In the present day, fascism and nazism as descriptors have become nearly interchangeable. Whether it be to lambast one of the many rising right-wing populist politicians springing up around Europe, or found within genuine histories of the mid-20th century, National Socialism and fascism have become nearly synonymous; however, the two movements were deeply disjointed and nuanced in their core philosophies when the exoteric similarities are brushed aside. All dictators are not Fascists – though many media outlets are keen to forget the distinguishing features – nor are all nationalist regimes; fascism is a movement tied to countless intellectuals and thinkers – hence why it presented such as pertinent danger to its contemporary world order. Mere politics could not have provided moral justification for the Italian gas campaign against the Ethiopians, nor could it have led to an entire nation becoming so distracted with the murder of Jews that it neglects its own war effort as was the case with Germany. Given to every Wehrmacht soldier was not a bible, nor a military manual, but a copy of the posthumously compiled Will To Power – a book that synthesized the most malleable components of Nietzschian philosophy for the Nazi regime's purposes. Giovanni Gentile, Alfred Baeumler, Julius Evola, and the Ur group all sprung from this fertile field of reactionary ideology infused with Hellenic classical ideals, all of whom fancied themselves “lookouts at the top of the mountain posted between today and tomorrow” – in fitting with a Platonic view of philosophies objective. These “firstlings and premature births of the next century” to whom the “shadows of European change became apparent” sincerely believed that the rise of alternative states – from Gibraltar to Hanover – would spell out a new golden age for European man. Political realities proved a daunting challenge for the patchwork group of esotericists, occultists, and philosophers: namely, race. The entire Nazi German Ethos had been predicated on the purity of the Aryan man and Nordic blood; myths rooted in paganism and obscure Greek writings recounting the mystical land of Hyperboria provided the nucleus of this alternative order and fed on the romantic revival of traditional German heritage. Italy on the other hand derived its spiritual core from Rome, an empire undeniably sustained by its profoundly cosmopolitan nature. Bridging this rift was attempting to unify the spirit of the Germanic tribes with the empire of Rome – ultimately destined for another Teuterborg forest.
Nietzsche as the Cornerstone: It is necessary to clarify that neither movement was truly unified in a singular philosophical doctrine, rather, their very newness and foundation in the fundamental rejection of the old way opened the floodgates for fringe ideologies and intellectual figures to rise to prominence. Just as many concepts relating to fascism, the – albeit horrified – founding father was Nietzsche, who had embodied and coined the idea that it was, “philosophies mission to guarantee life’s future on earth by destroying old values and replacing them with new ones that have more promise to execute philosophies mission” (in this case, philosophies mission refers to the idea championed by both Hegel and Kant of the unification of man through the systematic rejection of antiquated forces, of which both Marxism and Fascism find their roots). Before Julius Evola and the contemporary attempts to unify the two seemingly irreconcilable national identities, their Nietzschian core must be understood. Nietzsche wished to tear down the tenets of Christian Europe to build anew, for in his period he found himself on the precipice of a new age with novel and potentially disastrous technological abilities; his muse came not in the form of Christ nor pure Science, but Greece. When analyzed esoterically, Nietzsche argues for an unapologetically Hellenic worldview shaped by the right of the aristocracy of the sword rather than adopting egalitarianism like many of his day. His analysis of concepts of aesthetic beauty which are inexorably linked to philosophical ability is one of his most pioneering concepts, where he attributes the rise of pre-Socratic and Socratic philosophy to the physical health and vitality of Athenian youths. The concept displayed here is heavily pertinent, considering the neoclassicism that characterized both national socialist and fascist art and architecture. Physical beauty and vitality were exalted above the virtues of the spirit and the warrior was once the ethos of civilization – evidenced in each rippling muscle fiber found on the sculptures produced by Arno Breker. The cult of aesthetics was key to the rejection of the present tenets of Europe, for physicality was regarded as the antithesis to the Semitic and life-rejecting philosophy of Christianity. Nietzsche – infamously dubbed the ‘anti-christ’ – regarded Christianity as a means for the herd to abstract and distort the natural truth of ‘might is right’ to protect the herd: “The Genealogy of Morals claimed that morality was an invention of the weak (especially the Jews, and then the Christians) to weaken the strong. The sheep convinced the wolf to act like a sheep. This is unnatural, argues Nietzsche, and seeing morality's unnatural origin in resentment at inferiority will free us from its power over us”. The concept of Christianity’s Semitic roots – said to be almost gnostic in their indifference toward raw physical strength – would later be exploited to horrific extents and be used to directly support both antisemitism and the efforts to curtail the influence of the catholic church. Nietzsche additionally had – as evidenced by Costin Alamariu’s dissertation The Problem of Tyranny and Philosophy in the Thought of Plato and Nietzsche – viewed tyranny as the natural antidote to a declining aristocracy, hence the brutal actions of the new European dictators could be justified using a novel interpretation of Platonic teachings. In the words of Peter Kreeft: “Beyond Good and Evil is Nietzsche's alternative morality, or ‘new morality.’ ‘Master morality’ is totally different from ‘slave morality,’ he says. Whatever a master commands becomes good from the mere fact that the master commands it. The weak sheep have a morality of obedience and conformity. Masters have a natural right to do whatever they please, for since there is no God, everything is permissible”. Just as Socrates was executed for his subversion of the Athenian democratic convention – a charge masked by the now famous story of his impiety that led to his execution – so too could Nietzsche be seen as the intellectual soil in which the amoral philosophy of Callicles was made manifest through Hitler and Mussolini. Italian Fascism and Julius Evola: However, the foundation rooted within broad neo-classical and Nietzschian ideals is where the definite philosophical unification ended and the tenuous foundations of the relationship put themselves on full display. Many similarities did exist: Italy was experiencing economic woes and dejected veterans returning from a hard-fought but ultimately fruitless war; Italy was in search of spazio vitale for its people and once more raise the standard of imperial Rome; Italian fascism was predicated on a simultaneous respect for tradition and path towards militarism and modernization; however, race proved the great ravine that would seem daunting to even the most dogged traveler. Though Nietzsche himself was deeply critical of a biological racial view – subscribing to a ‘race of the spirit’ as will be seen radicalized by Julius Evola in the following paragraphs – Hitler’s rebranding of fascism was inseparable from virulent racism and Nordicism; Nietzsche's concept of the ubermensch was racialized through the aforementioned brutal censoring and selectively quoting campaign. Such a highly racialized ideology did not find fertile fields in the markedly mixed-breed Italian soil. Besides the mountaineers of Sud-Tirol, few resembled the Germanic master race of the north, but more importantly, even fewer were sympathetic to any racial ideology that extended beyond late 19th-century justifications for the conquest of Africa. This is evidenced by Italy’s enthusiasm in flattening Ethiopia, but hesitation in dogmatically following Hitlerian anti-semitism. The roots of Italian fascism were based in the endemic poverty of Italy and the corruption that had taken hold within the political and military establishment. Just as many other European nations at the time, Italians came to see that their key to respectability and prosperity lay in the stripping of resources from colonial holdings; therefore, when given the essential ‘left-overs’ of the Berlin conference and cheated out of any advantageous colonial gains in the Balkans following the First World War, the powder keg of Italian discontent was ignited. However, few Italians desired a racial cleansing of their conquered territories, for most of their non-African colonial aims were efforts to reunite – albeit unwillingly on the part of the conquered territories – the ethnically Italian peoples of Dalmatia, Malta, Albania, and Corsica. The quintessentially Mediterranean ideology of Fascist Italy for much of its rule even rejected antisemitism, claiming that Jews were an integral member of a shared Mediterranean identity rather than a parasitic Semitic outsider. The respect for the Mediterranean and Semitic additionally made any attempt to quell the power of catholicism laughable, for such movements which had already proved futile in Germany would never take hold in the papal heartland of the Italian peninsula. Ever emulating Rome, Italy saw its mantle as the unifier of Italic peoples of the Mediterranean – most of which would be considered subhuman by the ideologues within the National Socialist ranks. The alliance between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany was deeply ideologically disconnected, yet it was safe due to its practicality in the short term. The two totalitarian poles of Europe split the continent in half geographically, and their proximity allowed joint operations and coordinated efforts to be possible – a situation that especially aided in the Balkan campaigns of the Second World War. The efficacy of this combined war machine was put on full display in Spain, where nationalist forces under Francisco Franco – whom received air support, naval aid, weaponry, and manpower from both Germany and Italy – proved triumphant over soviet funded socialists along with other disparate leftist groups. However, with events across Europe swinging in the favor of the absolutist states during the 1930s, a burning question came to dominate relations: what would a hegemonic German state mean for Italy? Much had changed since Mussolini’s initial snubbing of the fringe and uncouth Hitler in the early years of his rise; now, Mussolini was the begrudging foot-soldier to the true daemon of European reactionism. As Germany’s position as the primary power in the relationship became apparent, heads began to butt: “Mussolini and Hitler were often rivals, and tensions over Austria and other points of Italian-German contention left relations between the two dictators particularly strained during the early years of Nazi rule”. However, one man would attempt to straddle the tenuous physical and ideological border between the two demagogic dictatorial states and attempt to unify the Mediterranean and the Nordic using a plethora of esoteric doctrines stretching from the mystical and the oriental to the historical and magical. Julius Evola – known to his followers as ‘Baron Evola’ – was certainly not the expected candidate for the job of philosophically unifying the dictatorial states of Europe. Born to a telegraph operator, he enjoyed a relatively comfortable upbringing in Sicily and eventually went on to university to study as an engineer. However, he would never finish his degree, and his life would take a dramatic spiral toward the fringe of academia and art. His service in the First World War as an Italian artillery officer etched its mark into him – though similarly to Hiter, he regarded the event as positively formative to his future militaristic character – and his involvement with the Dadaist art movement of 