held to be of equal value to the lives of senior citizens. To extend lives near their natural ends by a few months at the price of incalculable damage to the emotional, social, and intellectual development of lives near their beginnings is monstrous.
- in NYC, we are witnessing the latest leftist freakout over the death of a garbage human, who died while being restrained by a much better man who was trying to prevent the violent, drug-addicted psychotic from injuring others. The doctrine of equality requires us to pretend that that man's life was as valuable as those of the law-abiding citizens he threatened, or the life of the hero who protected them.
If you're a mother, I doubt you believe in equality in practice. You would certainly sacrifice your life for your children's, if it came to it. Therefore indicating that you place greater value on their lives, than your own, and probably the lives of others.
The fine turns of phrase in the Founder's documents, "all men created equal" etc., were very unfortunate. They certainly did not believe them themselves for a single moment. I believe what they were getting at was merely that the law should be impartial, and that men should not be subjected to the arbitrary whims of tyrants.
Thanks. Actually, to be equal is not the same as "being the same". Equal but different.
Nor do I think the Framers made an unfortunate error in the inclusion of that phrase.
If meaning depends on its context - and it does - than that is where the confusion sits.
We're talking about two different things.
"All men are created equal" is a contextual framing. It is referencing the unseen and immaterial. 'Created equal' implies a Creator.
(Clearly the seen and material world is a world of immense inequality which they knew well.)
The statement is not speaking about specific bodies but rather the Force behind all those bodies, behind all of life. It speaks then to the mystery and spark of life.
There is humility in the phrase as well, because what human can, with authority, speak about that which created life? The value of life itself - within all of us - is what is being referenced.
Gradations and measurements come later, assigning value comes later. In the word of form; quantifying and qualifying are ongoing.
We rarely remember that the world of form comes out of the formless. Physical bodies seem more 'real' than the spirit animating them. (And however persuasive physical bodies are, that this is the sum of us, is an illusion.)
"The doctrine of equality requires us to pretend that that man's life was as valuable as those of the law-abiding citizens he threatened, or the life of the hero who protected them."
It does not require any such pretense for me. Nor does it require ignoring lawlessness or brutality. That's a perversion. (And we're living in a world of perversions and of hijacking terms to push an agenda.)
Being equal in essence (not form) requires an acknowledgement that the story is far bigger than we can take in or see. That there is more to life than what we can judge or measure. (And isn't that the horror of these times? The lack of life-affirming and life-nurturing values? We value life itself.)
A surgeon may be considered more valuable than a car mechanic, (save more lives and make more money) but we actually don't know that because we can't see the full story. We can't see or measure the ripples that flow from their lives, let alone know the importance of the lessons each life is offering. The mechanic may live an exemplary life and positively impact many others, however simple it looks, and the surgeon might screw up all the best opportunities in his or hers and bring more suffering through the narcissism that often comes with self-importance.
We can measure some things, but not everything.
Down syndrome children may look less valuable than their 'normal' siblings if you measure their worth in terms of their ability to make money or impact the world, but you have no way of knowing if that person's life is cultivating compassion and kindness in the soul's of the family -- which while not measured - may be far more valuable to them.
The starting place when we talk about the value of a life, is with reverence for life itself, for the Creator and that this spark of creation is in all things. What we do with it once we're born is another matter.
We're all equal before God, as we are all going to be judged by Him, not on our wealth, power or worldly treasure but according to the treasure we have stored in heaven. A poor but rigorous man is worth more in his eyes than a wealthy sinner. Thus, the equality of man makes theological sense, but bereft of it's theological underpinnings it becomes a slogan for the unworthy to claim equal share in greatness.
To be born equal, regardless of origin or privilege is a fine thing; a virtue to be admired and cherished by a society.
To assume or maintain that such equality of value ought to remain constant and unchallenged, beyond the folly of childhood and naievity of youthful adolescence, throughout the probation of a lifetime necessarily lived in the glare of both opportunity and obligation, right and responsibility, vice and virtue, commission and omission… well, that is a very different thing. To so insist, is to invite spiritual blindness, and utterly devalue spiritual maturity, wisdom, character and recognition of what is truly worthy, is it not?
