The topic of how--for better or worse--our comportment reflects not only on ourselves, but on the ideologies with which we are associated reminded me (if only in my tangent-tending mind) of an event from my own life back when I was living in Orange County in southern California.
The O.C. (as no one calls it) is a bit of a beleaguered Red Republican bastion amidst the crashing waves of the Deep Blue Democrat Sea. ("Deepest, bluest, my hat is like a shark's fin♪") I remember when I was losing my Liberal Religion (to borrow a page from Stipe, after all, according to Wokesters, it's the end of the world as we know it, yet I feel fine!) back in the Year of Our Lord 2020 before the election. I'd been spending most of time around bitter, angry Wokesters who were passing the time rioting, shrieking, masking, crying, and generally piling upon Trump's orange visage "the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down," as Melville might've put it. Family fun for everyone.
One day, I was walking down the street to one of the 10,000 beige, Starbuck's-clad strip malls in town, and a pro-Trump car rally was slowly cruising down the road. It was just a bunch of cars and trucks with flags and tacky, Made-in-China, patriotic merch stuck to them. Some were playing music or honking occasionally. They were packed with men and women, people of all ethnicities, and they all looked so friendly and happy.
I smiled and waved at them, and one woman, and Asian lady, leaned out the passenger side of one star-spangled sedan, smiled back at me, and said "God bless you!" as they paraded off. I thought... hmmm, you know, I'm not so sure these are these are the deplorable, evil, hateful, racist, misogynistic, fascist, omniphobes that CNN says they are.
I know this sounds like one of those Adam Kinzinger "My toddler looked up at me with tears in her eyes and asked 'Daddy, why don't Republicans support taxing unrealized capital gains so the billionaires can just pay their fair share?'" stories, but it's actually true.
I also know that this is just one, small experience, and that there plenty of good people and bad people across the political spectrum. I have no doubt people have had similarly positive experiences with other parties' members, and oppositely negative experiences with Trump supporters. And that is my point: you never know who is watching or how many other encounters they may have, so--for better or for worse--we are indeed all always serving as ambassadors for ourselves and our larger associations. So, why not act nobly?
"My toddler looked up at me with tears in her eyes and asked 'Daddy, why don't Republicans support taxing unrealized capital gains so the billionaires can just pay their fair share?'" stories, but it's actually true."
What do you mean, aren’t these everyone’s first words?
So True Christopher: "Our would-be overlords do not. They think of us as rabble. To them, we are a herd to be corralled and culled. Free-range humans on a tax farm."
Enjoyed that. I'm a Brit and I'm aware that our class system here is in many ways an advantage. Once you're comfortable with it and your place in it, you tend to become pretty bomb-proof with any and every social situation anywhere.
More to your point, can I suggest another advantage to being a gentleman - I speak of behaviours not class - it's effective. If you wish to get what you want from the world, self-control, self-discipline, valuing and keeping your word, having high expectations of yourself and operating on a strong, internal moral code, will help.
The core of what being a gentleman means in our inheritance here is service. A gentleman, be he lord or bin-man, will serve. His family, his community and if necessary, his country.
Congratulations on your magnificent election, by the way. You lead the way; I hope we learn to follow in our own way soon.
Thank you for the comment, and for the congrats. I would prefer no involuntary governance at all, but if we have to have it, I would rather we have the election results we just did than the most likely alternative. At least Trump poses something of an impediment to actual communism.
And yes, behaviors, not class. Somehow, we must make being a gentleman a choice, not an automatic inheritance!
It is somewhat off-putting to listen to a constant barrage of f-bombs from "entertainers." It's bad enough when the commonplace spew garbage (and worse) language, as though they live in a sewage disposal plant, but to hear it from people who know should better just sounds stupid. Sure, we all defecate, and most of us get real pleasure utilizing our genitalia, but it used to be common decency to do so in privacy, and never talk about or display it for the world to see and hear. Prim is all-together out of fashion in our progressive state. Surely good behavior cannot be seen by sane people as restrictive!
We should be the kind of people who cannot be bought off with bread and circuses. And we should especially be the kind of people who cannot be bought off by garbage bread and tawdry circuses.
2. I was raised this way. I know where the salad forks go. It is nothing more or less than being polite and having manners. I am comfortable and fit in from the poorest to the richest. No one ever knows where I come from unless I want them to know. It is important to help others feel comfortable.