1920s Italy brought him into contact with a new wave of radical artists and philosophers. Through these circles, he encountered the work of Rene Guénon, the father of the perennialist school. Evola began as a long-distance disciple of Guénon, sharing many exchanges of letters with the Frenchman-turned-Sufi monk, yet soon the two found themselves at a crossroads; Guénon had taken the path of a total rejection of politics and modernity, yet Evola was young, vital, hungry, and in his eyes, he came to see his former master as belonging to a fundamentally irreconcilable spiritual caste. Evola, in his correspondence with Guénon, began to be chided for his seemingly contradictory actions of persuading Mussolini to abandon and persecute the Catholic Church, in Guénon’s words: “The ‘Mediator’, according to all traditions, is the ‘Universal Man’, which is also the Christ; whatever the name by which he is called changes nothing, and I do not see what difficulty there can be in regard to this”. Evola fancied himself a modern knight or Kshatriya, and his holy war was against the pillars of modern Europe, which he found chiefly rooted in Catholicism – hence he had no time for the ‘lunar spiritualism’ of Guénon’s strand of traditionalist philosophy. His founding of the Ur Group was the ultimate symbol of the assertion of his divergence from Guénon and the establishment of a unique philosophy that would blur the line between politics and religious mysticism. Later in Evola’s life, he would renege on his commitment to politics – an act of ‘masking’ such as Plato’s masking of his tyrannical sentiments in the Gorgias – famously advocating for apolitical spiritualism, yet his early career was undeniably that of considerable political importance. Fascism in many regards represented an upheaval of society; elements that once found themselves on the periphery now saw themselves sewn among fertile ground to become leading strains of thought. This had occurred in Nazi Germany with Himmler installing Karl Willigut – another former soldier turned occultist – as an official high-ranking member of the SS; however, Evola was disappointed with the low tolerance of Italians to these radical new avenues of thought. In his 1932 book Pagan Imperialism, he attempted to found a new and quintessentially Roman doctrine for Italians to unite around – one free of the pesky moralism of the Catholic church. In direct emulation of Nietzschian sentiment around Christian doctrine: “In the Semitisation of the Greco-Roman and then the Nordic world, attributable to a large extent to Christianity, we have in fact the revolt of the lower strata of those races, by whose domination the Nordic-Aryans had obtained their splendid civilizations. The spirit of Israel, which had already created the collective sense of ‘sin’ and ‘expiation’, and which emerged mainly in the so-called "prophets" after the defeat and enslavement of the "chosen people", buying the residues of the aristocratic spirit of the Pharisees, re-evoked the lower forces of Aegean-Pelasgian tellurism which the Achaean stocks had subdued”. Evola presented Mussolini with an alternative to his current balance of Catholicism and Hellenism, namely, the possibility of an anti-clerical rebranding of Fascism. However Mussolini, whom famously admired many of his works, outright rejected the proposals made toward him by Pagan Imperialism; the publishing additionally left Evola labeled as satanic by the Vatican-backed right-wing Catholic journal Revue Internationale des Sociétés Secrètes in its article, Un Sataniste Italien: Julius Evola. Evola however arose from this abject failure, battered yet unbeaten, and his contributions to the goal of unifying the two nations would come primarily in the form of his racial doctrine. Because of the overly compromising nature of Italian Fascism – which he witnessed in the poor reception to Pagan Imperialism – he sought solace in Nazi Germany. Just as with Italian Fascism, Evola despised the plebian aspects of Nazism and the overtly biological nature of Nazi racism, however, he found his home among the more radical and well-established groups of the German ‘Conservative Revolution’. Much of his 1934 magnum opus, Revolt Against The Modern World, became focused on a new hybrid ideology of race, one which would unite the two states and allow him to mold his new world order he dubbed ‘the world of tradition’. In the aforementioned book, he wrote: “Blood and ethnic purity are factors that are valued in traditional civilizations too; their value, however, never justifies the employment, in the case of human beings, of the same criteria employed to ascertain the presence of ‘pure blood’ in a dog or in a horse—as is the case in some modern racist ideologies”. Essentially, he foresaw the unification of Italy and Germany into a system resembling the Holy Roman Empire – which for him represented the last genuine appearance of ‘the world of tradition’ in Europe. He attributed the success of that Empire of old to a neo-pagan interpretation of Chivalry, stating: “Chivalry was like a "race of the spirit" in which the purity of blood played an important role as well; the Northern-Aryan element present in it was purified until it reached a universal type and ideal in terms that corresponded to what the civis romanus had originally been in the world”. As early as 1934, Evola began his work of creating a Third Reich that was not purely German, but rather, one that was based on the unification of the Roman and Germanic spiritual forces – just as was the case for the Second Reich. As the 1930s progressed, Evola’s tether to Germany became more and more concrete, and his increasing closeness with the high-ranking officials of the Nazi Party became more established. During 1937-38, he gave a lecture tour through Germany; at the time, he came to the view that Nazi Germany, though imperfect, was more fertile for his militaristic dreams of a pan-European imperium than his own homeland. With his newfound popularity in Nazi Germany– breaking from his former position which marched in lock step with official Fascist policy – he began his tangible effort of realizing his dreams of a unified imperium based on a shared racial ideology. In the words of Peter Staudenmair: “His April 1942 lectures on race in Hamburg and Berlin, depicting a shared Aryan heritage that bound Italians and Germans together, received particular praise” with respect to the nazi press, which soon took a keen interest in the enigmatic Sicilian. His lectures had their intended effect of galvanizing enough support for him to receive an official position in 1941– albeit acting through his associate, Luchini – within the ‘race office’ of the Ministry of Popular Culture of Mussolini’s regime. Once more according to the Staudenmaier study: “The group around Evola seized the chance to shape formal policy. Among their most important initiatives was the establishment of a series of antisemitic institutes in cities across Italy. The ‘Centers for the Study of the Jewish Problem’ published a journal titled Il Problema Ebraico (‘The Jewish Problem’)”. After the abject failure of Pagan Imperialism, his new sway over official party doctrine was exactly the political success he had envisioned when he first broke from Guénon; invigorated by success, he went on to publish a synthesis of racial doctrine, which was read and praised by Mussolini himself. It seemed that his goal of “erecting a united Aryan front between the two axis powers,” was within reach at long last. However, the intellectual disunity innate to Fascism which allowed for his seismic rise was to be the very foundation of his undoing. Despite the image of a state of absolute order and omnipotence portrayed by the Nazi party through their massive rallies at Nuremberg, the reality was starkly different. Different groups within the SS had differing opinions of the Sicilian ‘Baron’, not to mention the polarizing effect he instilled in his own nation. Providing validity to his positive reception among the Nazi elite, “A January 1938 SS evaluation remarked on his ‘astonishing knowledge of Aryan matters’” as well as his aforementioned amiable relationship with Heinrich Himmler given the two men’s kinship over the esoteric streams of Fascist thought. Additionally, the relations cultivated with the pinnacles of totalitarian power are undeniable; both Hitler and Mussolini read his work and spoke with him personally – all three met at Hitler’s ‘Wolf Lair’ to discuss the details of the Italian Social Republic puppet state – so most would conclude that his philosophical influence was gargantuan. However, the nature of the two states resembled more of a large game of ‘king of the hill’ as opposed to any ordered ‘divine civilization’ – with different factions and individuals soaring to the heights of power mere moments after the depths of decline and vice versa. Intellectuals, Bureaucrats, and military officials found themselves embroiled in a ceaseless battle, fighting tooth and nail, to attain one of their respective demagogue's ears for a fraction of time. While some within the SS praised him, others lambasted him, as was the case with the dossier document number AR-126 report: “The ultimate and secret goal of Evola's theories and projects is most likely an insurrection of the old aristocracy against the modern world, which is foreign to the idea of nobility [...] His overall character is marked by the feudal aristocracy of old. His learnedness tends toward the dilettante and pseudoscientific. Hence it follows that National Socialism sees nothing to be gained by putting itself at the disposal of Baron Evola. His political plans for a Roman-Germanic Imperium are utopian in character and moreover likely to give rise to ideological entanglements [...] It is therefore suggested: [...] To stop his public effectiveness in Germany, after this lecture series, without deploying any special measures [...] To have his propagandistic activity in neighboring countries carefully observed”. The report was laid on Himmler's desk, and in response, Himmler affirmed the analysis by his staff: Evola was dangerous, and such ‘ideological entanglements’ of unifying the two Fascist nations were not to be desired. Evola throughout the rest of the war would spend considerable time pried away from his Roman homeland, for as Fascism began to plummet in popularity, so did tolerance for the esoteric philosopher with dreams of a new age of Feudalism. Italians, now with German soldiers quartered in their towns, had finally snapped; what had begun as a movement most supported for economic alleviation had turned Italy into exactly what it had sought to avoid: a servile state. Now an exiled wanderer, Evola found himself in Vienna in 1945 – the former seat of his much-idolized Holy Roman Empire. Just as he dubbed one of his most widely read books, he was truly a man standing among the ruins of a civilization that was never to come to fruition. Ever keen to draw a historical parallel, in his eyes he truly came to represent Maximilian I, the last knight who became unhorsed and ended an era of esoteric revival and health, opening the gates to the Kali Yuga; however not by the tip of a lance in Evola’s case, but by a soviet bomb while ‘pondering his existence’ in the streets during one of the relentless raids carried out against the ancient and gleaming city. After receiving treatment, he returned to Italy to stand trial; the warrior – whom so resented the sedate intellectuals of his day and so enjoyed meditating on philosophy while climbing the titanic peaks of the Alps – was now paralyzed from the waist down, so no cruel nor unusual punishment could be devised capable of heightening the spiritual suffering he certainly experienced in this condition. On trial – a modern ‘Trial of Socrates’ in the eyes of his followers – he famously denied the charge of Fascism, rather, he proclaimed himself as a ‘Super-Fascista’ – placing himself above the plebian, disorganized, modern, and worldly aspects of Fascism that had deprived him of realizing his utopian dream of the ‘world of tradition’. Conclusion: The Third Reich ended twelve years after first emerging into the world, yet crucially never adopted Evola’s views of Romanism, feudalism, and traditionalism; the