It is not too difficult to connect our current malaise with precisely such an attitude to theses things, ignoring the reality that it is our probation that either makes us people of virtuous, regenerative value to others. Or, in failing constantly to cultivate anything worthwhile, that makes us degenerative in what we bring to others.
Perhaps this is indeed what we have accomplished, in deifying 'equality' and why we are now so much influenced, if not ruled over by a generation of cads, confidence tricksters, oafish people, despots, thieves, greedy merchants, and other nefarious types without nuance, compassion or care for humanity?
I certainly didn’t “mean to say” that, or I hope that I would have! I endeavour to say what I mean and to mean what I say.
Withal, the “interpretation” of the sense of my words that you offer is valuable. As our political and’s social ands cultural meritocracies dissolve, we are being forced to consider whether they can be redeemed, the foundations remaining. Or whether they are so ‘rotted to the core’ that a new foundation is required in place of the old.
Incidentally, it seems an odd argument to suggest that children easily inherit the spiritual qualities of their parents. It seems to my observations that the opposite is true: no one is more capable of squandering spiritual (and indeed material) wealth than puerile offspring.
For the record, @J316, since you seem to address my comments personal: I have no “American equality ethos”, as my profile attests. Common Law (Magna Carta) is the basis of British concepts of equality under the law. Many are returning to it, as our political law leans towards despotism again.
I think the best we can say, is that in the long history of England / Britain, including a fairly long imperial episode (which tends to reveal the worst characteristics of a national people), the foundation of Common Law may have kept the ordinary freeman from experiencing the worst excesses of English rulers, which were manifest. It provided a foundational ‘check and balance’, that benefited the English common man. I certainly prefer our history to that of our Franco and Prussian cousins. Common Law contributes to keeping the English from violent revolution.
I understood the writer was arguing for consideration of a “true aristocracy of spirit”, when “the best of people” of whatever station they have in life, rise up with a good and noble and generous character that marks them out from amongst the general hoi poloi as a “man (or woman) of peace” as they New Testament identifies in Luke 10, I think it is. I consider that I’ve enjoyed the privilege of encountering a few such people in my lifetime and benefited from it. The cultivation of virtue, or nobility regardless of station in life, is how it might be described less controversially.
Is the lifelong cultivation of virtue worthwhile? Worth the time and effort and sacrifice that it’s cultivation requires? I world argue that such is the foundational ethic of the new covenant. And precisely the ethic that post-modern secular culture has most aggressively undermined.
Aristocrats are the descendants of a foreign warrior caste who avoid mixing with the rules so as to avoid taking on their characteristics. In England, these were Normans, ruling over Saxons.
I understood the writer was arguing for consideration of a “true aristocracy of spirit”, when “the best of people” of whatever station they have in life, rise up with a good and noble and generous character that marks them out from amongst the general hoi poloi as a “man (or woman) of peace” as they New Testament identifies in Luke 10, I think it is. I consider that I’ve enjoyed the privilege of encountering a few such people in my lifetime and benefited from it. The cultivation of virtue, or nobility regardless of station in life, is how it might be described less controversially.
Is the lifelong cultivation of virtue worthwhile? Worth the time and effort and sacrifice that it’s cultivation requires? I world argue that such is the foundational ethic of the new covenant. And precisely the ethic that post-modern secular culture has most aggressively undermined.
Frankly, aristocrats are similar to woke leftists. Both believe that they are entitled to status, fame, and money due of who they are and not what they do. Both are outraged that "the merchant, the banker, the moneymaker, the tinkerer and tradesman" have more money and live better than them.
I have been working on a Substack titled “Why The French Revolution Never Really Ended” so this was pretty timely. You and I are of similar minds on this subject.
There was a wave of sanity that swept the world with the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Then the countersanity forces sprang into action and have never stopped for breath since. It gets crazier every ten years like clockwork.
Wow. Machiavelli and Malthus infused in one person. That is the most distorted view of humanity I have read since the 1950s.