3. I like the idea, BUT it is very, very important not to go too far, expect too much, or ask people to change who they are and what they enjoy. Things like this can get out of hand quickly, and you have a society that feels pressured to comform, you have people who start being snobby and overbearing, and people start to compete with one another to outclass their peers. I'm not sure what the solution might be, but it's important to remember those things. This is just my experience.
3. Agreed! I want it to develop organically, with consent always at the forefront of all we do. Not sure how it's all going to play out—but that's the beauty of organic processes :-)
"One must purify and educate oneself to be free of two equally loathsome plagues: the habit of obeying and the desire to command. With the soul of a slave or a tyrant, one heads only toward slavery or tyranny." - Manuel Gonzales Prada, old peruvian Anarchist.
I agree, if this movement from "the masses" to "the Network of Sovereign individuals" happens... The old elites have been pacefully underthrow
This reminds me of the two books called The Coming Aristocracy. One, Leonard Read describes aristocracy as excellence. In another book of his, How to Advance Liberty, he says we do this by practicing excellence. I love that!
The second author Oliver de Mille wrote about government if I recall correctly.
The British East India Company admired how the caste system of India could maintain such order to a society. Andrew Bell studied the Madras school, adopted many of it's principles and imported it back to Europe, much of which made it into the Prussian Education system.
When we practice noble disciplines in our behaviors and thinking, we are no longer subject to a caste, we have transcended the expectation that they upped echelon want to impose upon us. Many confuse crassness with righteous anger. "You don't worry about language when you're in a street fight" and while that is very true, not everything is a street fight, so you had better practice different type of thinking.
My mother was a drill sergeant, and would check our egos with "Favor ability over pedigree. Every. Time". She put herself thru school in the early 60s, grew up in poverty to earn a Master's Degree. She didn't have money for her class books most semesters, worked tirelessly to earn scholarships, and scrape money together.
I think we have a new caste that is being forced upon us with social media, and in some ways it enforces hierarchy on us when we look to follower count as the foundation for valid thinking. We wrote about that in our book Severed Conscience because our nobility as individuals is robbed from us when we react and take time to respond. Two different things, the latter requiring your reason and character. It's becoming a lost skill, acting with good character.
Excellent piece Christopher. Cameron Bailey shared it and so I found it through his post, and agree with him that Masons of my past were noble community leaders. Your 3rd degree Masons who classed up the community—like my Dad and Randy’s Dad. And yes, I was a Joe’s daughter and we are encouraged to perform community duty. And I think ours town prospered from their presence. They are gone today, and their absence is quite noticeable. He’s weren’t financially wealthy man. They were simple guys like my father managed marketing and distribution of a local newspaper. But they are always dedicated to the people of our town.
On another note, I lived in Las Vegas for one and a half decades. Nevada is a libertarian state. Las Vegas was very libertarian back in those days. The freedom of Nevada attracted them to the tiny desert town. As Las Vegas grew so did gated communities. It’s next to impossible to live in Vegas these days without living behind a gate where are you in prison yourself and call yourself a libertarian. I think you get the picture. You end up taking away your own freedoms.
I think part of the disappearance of people with strong civic pride and values is due to that fact that after the Great Society started, government took on more and more of that role, so people stopped bothering. If government disappeared tomorrow, all of that would be back, along with mutual aid societies and all sorts of other community and civic events and organizations.
Yes, great observation. Just like the minute corporate box stores and restaurants began replacing Mom and Pop establishments. And now Big Medical conglomerates control doctors. A single private doctor’s office is rare to find today.
I find our small community suffering from that overlording type of governing.
Grandpa was a Butler to some Lord or other and the family grew up on the estate. Dad taught us the manners, to be well read etc but also taught us that your worth as a human is not determined by how much land or money you have, that was the very least of it! I’ve never felt “less than”.
Thank you, I just read the full thing now, fantastic read.