age of the Thirty Tyrants in Athens began in 405 under the leadership of Critias – a man who would become infamous for his representation of purest tyranny – and ended in 404 BCE, with the subsequent execution of Socrates in 399 BCE. Costin Alamariu bluntly described Critias – at least in the eyes of the Greek world – as follows: “Critias, Socrates’ student, was the Hitler of the ancient Greek world. He and his friends established a regime based on atheistic biologism so to speak; on ‘Sparta radicalized,’ a eugenic antinomian dictatorship". Just as in classical Greece, the spiral into dictatorship created an indelible mark on philosophy, namely, if philosophy should adopt a markedly pre-socratic identity (non-political), Socratic identity (overly political), or post Socratic identity (covertly political) in order to further its goals and exalt install Plato’s ‘philosopher king. The shift from Socratic political affiliations to post-Socratic ‘hidden’ political allegories is best demonstrated by an excerpt from an Athenian court case decades after the infamous execution of Socrates: “Socrates the sophist who you executed for being the teacher of Critias and Alcibiades who tried to put down the Democracy”. Philosophy, as can be seen from the quotation, had shed its previous state of being entirely divorced from politics, now, “Philosophers and tyrants were both perceived by the cities of the time as kindred criminal spirits” – hence why Socrates was executed despite his posthumous portrayal as a harmless questioner of traditional Nomos. As has been hinted throughout the analysis of Evola, he in many ways represented the attempt at philosophy to once more become a primary force in overtly political matters. Rather than merely providing the foundations of dictatorial ideology – such as Nietzsche, who now possesses plausible deniability – Evola was actively involved and attempted to shape official doctrine and policy, albeit unsuccessfully. While Nietzsche may have resembled Socrates in his identity as a ‘teacher of tyranny’, Evola was the young student, Plato. To save himself, he was forced to divorce himself from the sins of his teacher, and abstract his teachings to the point of utter allegory, making any untrained reader completely unaware of the true sentiments behind his work. Plato wrote the Gorgias as a means to protect himself, and if read as Nietzsche did, it can be seen as an older, more mature Plato speaking to his younger self – who is embodied by the character of Callicles – who violently proclaims his tyrannical sentiments with little true political and practical maturity. Following the war, Evola did the same. Through his books Fascism Viewed From the Right and Notes on the Third Reich, Evola created a fundamental distance between himself and the political institutions he had once been so keen to involve himself in; just as reflected in his admission of being a ‘super fascista’, he abstracted his true political leanings to the point of pure speculation and mysticism, which can be seen as a carefully constructed veil. Plato urged his followers to rise in the ranks of society, to hide their views, and influence from the shadows. Evola has done the same. Steve Bannon has admitted to being an avid reader of Evola; Alexandr Dugin, described as ‘Putin’s Brain’ is an intellectual scholar of the Sicilian philosopher; youth around the world have begun buying copies of his work, directly marketed towards them through titles such as A Handbook For Right-Wing Youth. Evola has rightly been described as the most prominent figure contributing towards the rise of the Italian radical right following the collapse of the Fascist regime, and his urge to operate in the shadows outlined in his book Ride The Tiger has been taken to heart by many leading figures of the modern populist right. Philosophy is far from harmless, just as it is far from apolitical, and as Plato and Nietzsche discovered before him, Evola following the war found the greatest impact of philosophy’s political teachings was within allegory and abstraction – hidden from untrained prying eyes. The full article with images and citations is available on Academia.com, I encourage you to search it up for a more academic view.
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“Rugby is a game for barbarians played by gentlemen. Football is a game for gentlemen played by barbarians. Rowing is a sport for gentlemen played by gentlemen,” (altered Oscar Wilde quote). Though Wilde never wrote the last sentence of the opening quote, I find it a fitting continuation, for the stereotype of rowing as deeply aristocratic and gentlemanly is well-earned. I originally heard this additional extension to the quote yesterday from a friend of mine before we embarked on the much dreaded 2K test – for those who do not know, a 2K is the primary gauge of a rower's strength on the water – and I am proud to say that with these words ringing in my ears, I was able to shatter two previous personal bests within the span of one week. Though squarely third on the team of around thirty, I still take considerable pride in what I have accomplished over my four years; however, who would believe me if I told them rowing drove my burgeoning interest and work surrounding philosophy? If you are browsing my writing, you will likely have a general understanding of my philosophical convictions, which to summarize, are a cohesive but tenuous mixture of traditionalism, Catholic thought, and a healthy dose of Nietzsche, which are all traditionally lauded for their abstraction and lack of tangibility. However, through my own experience, I seek to pluck these philosophies from the clouds and show that their metaphysical teachings are firmly translatable into even a modern man’s life. I am sure you are already groaning; no one wants to hear another rehash of some bland college application essay or a rehearsed speech by an uninterested student about sports’ impact on character, yet I promise you this dive into my experience with rowing falls in neither of those categories. To illustrate my thesis that rowing shaped my traditionalism and philosophical work, I will draw on my personal journey over my four years with the sport, as well as the overall history of rowing and athletic practice as a whole, and clearly show the undeniable tether between the two seemingly unrelated disciplines. Man is a fickle creature, and his interests ebb and flow dramatically year by year, decade by decade, and century by century; yet some of his interests extend beyond the exoteric and dip into the primordial, one such example being sport. Great civilizations have always engaged in sport, and there has been much speculation as to why this is the case. Despite the pages upon pages of intellectual jargon that beat around the metaphorical bush eternally on this topic, the answer is painfully simple: sport is a simulation of war. Many may find this analysis juvenile, yet in every period excluding our own, such a simulation has dual interconnected purposes. For one, a great society is characterized by order and stability (stability of structure, not necessarily stability through perpetual peace unless it is peace by absolute domination) yet the youth are naturally predisposed to violence, vitality, and rash physicality. The foremost problem through most of history for sophist lawmakers has been what to do with Hebe (youthful vigor), for there is nothing a gluttonous nature-rejecting bureaucrat disdains and fears more than vitality – a quality in himself which has been left underdeveloped or actively stifled to pursue his decadent path. Here we come upon the famously nihilistic and lamenting quote: “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt,” (attributed to the poet Juvenile). Juvenile is lamenting the decline of a vital aristocratic regime – what Spengler would call a ‘culture’ – into the empire of hegemony and decadence – in Spenglerian terms, ‘civilization’. Across the globe, we can see the tangible effects of youthful dissatisfaction, whether it be the rise of alternative politics in the West or the emergence of young male Jihadist movements in Africa and the Near East, such as Boko Haram. These movements comprised of young, uneducated, ill-equipped men have shaken the global order to its foundations rather than the seemingly titanic feuds between great powers. Just as the fascists rose to power on the tide of dissatisfied male ethos; just as the bronze age collapsed as a result of vital and nomadic sea peoples; just as Rome – a city of rouges and outlaws – dominated the Etruscans surrounding them; so will increasingly radical groups of young men come to shake our present age of rigid convention. The concept I laid out has been fairly well established by both the academic works of Costin Alamariu, such as Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy, and his popular (though admittedly unacademic) exhortation Bronze Age Mindset, and is the fundamental foundation of Nietzschian aristocratic political philosophy. In essence, the nihilistic view of sports is merely that it is a means for sophists to channel youthful vitality in highly controlled and sterilized situations, yet as an athlete, this answer is unsatisfying and represents only an accurate reflection on the adulteration of sport, not its true essence. Sport can be an opium, or it can serve as a highly influential demarcation of virtue and worthiness. In Nietzsche’s view, an aristocracy will arise through a pastoral conquest of a settled, agrarian society. From that point of initial contact, some semblance of a social contract can be found. The resources of the masses flow toward the cultural pursuits of the distinct aristocratic class, and the military prowess of the ruling class establishes security beyond the primeval rule of custom through law; this is the essential symbiosis that founded civilization as we know it, not merely that of the West. Once the aforementioned marriage of forces created such a civilization, the noble task of cultivating an ever-complex cultural identity and upward-oriented state begins. During this process, relative peace becomes more common, and Thomas Hobbess’ requirement for a noble state to overcome the state of nature, in his words: “I demonstrate, in the first place, that the state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all; and in that war all men have equal right unto all things,” (Præfatio (Preface) of De Cive), becomes satiated through a rigid hierarchy. However, the fundamental power and vitality that allowed for the initial spark of excellence in these nomadic populations arose from their hyper-militaristic primal roots, so civilization, luxury, and peace posed a distinct risk to their ruling spirit. Edward Gibbon, through his groundbreaking history of the decline of Rome, reflects the basis for such a profound fear. His thesis states that Rome’s fall was due to a fundamental shirking of duty and weakness within their formerly vital patrician class, not external factors. Unfortunately for the Romans, though they borrowed much of Hellenic culture, they were unsuccessful in the primary Greek ideal of a physically vital ruling class. Of course, my statement is somewhat dramatized. Greece also went through periods of aristocratic decadence and decline, which eventually led to its dissolution as an independent civilization, yet the fundamental truth of their physical notions remains poignant. The primary term to associate with this cult of physicality is Kalokagathia, essentially equating the beauty of the body with the virtue of the soul. Additionally, the term was essential to the concept of a vital aristocracy, not merely an individualistic standard. Coined in Athens, the term was used among the aristocracy to communicate the standard that each aristocrat was expected to live up to; unlike modern ideals, it was an expectation rather than a detached hope that one would become an almost intermediary being to the realm of the Gods. Based on the previous paragraphs, it is clear why this ideal – so flagrant in its refutation of the modern ‘don’t judge a book by its cover' mentality – became the ruling philosophy of Hellenic civilization and ultimately cared for the already sewn seed of the original nomadic domination. The