Aristocracies emerged with farming, because uneven seasons led to crop thefts, which needed to be defended, and defenders eventually realised that the best loyalty is bought with progeny. The dual demands for military and technology eventually produced the technology we witness now, which in the hands of that insane aristocracy (more commonly known today is the "300 families" who rule the world, actually threatens all life on this planet (through toxicity, not AGW). But built into human evolution is the capacity for course correction, the beginning of which we see in the embryonic resistance to the NWO.
When I execute my own part in this correction, I will eliminate any support for a counter correction, an intention which I wrote into by website 13 years ago. Thus your call for kind understanding of medieval fuedalism may well precipitate your own demise because my comprhension is shared globally. Heed carefully what ye sow lest thee reap a harvest of regret.
I like what you've written here overall. I thought it unfortunate though to use the term "worthy." Too self-consciously pompous and to be honest kind of prissy. I'd substitute worthy for one who comprehends the value of "privilege, obligation, honor, custom and divine order."
I think my approach is better because it promotes the concept of cultivating instinctive behavior, and recognizes that human behavior is not primarily rational. You don't wake up and say, "Wow, by gum, I'm worthy today!" or if you do I'd feel bad for the person who lives with you. Or your neighbors. This type kills everything in his yard with chemicals. Then the carpenter ants haven't any natural compost to eat and move into his house and chew up $25,000 in foundation timber seal. LOL Or it's like the pompous hero in the cartoon with the "Unhand that girl Dan Backslide!" schtick. The world just doesn't work this way and nemesis will meet you in unexpected ways.
But thanks for your intelligent comment. I do remember the guys at Social something talking like that. I appreciate people trying to do the right thing. It's just the wrong way to do it.
You write that an aristocrat will seek stability, and not support revolution. Yet what is to be done in a democratic system that elevates the worst? The example of the Aryan invasion of India also comes to mind - while conquest is not revolution, this was the furthest thing from stability (although it did impose stability), and the social order of the Dravidians was certainly overturned completely. Surely aristocrats do not support every social order - only those worthy of their support, which aim man at that which is highest, can be supported; while by contrast those which drag man down into the mud must be opposed and overthrown.
I was going to make the same comment, but you've beaten me to the punch. Agreed.
During law school, I spent quite a bit of time delving into the records of the Constitutional Conventions in conjunction with an academic project on the idea of "civility" in the Early Modern period and its relationship to earlier notions of aristocracy in general and "gentility" in particular. The ideals of the courtly gentleman set down most fully in Castigleone's 1528 work "The Book of the Courtier".
It was abundantly clear to me that the members of the Constitutional Convention were explicitly and self-consciously attempting to create an "aristocracy of letters" to replace the aristocracy of heredity they had just broken away from. You don't have to read between the lines very much to see that a lot of their debates ultimately revolved around how to ensure that it was the Right Sort of Men that sought and held high office.
There were definitely disagreements about what constituted the Right Sort. Everybody agreed that titles of nobility and heredity were out. That was kind of the whole point of the War. But there were differences of opinion about whether the new "aristocracy of letters" was going to be basically a continuation of the ancient institution of the landed gentry with the hereditary serial numbers filed off (Jefferson, et al) or something based more on industry, in every sense of that word (Hamilton, et al), but economic and personal. Still, most of the Founders tended to be looking for a Right Sort that largely answered the to the description you lay out here.
But much if not most of the ink spilled had to do with how to make sure the Right Sort of Men, however conceived, wound up in office. The Founders correctly recognized that there was danger in simply allowing whoever was in power to exercise unchallenged authority. Their solution was divided government, with executive, legislative, and judicial functions split between three nominally co-equal branches. But they still basically assumed that all three branches would be populated by the Right Sort, and their individual failings would tend to be mitigated by constitutional checks and balances. They don't seem to have had a solution for the problems that arise when all three branches are corrupt together. Congressional checks on the Executive are of no real value if Congress can't muster the political will to use them. Or, even worse, actively conspires with the Executive to violate the Constitution.
That's all true. The Age of Reason managed for a while in the US because a majority of the people held to a traditional belief system that INSTINCTIVELY preserved a sane moral order. Unfortunately we've now entered into the Age of Kneeling Nancy.