I found this part, especially the end, quite beautiful:
We are called to honor this very long gallery of ancestors in its fullness, not just our fathers and mothers. How can we “honor” this chain of begetting and being begotten that disappears into pre-history, and earlier still, the chain of creation’s fecundity in producing and being produced? Let me give you two hints: First we can acknowledge the legitimacy of our lineage. An aristocrat doesn’t call into doubt his or her own genealogy. For him, his ancestors deserved their noble status, because they behaved boldly and well. In the same way, that which brought about our own existence is commendable, which is to say, basically good. Second, we can honor what produced us by ensuring the continuation of the story, thereby implicitly acknowledging that it was not launched in vain at the outset. A gentlemanly outlook on life will insist, warmly if necessary, that Being was not an unfortunate accident.
I need to brush up on my history 😂 I thought there was a massive feud and murders, but that was a running theme across the board 😅 We have family in the Borders, well all over Scotland really, there’s a lot of us.
Right, lots of feuds. And I wish now that I had paid better attention in my Scottish history class at St. Andrews, but I was a stupid callow kid. So now I know very little. Which feud with the Douglases are you referring to?
The Borders is a fantastic part of the country. We went to see the rideout in Lauder, and it reminded me of here at home, in farm country where we live. Yeah, it was all different, but it was still folks in the country keeping country traditions alive, which was nice.
I thought they had killed someone in his family and had an ongoing feud, but I could be wrong.
Lauder is lovely, they have a good rugby 7’s too. Family in Jedburgh, Hawick and Galashiels. Also have a lot of family on Skye, Lossiemouth, Stirling, Falkirk, Glasgow and Edinburgh 😅
I’m in Australia, on Subshine Coast in Queensland, just a tad different, but stunning 🤩
If I had a mansion with a room with a wall large enough, I would put fans of my ancestry going back as far as possible.
They weren't all good people, I'm sure. (One of mine was the London mayor who put down the Wat Tyler rebellion, and another was a King who razed the lands of his own son.) But they all did what they did and I am here because of what they did.
Yeah, we All deserve nice stuff too. Maintaining the wealth is challenging for people to do these days with all the ways that are being used to take it away. I could make you a list but it's too long.
Yeah, absolutely! But we all deserve nice things too, like you always say.
And the old money snobs don't want that because there's no reason to work for them and do all their "dirty work".
When full blown automation hits and money ends. The equilibrium begins.
I would personally not mind building a civilization or society that ultimately would make me and everyone else, not want, and that provided everything that we all basically need to simply live.
I believe that we're getting there within our lifetime. At the very least we will see the beginning of the transformation. That would be enough for me to have purpose. And purpose is what drives humanity to strive for excellence.
😂 Actually I do not belong to any comicon cultures or dress up as any sci-fi characters. But... I do subscribe to The Venus Project and study work by the founder Jacque Fresco (r.i.p. 2018). I'm no Amateurs Solar (hope I spelled that correctly) either but she's on the right track.
As soon as money and financial systems and taxation become classified as a form of theft and extortion and lending is classified as a crime to/of usury; the better.
Re: replicators, I was just talking about anything that produces a post-scarcity scenario.
I don’t have a problem with money. Money as a concept is a useful store of value. Barter is so inefficient as to border on impossible. The problem is government monopolies of money, fiat currency, etc.
Similarly with lending—there are times when one person has high time preferences for money and another has low. Interest is the price of those high time preferences. The problem is laws that allow banks to engage in funny business.
In a free society, people must also be free to invent forms of currency and use them as they see fit, so long as it is consensual with both parties. Laws that forbid money altogether would be just as bad as laws now that forbid competing currencies.
Hey Christopher, don't you sleep? Regardless, I do appreciate your integrity. I barley get in four hours myself these days!
Certainly, it's (currency) value is only based on perception of value, not actual value. Actually it's an illusion of value. Much like anything else
regardless to the matter of what is considered a store of value. But there are certain things that are priceless and those things should never be above benevolent principles and life itself. Put some barriers to and make up laws and rules for something like currency - and the middlemen (kings) become gods.
In reality Humans can imagine anything. Believe in anything. Problem is that once you believe in a lie it's extremely difficult to change your perception of what is the difference. Facts of the matter is that We (living things) are actually the currency and the store of value. Material things are what we either consume, extract, experience (not including feelings and emotions) and/ or create (not including other living things, animal and human).
Going way back to the creation of currency by kings that supplied the army's to enforce the regime and control the commodity supplies in order to foster obedient slaves. That which serves to maintain control of the kingdom. Wash rinse & repeat...