Greeks fundamentally understood the connection between civilizational survival, greatness, and retaining the original spark of vitality that allowed pastoral people to conquer a more numerous agricultural group, which was often only preserved through war. Here we stumble upon the dilemma of empires: ever-expanding the borders of one’s holdings will allow for a constant honing of the physical and military character of their aristocracy – the beating heart of any civilization – however, what happens when those ever-extending plains cease to be unknown; when there is no step left to fight for; when the entire store of fuel the civilization was predicated on, conquest, runs dry? Look to modern Greece, Italy, and England; you will find the once-raging torrents of civilization frozen over in indecision and mediocrity – desperately looking towards their past while not having the courage to embark on the deeply turbulent path to escape from the mire that their mythical forefathers arose from. However, not all civilizations took the path of insatiable conquest and survived with thriving noble classes despite lacking the riches and spiritual benefits of perpetual conquest. Civilizational survival lies in another Aristotelian value, eudaimonia, which expresses that the true heights of man are only reached through the cultivation of balance. For an aristocracy, balance is essential: balancing military commitments with artistic ones, balancing heavy-handed justice with civil content and self-determination among the peasantry, balancing readiness for combat with religiosity, and finally, balancing their vitality with cool-headed rationality to administrate a state while stimulating cultural development. Medieval Feudalism and Greek aristocracy are the systems that best exemplify such self-sustaining civilizations of balance, which bred stability and noble cultivation like none other. The similarities, differences, and eventual dissolution of these two civilizations would require multiple books, so in the spirit of sport, I will focus on athletic competition as a heightening institution as opposed to the sophist pacifier it could, unfortunately, mold into. To comprehend the importance of sport and non-military physical arts to these people, one must look to their art, for our purposes, sculpture. The first category of Greek sculpture that heralded the emergence from the Grecian Dark Ages was the Kouros, which became the primary cultural output of archaic Greece. These statues have been cited as not holding a religious connotation, however, through their embodiment of Kalokagathia and Hebe, they served as an essential representation of the intermediary between the divine and the tangible found through the symmetry of the athletes rippling muscles. These statues were used primarily to commemorate not great warriors – though much of Greek civilization at the time was structured around honoring military prowess – rather, they honored athletes. As can be seen from the emergence of the Olympic games early in Grecian history, sport would often take primacy over war and internal conflicts, evidenced by the ékécheiria (Olympic truce); in the Greek vision, the physicality of war and sport were indistinguishable from each on an esoteric level. Even the renowned crowning ceremony, which saw victorious athletes crowned with olive branches, represented the unshakable tether between the strength of the body and the virtue of the soul, for the elevation of athletes to near-divine figures honored both qualities in conjunction. Julius Evola famously said: “The blood of the heroes is closer to God than the ink of the philosophers or the prayers of the faithful,” (Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World), yet Evola was a medievalist and scholar of the classical world, so I have no doubt the quote could be extended to encompass the ‘sweat on the athlete’s brow’. In the case of Classical Greece, we find sport used for the heightening and honing of an aristocratic civilization: a way for the spiritual fortitude engendered by athletic prowess to translate into a noble caste without necessitating the blind instability and Faustian pursuit of constant warfare and conquest. By this point in the essay, I am sure my stance on the state of modern sports is evident. Rather than heightening the ideals of classical civilization and nobility, modern sports seek only to distract – hence why it has become so corporatized. The foremost industries in the modern day are all characterized by their capitalization on the distraction of the masses, and sport has been instrumental in serving as one of these cultural anti-depressants. As mentioned before, the path of modern sports is far from uncharted; such a path leads to ultimate civilizational decay. How long did the Roman bread and circuses ploy last until the great columns erected by the early patricians crumbled to dust under vital barbarian hordes? The mentality is not hard to understand, for it is the mentality of every bureaucratic secular government (though pioneered by the Enlightenment). The primary goal of government fundamentally shifted, initially predicated on elevating the spiritual state of a culture, yet now focused merely on suppressing vitality and discontent. When scientifically assessed, it is only logical; measuring societal success by lifespan is a far easier task than taking the time to analyze closeness to the divine through artistic output and spiritual vitality. When sport becomes a science on how to distract and entertain, its original function of channeling youthful vitality and heightening the highest echelons of society is tossed to the wind. In the modern day, sports from grammar school to the professional leagues fundamentally separate the physical, intellectual, and spiritual elements of athleticism; symbolic of most evils of modernity, in our scientific pursuit of categorization and isolation, we have lost the nobility of harmony that even the ancients had a fundamental understanding of. We can see the effects of this daily; society is controlled by men whom have neither the courage nor the discipline of the past, and lack the duty to the divine that physical excellence once cultivated in an aristocracy. They promote technological progress, restriction, and separation from nature, for they fear nature – whereas the athlete has mastered her. The society we reside in was crafted by urban intellectuals who fear, reject, and destroy nature, hence why they seek to relegate sport to a secondary role. They are much the same as the primeval farmer, ruled by custom and fear, unable to separate the inventions of their manipulative shaman from natural, divine realities. The time we live in spiritually is far less advanced and natural than it once was, no matter how many veneers of technological advancement are placed in front of our eyes to distract us. Man’s goal of discovering the divine through his own ‘nature’, pioneered by the athlete, has been entirely subverted. These last few pages have been both impersonal and exceedingly academic, yet I find a rigorous and thorough analysis warranted for such an important topic. Sport is not merely a means for distraction or keeping the general population healthy through elevated children's games: sport is a profound means of preserving cultural, moral, and intellectual cohesion and prowess. For much of my childhood, I, unfortunately, rejected these fundamental truths, not only because I was lazy but also because our society so radically shifted what it meant to be an athlete. Crew, however, changed that, because though it is a team sport like none other – requiring perfect timing with those on your boat – the relationship each man cultivated with the oar and the boat differs wildly. When I am cranking the faded blue handle, caked in the blood and sweat of countless athletes before me, it is what I tell myself in those excruciating moments between the 900-meter and 500-meter mark that hold the power to make or break my workout. Those who never hear that voice within are relegated to perpetual mediocrity; they constitute the meat and potatoes of the team that provide a foundation for the few to build off of. However, those who find that voice calling out to them in the wilderness are a breed like no other, and in cultivating that voice, they can turn a whisper into a cry capable of triumphing over all primal instincts. The connection to aristocratic morality is apparent, for they too master their nature. Rather than living for sustenance, they reject the mere primacy of life and chase metaphysical ideals; a rower scoffs and his fatigue and physical pain to achieve much the same glory. The aristocrat does not find pleasure or release in mere work but rather in excellence to a level as biological as trained; a rower is never satiated by achievable goals. A nobleman must devote his life to martial training, where even the minute movements decide life or death; a rower’s hands dropping an inch can lead to a sizable defeat in the heat of a race. Just as a duel, a race is only mere minutes, and once it begins, there is no going back. If the rower lacks the mental fortitude to cultivate perfection for six minutes, he loses, and the nobleman, in turn, loses his life. There are no substitutions, no breaks, and no lulls in the action; each second demands an absolute commitment that most cannot muster. The question as to why rowing was and still is a staple of the British aristocracy is quite simple: it is the complete synthesis of all they stand for. Sport, though bastardized at the high levels, still retains its deeply traditional foundations, and rather than rejecting the lot because of the few adulterations, we should instead seek to purify the noble institution to cultivate mastery, not subversion or distraction. ![]() In the words of Dr. Peter Glomset, “Americans have thrived in the arts – from music to visual – but lag behind our European counterparts in the literary field,” and if not for one man, I would whole-heartedly agree. Cormac McCarthy certainly needs no drawn-out introduction, nor does his most prolific book Blood Meridian. Filled to the brim with classic ‘cowboys vs injins’ style gunfights and grotesque imagery of severed heads and shrunken ears stripped from enemies of all creeds and races, Blood Meridian has repelled as many critiques as it has captivated. As is not uncommon, some will attempt to relegate it to a teenage boy's violent fantasies while others will critique the long and supremely descriptive sentences woven by the despotic overlord of the English language. For the former, I say grow a pair; for the latter, I say set aside your jealousy, for any artist must learn to recognize when they have encountered a superior caliber. In devaluing McCarthy’s work (in calling McCarthy adolescent, they simply display their own infantile nature), these individuals lose the ability to engage with a profoundly philosophical work – one on the level of Dostoyevsy’s Crime And Punishment. Of course, I am not the first to pick up on Blood Meridian’s philosophical backbone – which is only amplified in its embroidery of grotesque passages and depravity – however, oversimplification has plagued this work just as it has for every reasonably complex novel. Just like McCarthy’s own character of the Judge, they seek to extract one central point from the novel and subsequently destroy the rest; his coffin must be worn with many convulsions his corpse has suffered upon each bastardization of his work! As a simple search on YouTube would demonstrate, many have been quick to liken McCarthy to Thomas Hobbes, which holds considerable validity. It is impossible to argue that the novel is anything but a horrific depiction of mankind and his capability for cruelty and violence, however, unlike Hobbes McCarthy poses us with a question and a reality, not a solution. The closest he comes to providing a Hobbesian solution of civilization and control is when he depicts the Judge pontificating on a native tribe that once inhabited the region that the Glanton Gang is currently moving through. He reflects: “All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage. So here are the dead fathers. Their spirit is entombed in the stone. It lies upon the land with the