Impressive put, Ryan. But Lord Acton made short work of their childish hopes. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If history proves anything it is that power must be spread out as evenly as possible, which is what Lincoln meant by "Government of The People , by The People and for The People". Note, this excludes representationalism. Ergo, a fully informed community formulates all policy and judgements. Wow, there goes parliaments and the judiciary. Good riddance.
No: diffuse enforcement. There is no tyrant in Washington as long as local sheriffs refuse to enforce tyranny. That's why Posse Comitatus Act was enforced and the revoked through militarized Alphabet Agencies.
Well, youare one up on me, I didn't know any democracies existed today. Where is this one you know so well?
Semantics? I suggest you wise up and read the history of the US Populism Movement which, for twenty years after the assassination of Lincoln, raged against the very anti-democracy propaganda that has been successfully pumped into your empty head.
One issue I have with a caste system is that it is usually based on heredity instead of competency.
History is rife with great leaders followed by terrible leaders because greatness was measured by bloodlines.
An ideal caste system would be one in which competancy determines migration between castes.
One reason the United States became a super power is that innovators were not held back by caste restrictions. Good ideas were not stifled because they came from a "low born" commoner.
Clearly we have gone off the rails but that is in large part due to rewarding incompetency while dis-incentivising competancy. Confiscatory taxes are being used to provide free housing, food, and drug use kits to the self sorted lowest caste people. They can afford to take any Tuesday in November off to vote for the politician that is promising more freebies. Now they can smoke crack while a ballot harvester fills out their ballot and delivers it to the drop box.
This is in large part due to allowing incompetent people the "right" to vote. Certain rights should be reserved for those who attain a level of societal responsibility. People who choose to be irresponsible with their life should only enjoy the bare minimum human rights. Housing, food, health care, and crack pipes should not be among those.
I'm guessing that our current drug addict class would self sort if those current incentives were taken away. True, some would self sort into the dead and buried caste but fentanyl is already doing that in the current system we have.
An arbitrary age (18) at which a person is considered competent and allowed full rights under the law is, in my opinion, a stupid way to go about it.
I totally concurr: the "problem" with aristocracy is not "who" but "how".
I.e. everybody despise the French and Russian Revolutions for their consequences but no one ever inquire why people were so upset to revolt. Although exaggerated, the failing of both aristocracies were astonishing and both Revolutions started with a renunciation, and so dereliction of duty by the king and his companion (the Czar in the eve of the February Russian Revolution is the poster boy of pure dereliction of duty).
I'm not sure combat is the full story ... Much of Europe's nobility fought in the Great War, and the flower of its youth was cut down in the trenches as a result. While the gentle decline had been proceeding for some time already, it was only in the aftermath, when only those too weak or cowardly for the military were left, that the European nobility was fully absorbed into and digested by the bourgeoisie and the managerial class.
Hormesis is a subtle thing ... The trick is just enough of the stimulus, too much is fatal....
> But look how long they lasted, and how prosperous Europe was under them for so long.
Largely because of the continuous stream of new blood, in the form of successful merchants, incorporated into their ranks.
I'm not so sure about that. The merchants didn't start marrying in until fairly late in the game.
Catherine de' Medici, scion of the Medici banking house, became Queen of France during the 16th century.
Clearly we have gone off the rails but that is in large part due to rewarding incompetency while dis-incentivising competancy.
This is the problem in a nutshell. Ever since FDR, compassion has been measured by how many people are taking government handouts. Trying to get people *off* of the government dole is callous and uncharitable.
Instead of allowing the cream to rise to the top, we actively punish people trying to improve their lives. I can think of no more effective way to destroy a civilization.
> Ever since FDR, compassion has been measured by how many people are taking government handouts.
And FDR was blue blooded old money, the closest thing America had to an aristocracy at the time.
Rarified wisdom to at least contemplate such things.
"At worst, aristocrats are equated with “dictators” or “murderers,” often by the know-nothing dimwits who write our textbooks."
Perhaps because so many measured down to that standard?
"Aristocrats" such as Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great built a Russian Empire by brutality and bloodshed.