So to your point of writing your books about the facts that humanity should now be able to self-govern. Knowing full well of what is inevitable. Correct?
Again, tokens would be as far as that goes with regard to an alternative or as a complimentary exchange system to bartering for those larger materials and other things that make bartering for/with - extremely difficult at scale.
Enter: blockchain technology: crypto(currency) and the DAO ecosystem and tokenization of assets and the Internet of things (IoT).
Unfortunately the Tradfi cabal and the existing globalized trade system engineers have been hard at work to compromise and assimilate with the immutable ledger that makes blockchain technology actually work against manipulation, centralization, inflation and all the middlemen that siphon off and manipulate any real or perceived value of whatever they get their paws on.
We need to think way, way out of the box where all the traditional means of civilization is concerned here.
Enter: The Venus Project...
So then, back to your extremely interesting perspectives on the traditional ruling class indemnity and globalized NGO's proliferation. As we can now experience the additional entropy that these globalized NGO's provide the ruling class against free will, sound democracy, and threaten any type of self-governed societies and ecosystem.
One more hurdle to the matter is the occult and religion. Biblical prophecies, right to rule. And sacrificial ritual sickness. The only ritual that I can comprehend is that the Earth will revolve around the Sun.
Personally I can't relate with much or anything beyond what I must believe is only natural benevolent understanding - Nature itself. I don't care to dissect the understanding of how God works. I can't change what is or has been done. And like nature requires - humanity can only correct and improve or be extinct.
We cannot allow any self proclaimed authority to digress and subvert what God (Nature) creates or allow any creation to stray from the path of righteous cause and effect.
Equilibrium with Nature and humanity and technology can coexist without traditional nuances. In fact it's imperative that America understands this reality if ever there is a truly Free World.
It's either we reign in the aforementioned technology away from the globalist agenda and localize the applications. Or end it's planned secret proliferation through democracy and/or other means of negotiation. Out of the UN WTO WHO WEF and the rest of the perverted amounts of NGO's that control local governments' policy's. Because their ideology will never attain the equilibrium with Nature.
Maybe that's what the Satanist actually wants and there really is a eternal war going on between Nature, good, and righteousness. Maybe it's all in people's minds and that - that mind must change the current perspectives of reality.
Thankfully there's empathy within folks like us and you that have solutions to the existential facades of human purpose, our reality and harmonious existence, with Nature.
'Til next time - keep up the amazing work and hopefully we're on our way to making a better way out of this mess that They made of America.
"Knowing which fork to use may seem like a meaningless indulgence, but it bespeaks the maintenance of standards and traditions—of holding the line against decay into the ordinary. In this same way, practicing walking with a book on one’s head develops the habit of good posture, holding the line against a descent into slouching."
Yeah, and that is all neat and stuff.
But can we reimagine the Spork and do away with the short fork and spoons, once, and for All?!
My Spork prototype is amazing...
... Now I will continue reading onward into this Chapter's profound perspective and provide you with My thought input within another comment. 😁
😂 That's like saying we should do away with the fork, entirely. But seriously, the only difference between my Spork and the original is the shape of the spoon so that you can sip from either side, left or right handed. That which solves "your" problem. 😁
Well... I have a fair bit to say. LOL! First, that money creates "classes," and gives power. Should We all have the option to live as richly as We choose, I give high probability that nobility will rise.
Add to the money realm that it promotes psychopaths who today are working on degrading Humanity, grooming Them to base behavior (not "based..."), dividing Them to blame One anOther, and so on... Without money, that will stop.
When We have no money and no controlmind (government), We will have a society of Ethical sovereigns, and the slave's creed (the "work ethic") will be supplanted with the Betterment Ethic (a true Ethic).
And social currency will promote gentleOnely behavior...
I would type it all out here, but as typing hurts, and I have typed all this before...I offer a few articles:
Wish I had more time to watch, read, etc. everyone's great stuff. But I write every day until my brain turns to jello, and then I have the rest of my responsibilities. It leaves little time.
I grasp. My articles are short (My signature is long and makes them look longer… LOL!), but even two pages’ worth can bite into time when time is precious.
I will post My links and if You do catch a moment to read, I will consider Myself well paid. Others can read as well, so there’s that.
I like the idea of you Becoming Nobility Ourselves Project.