same weight and the same ubiquity. For whoever makes a shelter of reeds and hides has joined his spirit to the common destiny of creatures and he will subside back into the primal mud with scarcely a cry. But who builds in stone seeks to alter the structure of the universe and so it was with these masons however primitive their works may seem to us,” (McCarthy, p. 127). For context, this anecdote is part of a three-part scene concerning the raising of children, which in this case is symbolic of the progress and decline of civilizations. In a sense, this is a Spenglerian view of an age of barbarity following a golden age of civilization, and like Spengler, the Judge sees it as an inevitability. Unlike the traditionalist view, however, the quest for civilization is not seen as a noble pursuit, but rather that of attempting to stop the ocean tides with a wall of sand. The Judge, as an agent of chaos and representative of human barbarism, laughs at this attempt to subvert natural will and is ready to arise at every opportunity, for he never truly leaves. He is the resentment and rage that envelops a declining society, just as he is the spirit of progress in the age of expansion and enlightenment. Where McCarthy differs from Hobbes is exactly in this aforementioned duality, for the judge is a supremely cultured being; civilization and progress have only allowed him to flourish on a scale equally swollen as his own bloated figure. While for Hobbes, strength in centralization and control would provide a mediating effect towards the universal evil embodied by the Judge, in Blood Meridian the Judge games bureaucracies, militaries, and governors with ease. He is a bottle that cannot be corked, and if anything is a way in which McCarthy spits in the face of Hobbes and his hubris in attempting to formulate a cork that inevitably would not hold. On a philosophical level, McCarthy is dooming man and his civilizations to futility (a topic which I will attempt to offer a counter for later) however beyond the strike at Hobbes, McCarthy bases philosophical his diagnosis on theology. McCarthy’s religiosity is up to considerable debate, however, his astute conviction in a pessimistic and cursed world makes some variation of Gnostic Deism seem fitting. For evidence, we must look to his renowned epilogue – as compelling as it is confusing – for there do we see man’s ultimate condition through the eyes of the author. As man travels forth through life, “He uses an implement with two handles and he chucks it into the hole and he enkindles the stone in the hole with his steel hole by hole striking the fire out of the rock which God has put there,” (McCarthy, p. 284). The noble man, separated from the scavengers McCarthy describes following these enkindled holes, trudges through life lighting the fires which God has laid out for him. God does not reach into this world, rather, he has left a path that we follow, a path that allows us to shed light on an intentionally dark plane of existence. Nobility, in the eyes of McCarthy, is in creation; he reviles those that linger behind the man lighting the holes. Here he provides the foundation of the solution for man that I shall soon discuss, but also demonstrates that though God has cursed mankind, he has still provided him a path of creation and a path towards greater achievements. Most of Blood Meridian’s theology stems from the biblical story of Adam and Eve as well as the Poem of Paradise Lost by John Milton. Many times has it been argued that the Judge is indeed Satan, and using both these religious accounts, that analysis is proved mostly sound. From the very first pages of the book, a Reverend calls out upon encountering the Judge: “This is him, cried the reverend, sobbing. This is him. The devil. Here he stands,” (McCarthy, p.2). The symbolism in the reverend's cry needs no explanation, but far more subtle justifications for the satanic identity of the Judge arise as the story progresses. Just as Satan in Paradise Lost fashions gunpowder and cannon to wage his futile war against God, So too does the Judge. When the Glanton Gang is about to receive divine justice, the Judge fashions homemade gunpowder from the belly of the volcanic earth and the urine of men, bathing himself in it as he mixes what is described as the “Devil’s batter” (McCarthy, p.116): the gunpowder. Though much later, in the second encounter with the edge of St. Michael's sword, the judge wields the muzzle of a Howitzer as though it was a mere rifle and escapes his fate once more: the cannon. From these accounts, it is clear that the Judge wages an active and brutal war against fate (clearly what McCarthy believes is an implement of God) which demonstrates why the Judge is wholly consumed by warfare in all its brutal forms. In his own words: “War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god,” (McCarthy, p. 210). What God is to Satan is indeed war, not only because of Satan's act of outright revolt against the heavenly kingdom, but also of the curse God simultaneously lays upon the serpent and mankind. According to Genesis 3, 15-16: “So the LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, ‘Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring [1] and hers; he will crush [2] your head, and you will strike his heel." (Genesis 3, 15-16). A state of war is what God sentences Satan and man to eternally; bloody, perpetual, War. The Judge does not revel in war because he sees it as a ritual as he says or because he has the power of choice over the matter– though he attempts to use Nietzsche’s will to power to feign self-determination in his bloodlust– but because he is cursed to do so. Lastly, Judge Holden has been generally accepted as a personification of imperialism – an interpretation that has become almost ubiquitous among casual readers and intellectuals alike – but additionally serves a stark counter to modernity. It has been said that the story of Blood Meridian is a sequel to mankind’s banishment from Eden, showing exactly the extent of God’s curse on Satan in the not-so-distant past, which upon further analysis proves to be correct. The interpretation of Judge Holden as a metaphor for imperialism has unfortunately been taken in directions that stray far from the actual purpose of McCarthy’s character, even if my specific traditionalist interpretation is to be discounted. There have been extensive studies of Holden’s position as a representative of American misogyny coupled with racism and all other sorts of progressive buzzwords, however, that interpretation loses the actual poignance of his character. Holden is one thing: indiscriminate. Like all the other members of the Glanton gang, he has no values or morality, only what suits him best in the given moment. If my interpretation is to be accepted, Judge Holden’s position as the embodiment of Imperialism and post-Christian Western society is horrifyingly accurate. The foundations of liberalism and modernity are built off of Holden’s exploits of categorization; his learnedness spurs his evil rather than curtailing it. As mentioned briefly above, the proximity to our own time adds a sense of universality to the story, for the Garden of Eden may feel distant and antiquated, but the founding of the American West is only just outside living memory. Additionally, Satan has not diminished in strength due to technological advancement as Western society deludes itself to be the case, but rather has swelled in size and power. While once Satan was handsome (as mentioned in the previous religious accounts discussed) he now appears fat, childlike, spoiled, and corpulant. Why is this? Because his task has become easy, man is playing right into his child-murdering hands. Holden is spurring on a secular world of categorization, domination, and disdain for God and nature – not unlike our own. In the words of Jihan Zakarriya: “Judge Holden establishes a secular order, with the workings of God or religion suspended, declaring an order of hierarchy, of exclusion, of identity conflicts, and of a monolithic white power,” (An Ecocritical Reading of Blood Meridian, paragraph 7). Though the last point concerning a racial view of Judge Holden’s exploits can be debated, in this case, progressive academia and I march in lockstep. You have journeyed with me through the pages of Blood Meridian; on this journey, we have uncovered that he is a philosophical, religious, and historical allegory that warns mankind of his future and his very nature, but I promised you a counter and I shall deliver. Cormac McCarthy portrays the horror of inevitability and fate masterfully, however, I believe that he additionally drops a covert trail of breadcrumbs to my ultimate prescription of the universal malady he has so eloquently diagnosed. When the madman in the mud hut is speaking to the unnamed protagonist of the novel, he tells him: “You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it. You believe that?” (McCarthy, p.17). The connection to technology is evident, and the madman describes man’s unparalleled evil through not his increased propensity for it internally – in his own words even the least of animals has the capability – but through the means by which he can perpetuate it. Here, McCarthy and I find agreement. I too hold that man’s technological progression does not stamp out the evil from his heart, but rather only provides him the tools with which he can act on the deep, primal, bloodlust that was engendered into him by his banishment from Eden. Once more, we see Hobbes handily refuted. Governments throughout the novel are shown to be weak, hypocritical, and untrustworthy; after all, a modern government is merely a gang that succeeded in taking power. Hobbes was right that man needs civilization and society to protect against our primal evil, but where true society derives its power is not in technological domination – which Blood Meridian handily shows is not a viable solution – but in a hierarchy held by natural law and angled upwards. Ultimately, the world of tradition is where we find an escape from the Judge’s ever-present figure. For example take the kid and his origin, startlingly similar to the condition of modern man. He is born in blood, it is all he knows, for he has no connection to his family and no set path to follow. Like each member of the gang excluding the Judge, he is a man immersed in nihilism. There is no nobility, there are no values – for values get one killed – only ruthless competition reigns supreme. War can never be irradicated, as the Judge says: “As war becomes dishonored and its nobility called into question those honorable men who recognize the sanctity of blood will become excluded from the dance, which is the warrior's right, and thereby will the dance become a false dance and the dancers false dancers. And yet there will be one there always who is a true dancer and can you guess who that might be?” (McCarthy, p.280). He is that single dancer, and in denying him we give him strength. The beauty of traditional structures is found within their balance, for man does not deny war, but relegates it to a limited position. By doing so, man acts in accordance with the natural order, but uses it as a means to strive towards man's ultimate goal: self-sustaining stability and cultivation of higher men. What McCarthy describes is the natural state, defined by Heraclitus as perpetual flux, which is shown to be the embodiment of hell. In keeping with biblical tradition, we find that our only path to salvation is to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. If Earth is cursed by perpetual flux, heaven must by extension be the polar opposite. This means that just as the angels are categorized into classes – with the Cherubim, Seraphim, and thrones presiding over this celestial hierarchy – so too should man. Additionally, as God is the undisputed sovereign, so too should his chosen man be the undisputed sovereign of man on earth. McCarthy is right that the hand of God can be elusive in this world, so we must be active in creating a society that acts in accordance with his will. In Hindu tradition, a man because deplorable and shunned only when he has attempted to revolt against the celestial structure he was born to be a part of, just as satan was banished from Heaven after attempting to subvert the celestial kingdom's rigid hierarchy. Therefore, to escape the influence of the Judge, we must end our journey through the war torn deserts of Mexico and return to our land, to act in accordance with our purpose, and not chase the illusive specters of wealth and sovereignty, of which only God can be true master of. -E.S. Recently, I was deeply troubled to learn of Harvard’s Gilbert and Sullivan performances indefinitely ceasing, however this event is emblematic of far more dire issues facing men in the arts. For as long as I can remember, my great Uncle would kindly take multiple other family members and I to the spectacularly produced performances; an experience which certainly strengthened an important relationship that I still hold dear. Not only did it buttress personal relationships, but also my burgeoning interest in music. Being raised around truly great music is an invaluable resource, and coupled with exposure these singers were still young, which added to the relatability of the experience. Currently, I have been a part of a choir since elementary school, and have been lucky enough to go on a musical tour of Quebec – singing in two of their cathedrals – and I owe much of it to the powerful role models I saw take the stage at Harvard. As I am sure you can tell by now, I found these performances the highlight of my year, and the news certainly came as a shock (as evidenced by the long chain of emails shared between my family upon reception). To add insult to injury, the reason for the abrupt suspension of performances was most troubling: they had no men.