Louis XIV of France governed as if the universe orbited around him--not for nothing did he style himself the "Sun King".
The princes who governed the Germanic states committed the atrocity of genocide at Magdeburg during the Thirty Years War.
Those who believe in the fundamental inequality of men have gifted the world its most barbaric bloodsheds, from Drogheda to Magdeburg to Culloden to Sand Creek to Wounded Knee to the Armenian deportations to the Nazi Holocaust to the ethnic cleansing of Srebrenicia.
The world has no need of such men or their aristocratic pretensions.
I agree aristocracy is a matter of the spirit. In their ideal form they would be servant-leaders of the people.
"...artificially democratic and egalitarian criticisms of aristocracy centered upon “inequality” are irrelevant. They rest on an assumption (the equality of all people) which is itself unnatural and empirically false.."
I disagree here. Equality of the value for human life - no matter the particular talents, skills, ability etc. comes first. That needs to be the larger context - the value of life itself - and is equal among all who are alive. Then within that larger context of innate equality, we see gradations of intelligence, kinds of intelligence, various skills and attributes, etc. This would naturally produce differences in how that life finds it roles in the larger human landscape. If we collapse the innate value of human life (we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal) into measurements of particular abilities, and talents we start with a mis-step.
Thank you.
The false doctrine of equality is the foundation of everything that is poisoning our world. To be equal means to be the same. Men are not the same, therefore not equal. Two things that are not equal by definition cannot have the same value. Accepting that they do leads to madness and suffering:
- during the lockdowns, children's lives were destroyed because they were held to be of equal value to the lives of senior citizens. To extend lives near their natural ends by a few months at the price of incalculable damage to the emotional, social, and intellectual development of lives near their beginnings is monstrous.
- in NYC, we are witnessing the latest leftist freakout over the death of a garbage human, who died while being restrained by a much better man who was trying to prevent the violent, drug-addicted psychotic from injuring others. The doctrine of equality requires us to pretend that that man's life was as valuable as those of the law-abiding citizens he threatened, or the life of the hero who protected them.
If you're a mother, I doubt you believe in equality in practice. You would certainly sacrifice your life for your children's, if it came to it. Therefore indicating that you place greater value on their lives, than your own, and probably the lives of others.
The fine turns of phrase in the Founder's documents, "all men created equal" etc., were very unfortunate. They certainly did not believe them themselves for a single moment. I believe what they were getting at was merely that the law should be impartial, and that men should not be subjected to the arbitrary whims of tyrants.
Thanks. Actually, to be equal is not the same as "being the same". Equal but different.
Nor do I think the Framers made an unfortunate error in the inclusion of that phrase.
If meaning depends on its context - and it does - than that is where the confusion sits.
We're talking about two different things.
"All men are created equal" is a contextual framing. It is referencing the unseen and immaterial. 'Created equal' implies a Creator.
(Clearly the seen and material world is a world of immense inequality which they knew well.)
The statement is not speaking about specific bodies but rather the Force behind all those bodies, behind all of life. It speaks then to the mystery and spark of life.
There is humility in the phrase as well, because what human can, with authority, speak about that which created life? The value of life itself - within all of us - is what is being referenced.
Gradations and measurements come later, assigning value comes later. In the word of form; quantifying and qualifying are ongoing.
We rarely remember that the world of form comes out of the formless. Physical bodies seem more 'real' than the spirit animating them. (And however persuasive physical bodies are, that this is the sum of us, is an illusion.)
"The doctrine of equality requires us to pretend that that man's life was as valuable as those of the law-abiding citizens he threatened, or the life of the hero who protected them."
It does not require any such pretense for me. Nor does it require ignoring lawlessness or brutality. That's a perversion. (And we're living in a world of perversions and of hijacking terms to push an agenda.)
Being equal in essence (not form) requires an acknowledgement that the story is far bigger than we can take in or see. That there is more to life than what we can judge or measure. (And isn't that the horror of these times? The lack of life-affirming and life-nurturing values? We value life itself.)