It’s not exactly about salad forks, but it kind of is. Nobility does have much to do with observing manners and mannerisms, and the little habits of daily life. In Latin American people always greet one another with a handshake and every conversation and text young and old, poor and wealthy begins with a Good Day greeting. Titles of respect such as Mr and Mrs are still used. People dress up for church. I think it was America and all her parade of Hollywood and advertising messages that made everything cheap and crappy and created a lackadaisical lifestyle.
America brought fast food to the world. We were the first ones to start eating in our cars, throwing the trash on the highways. We brought the t/shirt and jeans onto the scene and now it is pretty acceptable to wear any old thing anywhere. America lowered the bar in many ways. I won’t go on. But what I think we’re talking about is the whether life itself has a soul, and whether we are willing to live with dignity. This kind of goes back to basic virtues and their staunch opponents- the vices.
I agree with all of that. 🖤🤎🧡 I am definitely in favor of developing good manners and mannerisms. Whether we develop some new ones or look to the past (or some combo) is an open question. But manners and mannerisms are important, and can also help bind a culture.
My caution in the verbiage of this article was motivated by a desire not to give the impression that I am saying we should bring back all the old trappings of aristocracy, or, “Hey, let’s all be neo-Victorians.” Whatever we do, I want it to be organic and authentically ours. I don’t want to give the impression that I am calling for any sort of LARPing.
But that does raise a question. What do you think of actually using the term “House” as the next unit of organization up from the individual member level? I think it has a lot to recommend it. It is cogent and known and immediately has some positive connotations. But it is also drawn from the past. (Not that that is necessarily a bad thing.)
On further thought, the traditional values, virtues and salad forks that previously guided human behavior and exchanges were forcibly adopted as social norms. Violating these standards had grave social consequences.
Having now entered the crux of extreme individualism, these beliefs, attitudes and practices can no longer be forced upon us externally, but they can be taken up by the free individual who understands their value for self and community and participating in a world that is livable. The classic virtues and healthy social manners have not changed. How we live by them or not has changed.
Bingo!!! It’s about making choices. A good port of us are wishing to practice ethical individualism, understanding our own well being is intrinsic to the greater good.
Thank you for this initiating this conversation which has beneficially occupied me today. I have come to inner clarity about this essential issue of self and community.
What will come next for humanity must be rooted in what we have learned from the past. Our extreme materialistic culture and equally overvalued sense of individualism had born little fruit in terms of an admirable culture. It seems we need to both return to tradition- to the tried and true observance of basic human values and virtues that guided the development of culture in the past in order to be able to move forward. Out of the pain of emancipating ourselves from everything traditional we can have have a new awareness that being an individual bears responsibility to the whole. Maybe this is what you mean by home? The new nobility of the liberated individuality means to live from a heart-centered self confident enough to understand the world from many standpoints- in other words, to be able to empathize with other individuals. We are far from this but we could get there quickly.
Yes, house and home. Whom you choose to share your time and yourself with. These things matter.
We should work on expanding our circles of trust, but part of that is that people must be worthy of that trust. At least if we start forming a nation, we will know that there are people with whom we share certain values. That's a start.
Thanks for another thoughtful article, Christopher.
I think there will be an opportunity to achieve the objective you seek. It lies in the coming future of people having digital identities (that they own and control, not State digital identities *shudder*) and having those identities reflect many elements of their character. Perhaps their integrity to honor their contracts, their history of keeping their word, and any other illuminating characteristics that evolve in a more digital society will be contained in their digital identity.
This is a pathway to visible public respect and personal dignity that the aristocracy were simply gifted from birth. In this way, for example, a woman in Burkina Faso or Jerkwater, Idaho with a minuscule financial net worth could nonetheless have a publicly visible (blockchain?) integrity score perhaps far beyond the owner of the lakefront mansion with a butler.
And what would that do to culture? What happens when everyone is raised to know that their integrity, honesty, and treatment of their fellow man is something that can be quantified and recorded? This could go far beyond fine silk, table manners, and good posture. It could sensitize people to the deep merits of being a truly good person, instead of just acting like one.
I think your instincts on this are good and you are visualizing a very positive social evolution.