As evidenced by most of my writings, I am a huge proponent of traditional masculinity, so you may be surprised by my deep care for Gilbert and Sullivan's performances of all things, yet that is masculinity. I wish to also be clear, Harvard, for all its issues, is not uniquely at fault in this regard. During my time in high school choir, the stark difference in the number of female to male students was shocking, not to mention the deep fissure between the levels of participation between the sexes. However, I also saw the phenomenon extended to the orchestra and even the visual arts during my time, which importantly was not as extreme when I first arrived during my freshman year. Even the men who remained in the choir felt uneasy (as did I), which sapped much of the joy found in performing in front of large groups. The second we would all stand up, the robes we wore seemed to morph from cloth to lead, and our previous confidence to hit notes deemed ‘unmasculine’ would evaporate. This uneasiness manifested in antisocial tendencies within the group – such as paltry participation and performative apathy – for each man seemed to be locked in a competition to prove their masculinity as if it was under mortal threat. A healthy amount of unproductiveness is good for a young man, in fact, one of the chief classical ideals was a confident lack of care, however, it cannot be confused with the weakness driving what I witnessed. I am ashamed to say it, but I would bet a significant amount of money that my former choir will become exclusively female within the next year; in fact, they would be better for it! I lived through this slow decline of the masculine arts for four years, and the Gilbert and Sullivan debacle has simply caused it to bubble up inside me like a fit of unshakable and deeply unpleasant indigestion. What I wish you to take away from this anecdote is not that my four years of choir were miserable – for I cherish them despite the drawbacks – but rather, the central point is found in the universal phenomenon of wounded masculinity. The lens has widened from Harvard’s Gilbert and Sullivan performances to high school art as a whole, and now, we will twist our lens once more to gaze at the masculine creative output as a whole. To preface, homosexual and effeminate expression has become quite common, but for our purposes only attempts at traditional masculine representation are relevant. The chief masculine cultural contributions recently have been in rap and sports, a pitiful lineup but it is the unfortunate reality. It seems odd how young men, many (if not most) white, have latched onto a musical tradition that originates in the deepest corners of the African American ghettos and was designed to speak for those facing challenges unimaginable to most modern listeners. Personally, I regard it as an expression detrimental to those involved and society, but I know too little to speak for black Americans. What does interest me however is the fact that music which speaks to senseless violence and the depravity of man (to be fair to rap, it is often critical of the perpetrators of these acts, however, there are countless examples of the opposite) which in all honesty is what many of the creators of this music experienced during their time in the depths of poverty, appeals to most modern young men. The media is partially to blame, but we must remember that the media is simply sewing a plowed field. The black community that coined rap late last century faced similar spiritual challenges as the modern man – of course in conjunction with tangible poverty, hunger, etc – which has ironically created a new generation of spoiled white half-men singing along to lyrics about the depths of racial injustice and the senseless violence many in poverty suffer at the hands of. They had little control over their own destiny, they were nihilistic after years of hardship, they fell short of the standards an increasingly media-heavy society pumped down their throats, they were poor in education and social mobility, and they were detached from natural expressions of humanity, not to mention masculinity. Anti-social behaviors – such as desensitization to crime and violence – are merely reactionary impulses manifesting due to the severity of masculine degradation in the modern age. Sports obsession is much the same; men’s lives lack a necessary level of vitality and release so they instead pour their time and money into emotionally tethering themselves to others living their hyper-masculine dream. Sport formerly was used as a simulation of war, and by extension, was a way to pacify a warrior class in times of peace (ie. jousting, Native lacrosse, fencing, etc), and now we find ourselves – exactly like the plebian Roman – neutered by bread and circuses. Now I ask, was Mozart an effeminate man? Was Wagner an inoffensive softy? Neither, of course, is true. What has always defined the greatness of a high culture is duality. Just as the two paths to cultivate a connection with the divine (or esoteric depending on your doctrine) are through action and contemplation, so is the path to solar masculinity. Since modern life has reduced men to only being valuable in the latter, they feel unsatisfied in the former, manifesting in what we see today. Since they will likely be a doctor, lawyer, or accountant, they cannot assert their masculine vitality in the areas that really matter, but rather massage their sickly vital urge through purging themselves of the higher arts which they see as feminine. Unlike the elderly, I am not worried that rap will make the young violent, rather, I am worried that it will further stifle their natural vitality. It is true that – as Nietzsche lays out – all civilizations of a higher type begin with a barbaric aristocratic class storming in on their horses and massacring the local farming population, yet no high culture has been sustained that way. When a culture matures, just like a young man, it comes to appreciate the path of the warrior and the path of the aesthetic. Golden age civilizations, such as classical Greece or the mature years of the European Middle Ages, adopted doctrines that fostered a higher type of masculinity; divine masculinity. The Codes of Chivalry, Kalakogathia, Bushido, and many more serve to meld a man’s natural strength with his abilities of care, restraint, and delicacy. Frederick the Great – one of the last truly chivalric monarchs – was a skilled flutist and unlike his father ushered in a golden age of Prussian arts and cultural output. The system of spiritual advancement had been honing a perennial idea of masculinity for centuries, and industrial society threw it to the wind. We are now like Frederick Wilhelm the First (father of the aforementioned Frederick the Great); old, sick, fat, and hyper-fixated on war because we lack the ability to participate in it. My hope, therefore, is that out of our decrepit state, we can bear a son who can realize what we never dreamed of grasping. My brief historical and philosophical analysis of the problem has now been made clear, but to conclude, I want to offer you a kernel of hope. Male participation in the arts is fledgling, but I have been proud to participate in one of the few exceptions to that trend. In my first year of Acapella, our group was starkly different from the choir. Most of us were varsity sports players, our chemistry together was unmatched, and we embodied (admittedly too much so) the Greek virtue of vitality and acedia (carelessness). Most of us had little singing experience, and I had to coach my fellow bases significantly, but I was unsurprised to see the skills learned playing sports correlated directly to the stage. As an all-male group, there was a genuine fear of mine going in that it would be a group of effeminate micro-managers that would limit the group to the notes on the page, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it an entirely different community. We may have not sounded the best at our regional performance, but I cannot overstate how much of a good time I had that year. We made music together, hell Acapella, the chief of the feminine musical arts, and we did so without insecurity. I stood on stage, with people I cared about and cultivated a willingness to try, to achieve something I would not otherwise; I only realize now that this was the same divine passion that allowed some of the most masculine and warlike civilizations to produce the highest and most delicate art. Plato’s idolization of the philosopher king was neither a play at his own ego nor arbitrary, but instead the true union of the poles of masculinity into one greatly productive being. We signed up because our friends did, because they encouraged us, and because we never felt lesser for approaching the art form in this manner. I remember joking with some friends at the time that we were likely the most muscular acapella group to ever take the stage, and I would not be shocked if that were true, but that is what the arts should be at their core. I find it a tragedy that the artistic sports-player archetype has been relegated to the cinema, it should be within each of us. -E.S. The most fundamental question that humans have been asking for thousands of years is: “where do we come from?” and the most fundamental answer has always been “God”. But beginning with eastern philosophers in the 6th century BC and exploding in recent years with enlightenment philosophers and new age ideas, atheism has been on the rise. The idea that there is no God, there is no creator of the universe or anything in it, that human beings are the result not of a loving and perfect thought of God, but are a meaningless by-product of evolution. I believe that this position is harmful to society and leads to widespread feelings of meaninglessness especially among the youth. I believe that based on the evidence, God exists and he loves you, and I intend to prove that by presenting arguments and answering objections. I will present the argument from contingency, I will rebut the two most common objections to this argument those being the infinite universe theory and the question “who made God?” I will also be presenting an argument that proves God loves us and knows us, and answer the problem of evil which is the most common objection to this argument. Before we begin the discussion of the existence of God, we need to know what God is. There are a few terms needed to understand the metaphysics of God and those are: Necessary, omnipotent, omniscient and simple. First off, God is necessary. Some things in the universe need explaining, take for example a triangle. A triangle can have several