A surgeon may be considered more valuable than a car mechanic, (save more lives and make more money) but we actually don't know that because we can't see the full story. We can't see or measure the ripples that flow from their lives, let alone know the importance of the lessons each life is offering. The mechanic may live an exemplary life and positively impact many others, however simple it looks, and the surgeon might screw up all the best opportunities in his or hers and bring more suffering through the narcissism that often comes with self-importance.
We can measure some things, but not everything.
Down syndrome children may look less valuable than their 'normal' siblings if you measure their worth in terms of their ability to make money or impact the world, but you have no way of knowing if that person's life is cultivating compassion and kindness in the soul's of the family -- which while not measured - may be far more valuable to them.
The starting place when we talk about the value of a life, is with reverence for life itself, for the Creator and that this spark of creation is in all things. What we do with it once we're born is another matter.
Excellent perspectives. Thank you.
We're all equal before God, as we are all going to be judged by Him, not on our wealth, power or worldly treasure but according to the treasure we have stored in heaven. A poor but rigorous man is worth more in his eyes than a wealthy sinner. Thus, the equality of man makes theological sense, but bereft of it's theological underpinnings it becomes a slogan for the unworthy to claim equal share in greatness.
To be born equal, regardless of origin or privilege is a fine thing; a virtue to be admired and cherished by a society.
To assume or maintain that such equality of value ought to remain constant and unchallenged, beyond the folly of childhood and naievity of youthful adolescence, throughout the probation of a lifetime necessarily lived in the glare of both opportunity and obligation, right and responsibility, vice and virtue, commission and omission… well, that is a very different thing. To so insist, is to invite spiritual blindness, and utterly devalue spiritual maturity, wisdom, character and recognition of what is truly worthy, is it not?
It is not too difficult to connect our current malaise with precisely such an attitude to theses things, ignoring the reality that it is our probation that either makes us people of virtuous, regenerative value to others. Or, in failing constantly to cultivate anything worthwhile, that makes us degenerative in what we bring to others.
Perhaps this is indeed what we have accomplished, in deifying 'equality' and why we are now so much influenced, if not ruled over by a generation of cads, confidence tricksters, oafish people, despots, thieves, greedy merchants, and other nefarious types without nuance, compassion or care for humanity?
I certainly didn’t “mean to say” that, or I hope that I would have! I endeavour to say what I mean and to mean what I say.
Withal, the “interpretation” of the sense of my words that you offer is valuable. As our political and’s social ands cultural meritocracies dissolve, we are being forced to consider whether they can be redeemed, the foundations remaining. Or whether they are so ‘rotted to the core’ that a new foundation is required in place of the old.
Incidentally, it seems an odd argument to suggest that children easily inherit the spiritual qualities of their parents. It seems to my observations that the opposite is true: no one is more capable of squandering spiritual (and indeed material) wealth than puerile offspring.
For the record, @J316, since you seem to address my comments personal: I have no “American equality ethos”, as my profile attests. Common Law (Magna Carta) is the basis of British concepts of equality under the law. Many are returning to it, as our political law leans towards despotism again.
I think the best we can say, is that in the long history of England / Britain, including a fairly long imperial episode (which tends to reveal the worst characteristics of a national people), the foundation of Common Law may have kept the ordinary freeman from experiencing the worst excesses of English rulers, which were manifest. It provided a foundational ‘check and balance’, that benefited the English common man. I certainly prefer our history to that of our Franco and Prussian cousins. Common Law contributes to keeping the English from violent revolution.
I understood the writer was arguing for consideration of a “true aristocracy of spirit”, when “the best of people” of whatever station they have in life, rise up with a good and noble and generous character that marks them out from amongst the general hoi poloi as a “man (or woman) of peace” as they New Testament identifies in Luke 10, I think it is. I consider that I’ve enjoyed the privilege of encountering a few such people in my lifetime and benefited from it. The cultivation of virtue, or nobility regardless of station in life, is how it might be described less controversially.
Is the lifelong cultivation of virtue worthwhile? Worth the time and effort and sacrifice that it’s cultivation requires? I world argue that such is the foundational ethic of the new covenant. And precisely the ethic that post-modern secular culture has most aggressively undermined.
There are two caste systems:
Jati & Varna.