The short answer is, yes I do have a vision for it. The longer answer won't fit here - a dilemma I'm sure you experience daily. But the crux of it is that Nation States work with averages, demographics, and sociographics. But today we have off-the-shelf technology to easily provide granularity down to the individual, thus no need for crude averages. That's a sea change in (voluntary) human governance. And I believe it will shift the values inside our culture and other cultures worldwide.
No on both, lamentably. But it needs to be open source and after I get two books written I will publicly outline some features and constraints I think it will need to have. I try hard to view things with a 50-100 year window even though I'm 65 already and won't see most of it.
“ I try hard to view things with a 50-100 year window even though I'm 65 already and won't see most of it.”
🧡 That is the right way to do it. “We did not light the torch; we will not see the bonfire.”
So how would you answer the concern that this, in spite of its voluntary nature, amounts to a kind of social credit score. I know that will be an immediate question raised…
It's only a "social credit" score that the people you authorize can see. Because you would own your identity and you'd "own" your score. Nobody gets to snoop. But if you and I are doing a 1,000 BTC transaction we could both know who we are dealing with. And an airline could sell me a ticket knowing I'm not a danger to them.
But for today, I wanted to relate to your observations around living a more deliberate life - the way aristocrats do - and how if individuals in the wider society had the ability for their merits to be more visible they would also be motivated to do their more tangible and meaningful version of a regal bearing.
Another excellent, thought-provoking piece!
The topic of how--for better or worse--our comportment reflects not only on ourselves, but on the ideologies with which we are associated reminded me (if only in my tangent-tending mind) of an event from my own life back when I was living in Orange County in southern California.
The O.C. (as no one calls it) is a bit of a beleaguered Red Republican bastion amidst the crashing waves of the Deep Blue Democrat Sea. ("Deepest, bluest, my hat is like a shark's fin♪") I remember when I was losing my Liberal Religion (to borrow a page from Stipe, after all, according to Wokesters, it's the end of the world as we know it, yet I feel fine!) back in the Year of Our Lord 2020 before the election. I'd been spending most of time around bitter, angry Wokesters who were passing the time rioting, shrieking, masking, crying, and generally piling upon Trump's orange visage "the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down," as Melville might've put it. Family fun for everyone.
One day, I was walking down the street to one of the 10,000 beige, Starbuck's-clad strip malls in town, and a pro-Trump car rally was slowly cruising down the road. It was just a bunch of cars and trucks with flags and tacky, Made-in-China, patriotic merch stuck to them. Some were playing music or honking occasionally. They were packed with men and women, people of all ethnicities, and they all looked so friendly and happy.
I smiled and waved at them, and one woman, and Asian lady, leaned out the passenger side of one star-spangled sedan, smiled back at me, and said "God bless you!" as they paraded off. I thought... hmmm, you know, I'm not so sure these are these are the deplorable, evil, hateful, racist, misogynistic, fascist, omniphobes that CNN says they are.
I know this sounds like one of those Adam Kinzinger "My toddler looked up at me with tears in her eyes and asked 'Daddy, why don't Republicans support taxing unrealized capital gains so the billionaires can just pay their fair share?'" stories, but it's actually true.
I also know that this is just one, small experience, and that there plenty of good people and bad people across the political spectrum. I have no doubt people have had similarly positive experiences with other parties' members, and oppositely negative experiences with Trump supporters. And that is my point: you never know who is watching or how many other encounters they may have, so--for better or for worse--we are indeed all always serving as ambassadors for ourselves and our larger associations. So, why not act nobly?
"My toddler looked up at me with tears in her eyes and asked 'Daddy, why don't Republicans support taxing unrealized capital gains so the billionaires can just pay their fair share?'" stories, but it's actually true."
What do you mean, aren’t these everyone’s first words?
Sharing!
There is a great quote a gentleman is only rude on purpose. I think you hit the nail on the head with this piece excellent.
That is a great quote! Thank you :-)
So True Christopher: "Our would-be overlords do not. They think of us as rabble. To them, we are a herd to be corralled and culled. Free-range humans on a tax farm."
I believe the Overlords have no shame,
🔥 We must endeavor to make ourselves better.
Better than they.
For sure!
Enjoyed that. I'm a Brit and I'm aware that our class system here is in many ways an advantage. Once you're comfortable with it and your place in it, you tend to become pretty bomb-proof with any and every social situation anywhere.