attributes for example its size, colour or composition. Some reasonable questions to ask about the nature of that triangle would be “why is that triangle green?” or “why is that triangle so big?” These questions would require a response that sufficiently explains why that triangle has that property, as it isn't necessary for a triangle to be green or big. However if you ask the question: “why does that triangle have three sides?” A sufficient answer is to say: “because it’s a triangle”. Having three sides is an attribute that is inherently grounded in the nature of a triangle, and if it didn’t have three sides it would cease to be a triangle. Now we take this example to God. God is a necessary being as without him nothing else would exist. Similar to the triangle question, if someone asked “why does the universe exist?” A sufficient answer would take time as “because it’s the universe” would imply that the universe is necessary which it is not. Next, God is omnipotent and omniscient. Because God is a necessary being, he inherently would be the highest order of being there is, which means there can be no potentiality in God, potentiality being that which is moved by actuality. For example, an actual oak tree produces the potential acorn. If God was not all knowing or all powerful he would be of a lesser order and he would not be God. And lastly, God is altogether simple, this is known as the doctrine of divine simplicity. This does not mean that the mystery of God or the will of God is easy to understand; what it means is that God is not composed of parts or matter. There are two fundamental attributes to every thing on earth which are matter, and form. For example a wooden chair. The form is a chair and the matter is wood, if the chair is smashed with a hammer, the form of a chair ceases to be but the matter of wood remains. So if God had matter making up a part separate from his form he would owe his goodness to his form as matter makes up the form, though if the matter ceases to exist there is no place in which the form can manifest and would mean there is potentiality in God. Therefore God is a purely actual form with no parts or matter in his being. Now that we know what we are talking about when I say the word “God” I will now begin my first argument for the existence of God, the argument from contingency. In the world there are a series of events which are caused rather than necessary as I explained in my previous paragraph. That which is caused was at one point in a state of potentiality and was actualized into motion by another thing which is in actuality, for example wood is potentially hot, and is made hot by fire which is actually hot. So we can apply this logic to the universe. If there is a chain of causation and each contingent act needs to be actualized by something, we can gather that there must be one necessary being to put the chain of causation into motion taking it from a state of potentiality to actuality. Take for example the chair analogy again. If we see a pile of wood sitting on the floor with a bunch of woodworking tools next to it, it has the potential to become a chair, but without an actualizer which in this situation would be a woodworker, the wood will sit motionless for eternity waiting to be actualized into a chair. It is the same with the universe. If prior to the big bang there was no actuality or even any potentiality it would be illogical to think that the universe was actualized with no necessary being to put the chain of causation into motion. And this necessary being is God. Some common objections to the argument from contingency is the infinite universe theory, and the question “what made God”? So I will answer those objections now. As explained in the argument from contingency, because the universe is a series of caused events, to put the chain of causation into infinity would be impossible as for a chain of causation to begin there must be an actualizer to put the chain into motion. Furthermore, all caused things go through a cycle of decay and generation. Therefore if something is capable of not existing there is a time at which it never existed. The universe and all matter in it are caused, therefore there was a time in which the universe never existed. But then there would be no actuality to put the chain of causation into motion, and the universe would never exist. Take for example a train, say this train had 100 box cars but no locomotive. In order to move, the potential (boxcars) need an actualizer (locomotive), without the locomotive present to actualize the motion of the boxcars the train would remain motionless for eternity. Now imagine the same train but with infinite boxcars. These boxcars would meet the same fate as the 100 box cars with no actualizer (locomotive) to put them in motion. So too with the contingent universe, no matter how much time or potential beings existed, (assuming there were potential beings before the universe existed) without a necessary actualizer which we call God, the void of the universe would lay motionless and empty for all eternity. Second objection, the most asked question when the contingency argument is presented is: “Who made God?” The answer to this question is a simple one: nobody. Nobody made God, if we are speaking about a monotheistic God nobody made him because he is a necessary being, he has always existed and always will exist. If something made God, he would not be the highest order of being and would cease to be God, furthermore if something made God that would mean that at one point he never existed which would mean he has potentiality and isn't pure actuality which would mean that he is not God. Ok, God exists, so what? The universe is billions and billions of light years in diameter, there are billions and billions of galaxies all holding trillions upon trillions of stars, there are 200 billion trillion stars in the universe, that number is 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. So maybe God exists, but how do you know he knows us or even cares about us? Why would he care about such small and insignificant people when looking at the massive scale of the universe. We know this because of the hierarchy of God's creation. The hierarchy of God’s creation is clear evidence that he knows and loves humans in a special way separate from all his other creations. All of God’s creations are ordered to some end, take for example plants. They sustain themselves, grow, reproduce and eventually die. As with animals they get food, water, shelter, reproduce and eventually die. Plants and animals are ordered to an end which is growth and reproduction, as are humans, but the difference is that animals and plants are governed to those needs which lead them to that end. For example humans can choose to not have children, or fast for a week on purpose. a bear for example, will always do whatever it can to reproduce and I can guarantee that you will never see a bear intermittent fasting, they will look for food wherever and however they can. God invested into humans the light of reason and free will. This freedom we gain from not being bound to the means that grant us our naturally ordered end sets us apart from animals and all of God’s other creations. A common objection to the existence of God and an objection specifically to the argument I just presented as to why God loves us is the problem of evil. This I believe is one of the strongest arguments against theism, and I will attempt to answer it now. The argument essentially goes like this P1. if God was an all loving being he should will that the highest good happens to his creation, therefore gratuitous suffering should not exist, P2. if gratuitous suffering exists God doesn’t exist, P3. Gratuitous suffering exists C. God doesn’t exist This argument is a strong one because people have a misunderstanding of God. When people think of God, they usually think of a puppet master in heaven pulling all the strings and controlling what people do and say at all times, this is a misconception. God gave human beings the gift of free will as he wants us to freely choose him. God is all powerful, but he cannot do what is logically impossible. It is possible for God to create creatures with free will and the reasonable ability to choose between good and evil, but he cannot also force his creation to do the good act, if he did this we would not have free will. God has told us what good and evil is, but he will never force our hand to choose the good. God has a permissive will, when human beings choose evil he knows that their choice is evil but he respects us enough as to not insult our free will. Furthermore we must not forget that God is omniscient (infinite knowledge) and knows many things we don't, such as the consequences of our actions and the outcomes of scenarios that we could never predict. So something that appears to us as a sorrowful event could have effects that bring about a great good and similarly an event that appears to us as a great good could bring about terrible consequences. For example a puppy going to the vet for shots, the puppy has no idea what’s happening, all it knows is that the people around it are hurting them with these sharp needles and in the moment it seems like a great torture to the animal, due to its limited knowledge. What it doesn’t know is that these shots will protect it from harmful diseases that could bring about terrible sickness and possibly kill the dog. Similarly, if the Dog somehow got into the world's biggest chocolate bar, it might seem in the moment as an amazing treat that tastes delicious, but with his limited knowledge he doesn’t know that if he eats this chocolate bar he will get chocolate poisoning and possibly die. Moreover, our secular society has a false idea of what goodness is. Most people believe that the goodness of God means he should impose that which grants us the highest pleasure, but going back to the dog analogy that might not be true. C.S Lewis writes in The problem of pain: “By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness — the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, “What does it matter so long as they are contented?” We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven — a senile benevolence who, as they say, “liked to see young people enjoying themselves” and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, “a good time was had by all”. (Lewis 21) God wills that the highest good happen to us, but we need to understand what goodness is, it isn’t just pleasure or feeling good, if God is the highest good there is, God willing us the highest good is to want us to be connected to himself. To conclude this essay, I would like to say that the mystery of God may never be discovered until we get to heaven, however we as humans have been invested with the light of reason where we can at least come to know that God exists. We have discovered that there is very strong evidence for the existence of God with the argument from contingency. I have presented evidence that if God exists, he knows you and loves you, and I have done my best to answer the problem of evil. And based on the evidence I have presented in this essay, I believe that God exists, and he loves you. -Vaughn Walters Western Democracy is no longer liberal. I do not allude to the liberalism thrown around by American conservatives who simply have not discovered the word ‘progressive’, but rather the liberalism coined by the founders of the United States; a philosophy I have foundational issues with, but still one I hold a level of respect for. Though many within my audience are European – as will I be shortly when I fully relocate to that continent – this topic is of the utmost importance to all in the Western world. I call it supremely important for two reasons: the values of the original United States are fundamentally European, and a later beast masquerading as the original United States created the Western World we reside in today.