Jati or Tribal Endogamy predates Aryans.
Varna is technically a Vedic system, but this predates Hinduism.
For example, non-Hindus consider Kshatriyas superior to Brahmins - ie Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains.
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You're better off looking to the Khalsa for a republican aristocracy that can nevertheless exercise Monarchal authority over the mass.
Also solves the problem of heredity as one cannot be born into the Khalsa.
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Blind loyalty or fealty to a worldly King is foolish - a theocratic Aristocracy is superior.
This is less stable short-term, but more long-term as a King is often overturn when he passes peak.
The concept you're searching for is Maryada - from Marya or martyred young warrior.
The bounds, rules or norms of social conduct past which is death.
Cow slaughter, cowardice, inter-caste marriage.
ਅਕਾਲ
Aristocrats are the descendants of a foreign warrior caste who avoid mixing with the rules so as to avoid taking on their characteristics. In England, these were Normans, ruling over Saxons.
I understood the writer was arguing for consideration of a “true aristocracy of spirit”, when “the best of people” of whatever station they have in life, rise up with a good and noble and generous character that marks them out from amongst the general hoi poloi as a “man (or woman) of peace” as they New Testament identifies in Luke 10, I think it is. I consider that I’ve enjoyed the privilege of encountering a few such people in my lifetime and benefited from it. The cultivation of virtue, or nobility regardless of station in life, is how it might be described less controversially.
Is the lifelong cultivation of virtue worthwhile? Worth the time and effort and sacrifice that it’s cultivation requires? I world argue that such is the foundational ethic of the new covenant. And precisely the ethic that post-modern secular culture has most aggressively undermined.
Frankly, aristocrats are similar to woke leftists. Both believe that they are entitled to status, fame, and money due of who they are and not what they do. Both are outraged that "the merchant, the banker, the moneymaker, the tinkerer and tradesman" have more money and live better than them.
I have been working on a Substack titled “Why The French Revolution Never Really Ended” so this was pretty timely. You and I are of similar minds on this subject.
There was a wave of sanity that swept the world with the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Then the countersanity forces sprang into action and have never stopped for breath since. It gets crazier every ten years like clockwork.
Wow. Machiavelli and Malthus infused in one person. That is the most distorted view of humanity I have read since the 1950s.
Aristocracies emerged with farming, because uneven seasons led to crop thefts, which needed to be defended, and defenders eventually realised that the best loyalty is bought with progeny. The dual demands for military and technology eventually produced the technology we witness now, which in the hands of that insane aristocracy (more commonly known today is the "300 families" who rule the world, actually threatens all life on this planet (through toxicity, not AGW). But built into human evolution is the capacity for course correction, the beginning of which we see in the embryonic resistance to the NWO.
When I execute my own part in this correction, I will eliminate any support for a counter correction, an intention which I wrote into by website 13 years ago. Thus your call for kind understanding of medieval fuedalism may well precipitate your own demise because my comprhension is shared globally. Heed carefully what ye sow lest thee reap a harvest of regret.
I like what you've written here overall. I thought it unfortunate though to use the term "worthy." Too self-consciously pompous and to be honest kind of prissy. I'd substitute worthy for one who comprehends the value of "privilege, obligation, honor, custom and divine order."
"Become worthy" is an NRx meme. It is a pithy and exact phrase that communicates his meaning precisely.
I think my approach is better because it promotes the concept of cultivating instinctive behavior, and recognizes that human behavior is not primarily rational. You don't wake up and say, "Wow, by gum, I'm worthy today!" or if you do I'd feel bad for the person who lives with you. Or your neighbors. This type kills everything in his yard with chemicals. Then the carpenter ants haven't any natural compost to eat and move into his house and chew up $25,000 in foundation timber seal. LOL Or it's like the pompous hero in the cartoon with the "Unhand that girl Dan Backslide!" schtick. The world just doesn't work this way and nemesis will meet you in unexpected ways.
But thanks for your intelligent comment. I do remember the guys at Social something talking like that. I appreciate people trying to do the right thing. It's just the wrong way to do it.
This is what I mean. Prissy, precious and petty.