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" (Benjamin Franklin). Franklin’s famous line is not only at the heart of the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment – even though that is where most cite its influence – but is representative of fundamental European values taken to an extreme. Since the dawn of time, Europe has been characterized by its freedom and vitality. The Greeks, whom commented on an expansive range of civilizations, showed disdain for nearly all other cultures; from the overly ordered and neutered city dwellers of the far and near east to the Africans they knew too little about to speak of definitively. The one true exception to their sense of pride in their own superiority was the civilization that lay to their north and west: Europe. Feared tribesmen with streaming red and gold hair steaking behind them coupled with wild whoops of war captured the Greek imagination so thoroughly that their markedly un-greek features were adopted into the depictions of their Gods. Though barbaric, there was respect for the freedom exhibited and the values that kept their lifestyle raw and warlike as well as keeping their bodies muscular and beautiful. I – and many other scholars from Nietzche to Costin Vlad Alamariu – believe it is this example from the northwest that made Greece great in thought as well as aesthetics; as Aristotle described, Greek civilization toed the line between civility and barbarity to create true greatness. The Greek system of aristocracy became enthralled with these primal values, adopting them in the realms of physical fitness and thought, the two areas in which the original liberal notions of freedom and democracy were coined. Of course, the foundation of ancient Greek values is a nuanced topic, but the foundational principles of freedom, vitality, and individualism are innate to European aristocracy. One may argue that these values are anything but unique, but that could not be farther from the truth. East Asian cultures have always viewed order and security as the primary hallmarks of a great civilization, and do not cultivate the same connection with nature and the primal. Natural disconnection is a logical result of a civilization that orbited around huge and sprawling urban centers for over five thousand years; providing more than enough time for the physical and cultural effects of urbanism to set in and create a population with urban values and a markedly urban outlook. Lacking an agreement with nature can be cited as why these cultures – primarily India and China – do not have the same relationship with animals and are the largest exploiters of natural resources. In truth, no environmental progress can truly be made while these cultures remain as they are or retain their industrial capabilities, but that topic will be delved into in a later article. Additionally, arranged marriages and cultures that fear the physical are all too common in the third world, yet neither were the standards for (most) periods of European civilization. These two practices aid in stability, but do not heighten the population and cause it to inevitably fall into a vicious cycle of oppression and stagnation on a cultural level. The point of this comparison is merely that Europe created a new covenant with nature, one separate from the urbanism of Asia and the unpleasant customs of other parts of the globe, and liberalism was merely another step (though certainly an overstep) to the realization of those values. Europe's Faustian foundation made it great, but additionally sewed the seeds of its own demise through the introduction of liberalism and the enlightenment, which represented the foundational cracks that eventually expanded to see us modern folk reside in nothing more than a ruin. Because Europe gave herself so completely to freedom and threw off her necessary stable institutions of a well-founded aristocracy, monarchy, and powerful church, she set herself up to become even more constrained than the civilizations of Asia that the Greeks so disdained. To be clear, I am not denouncing Asian civilization as inherently evil or degraded, but rather one that works for Asia’s cultural base rather than Europe’s. Despite Europe’s fall into modern decadence and prey mentality, Europe had made a conscious attempt to resist some of the less pleasant symptoms of civilized life. I have read and written extensively about the survival of the British monarchy and aristocracy, and all my research has reaffirmed the central idea that the aristocracy actively resisted modernity by attempting to implement traditional European natural and free values into their rapidly deteriorating nations. A conscious resistance is clearly demonstrated in the British obsession with ‘good quality stock’ of their blood, their detachment from urban centers, along with their perpetual battle to preserve English rural lands. These attempts are admirable and in good faith, however, the constant pressures of modernity have cracked the last pillar of traditional Europe that remained standing in the UK. The effects of this great battle for Europeans to ‘have their cake and eat it too’ are clear in our cities, which have tried to reflect natural beauty and cultivate some simulated semblances of freedom. We must realize, “...that the West along with a couple of others has attempted, since its beginnings, to try to mitigate the evils of ‘pure civilization’ and to bring the benefits of free life within civilization, as far as was possible” (Bronze Age Mindset, p.62). However, as I am sure you have guessed, this was always destined to fail. As I alluded to in the introduction to this article, the United States of America is a complete aberration of what it once was, and only continues to mock the founding fathers with its laughably poor application of their revolutionary ideals. The Bill of Rights, for example, was intended to enshrine freedoms for United States citizens, and in the eyes of the government it does, but in taking these rights for their specific meanings, we lost the foundational values underlying them. These ideals were intended for a free, libertarian, and pre-industrial society, not an oligarchic state that deludes and drugs its own population to its overall detriment while squeezing its hard-working middle-class dry. Many jokingly reflect on this with comparisons of taxes that the British imposed to taxes in the United States now, but I regard this as anything but a laughing matter. We gave up key liberty, as Franklin says, for temporary security provided through an overreaching medical industry and a freedom-quashing police force. In the modern day according to the founders, we are undeserving of the freedom we hold so dear. However, this transition from a truly liberal state to one of a modern technological juggernaut bogged down by corruption and bureaucracy was slow enough to allow the population to be easily distracted by their perceived liberties under the guise of liberalism and democracy. Absolute democracy was never intended by the founders; rather, they were aristocratic on a level that would even make me blush. Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote: “…there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents” (Thomas Jefferson), was not ‘egalitarian’ in a modern sense, but rather represents a view of natural aristocracy similar to that of Hans-Hermann Hoppe. He did not mean every man could be an aristocrat, blood and natural intelligence were still at the forefront, but rather that his sentiments were based in a resentful depiction of European aristocracy finding it had become too far detached from natural aristocracy requiring a new one to form. Technology and governmental overreach are nothing new, and beginning with Woodrow Wilson the United States reached its tendrils out to Europe. Through their efforts, one after another European monarchies were toppled, constituting the systematic neutering of European potential. Now, under these new false governments, Europe was forced to face the same afflictions as their master, and today we see the results of this un-severed umbilical cord. Europe, just as the United States, has operated under the guise of Liberalism since its drastic shift from monarchy to democracy. By feigning public ownership of the government, the population had no single group to pin their very real gripes on and were forced to be complacent in their own subjugation. If a monarch had instituted taxes on this level or police forces of modern strength, they would be replaced within a day by hordes of free citizens. The great mistake of modern man is pinning true freedom on the inflated institution of a government, when in fact, true freedom is better protected by a small, centralized, and stable hereditary government that allows individuals to operate and solve property disputes without constantly dividing them with meaningless political matters. However, as I mentioned in my last article, the people were duped. Intellectuals solidified this false view of freedom, and justified the systematic stripping of public rights to preserve a ‘free democracy’. For decades, the government has been somewhat careful to continue its guise of liberalism in order to quell the people. If the entire Western cultural foundation of freedom was blatantly ignored by their governments, the population may be incentivized to open their eyes and see the reality of their situation. However, the people have begun to awaken and the elite is scrambling for a cork to jam into this fizzling bottle. Voter turnouts have been increasingly low, for now, the common man understands that he has no real choice. American conservatives are not conservative, nor are their progressives truly empathetic to the working man, and only in the last decade has this become abundantly clear. The people – somewhat misguidedly – have turned to populism as a solution; a phenomenon I empathize with but also look upon with pity in its simplicity. Recently, both the German AFD political party and the American presidential frontrunner, Donald Trump, have faced stiff resistance from legal systems and political establishments. Neither the AFD nor Trump are traditional by any means, but it is what they represent that scares the current ruling elite so thoroughly. Now, many on the progressive end of the spectrum seek to ban both, completely disregarding the liberal principles they formerly claimed to embody! Along with these two examples, sweeping cuts to free speech in the UK, Ireland, and all across the continent have shattered any attempt to mask the reality of the modern West. What has been proved is that these political establishments are not only anti-freedom but anti-western. For decades the left has sought to tear down the foundations of Western culture, in their own words for freedom’s sake, yet I hope I have succeeded in showing that their justification is nothing more than a flimsy paper mask. For over a century the West has been controlled by a political class that has no respect for the values of the people they rule, and by extension, has no respect for freedom. They, like Xerxes in Persia, cannot understand why we Greeks cannot accept their ‘stability’, their ‘life-span extension’, or their ‘quality of life’. They coerced us into seeing them as a civilizing force, one that respected our traditions, but they are against us and have been since the start. They are scared of nature, scared of freedom, and scared of beauty: they are weak. Following the example of the noble Spartans, I believe we can look forward to another Thermopylae. When the few that have awoken from their drugged vegetative state stand tall at a great mountain pass and are martyred by the brutal leviathan, I believe once more we can rouse the other city-states and realize the truly magnificent structure that our ancestors nobly provided us the foundation for. Just as Hobbes outlined in the 17th century, fear is the driving factor in creating this Leviathan, and primal European freedom will be the harpoon driven into its unworthy heart. |
Notes From the Creator:Philosophy is defined as the 'love of wisdom', and under this definition, I would be hard-pressed to find a man that would not value just that. Philosophy is a noble art in the purest form, yet in the modern day, it has become ailing and over intellectualized. Here I seek to re-vitalize the thumos of philosophy and tear of the chains of nomos which castrate her currently. Archives
May 2024
Categories"My principles are only those that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal" |