More to your point, can I suggest another advantage to being a gentleman - I speak of behaviours not class - it's effective. If you wish to get what you want from the world, self-control, self-discipline, valuing and keeping your word, having high expectations of yourself and operating on a strong, internal moral code, will help.
The core of what being a gentleman means in our inheritance here is service. A gentleman, be he lord or bin-man, will serve. His family, his community and if necessary, his country.
Congratulations on your magnificent election, by the way. You lead the way; I hope we learn to follow in our own way soon.
Thank you for the comment, and for the congrats. I would prefer no involuntary governance at all, but if we have to have it, I would rather we have the election results we just did than the most likely alternative. At least Trump poses something of an impediment to actual communism.
And yes, behaviors, not class. Somehow, we must make being a gentleman a choice, not an automatic inheritance!
It is somewhat off-putting to listen to a constant barrage of f-bombs from "entertainers." It's bad enough when the commonplace spew garbage (and worse) language, as though they live in a sewage disposal plant, but to hear it from people who know should better just sounds stupid. Sure, we all defecate, and most of us get real pleasure utilizing our genitalia, but it used to be common decency to do so in privacy, and never talk about or display it for the world to see and hear. Prim is all-together out of fashion in our progressive state. Surely good behavior cannot be seen by sane people as restrictive!
We should be the kind of people who cannot be bought off with bread and circuses. And we should especially be the kind of people who cannot be bought off by garbage bread and tawdry circuses.
3 things:
1. I like the top hat look. 🎩
2. I was raised this way. I know where the salad forks go. It is nothing more or less than being polite and having manners. I am comfortable and fit in from the poorest to the richest. No one ever knows where I come from unless I want them to know. It is important to help others feel comfortable.
3. I like the idea, BUT it is very, very important not to go too far, expect too much, or ask people to change who they are and what they enjoy. Things like this can get out of hand quickly, and you have a society that feels pressured to comform, you have people who start being snobby and overbearing, and people start to compete with one another to outclass their peers. I'm not sure what the solution might be, but it's important to remember those things. This is just my experience.
1. It is sharp indeed!
2. That is the way to be—comfortable anywhere.
3. Agreed! I want it to develop organically, with consent always at the forefront of all we do. Not sure how it's all going to play out—but that's the beauty of organic processes :-)
"One must purify and educate oneself to be free of two equally loathsome plagues: the habit of obeying and the desire to command. With the soul of a slave or a tyrant, one heads only toward slavery or tyranny." - Manuel Gonzales Prada, old peruvian Anarchist.
I agree, if this movement from "the masses" to "the Network of Sovereign individuals" happens... The old elites have been pacefully underthrow
Great quote, and well said.
'movement from "the masses" to "the Network of Sovereign individuals"'
Love it!
This reminds me of the two books called The Coming Aristocracy. One, Leonard Read describes aristocracy as excellence. In another book of his, How to Advance Liberty, he says we do this by practicing excellence. I love that!
The second author Oliver de Mille wrote about government if I recall correctly.
I am honored to be in such company.
The British East India Company admired how the caste system of India could maintain such order to a society. Andrew Bell studied the Madras school, adopted many of it's principles and imported it back to Europe, much of which made it into the Prussian Education system.
When we practice noble disciplines in our behaviors and thinking, we are no longer subject to a caste, we have transcended the expectation that they upped echelon want to impose upon us. Many confuse crassness with righteous anger. "You don't worry about language when you're in a street fight" and while that is very true, not everything is a street fight, so you had better practice different type of thinking.
My mother was a drill sergeant, and would check our egos with "Favor ability over pedigree. Every. Time". She put herself thru school in the early 60s, grew up in poverty to earn a Master's Degree. She didn't have money for her class books most semesters, worked tirelessly to earn scholarships, and scrape money together.
I think we have a new caste that is being forced upon us with social media, and in some ways it enforces hierarchy on us when we look to follower count as the foundation for valid thinking. We wrote about that in our book Severed Conscience because our nobility as individuals is robbed from us when we react and take time to respond. Two different things, the latter requiring your reason and character. It's becoming a lost skill, acting with good character.
Great comments. My favorite:
"When we practice noble disciplines in our behaviors and thinking, we are no longer subject to a caste"
Excellent piece Christopher. Cameron Bailey shared it and so I found it through his post, and agree with him that Masons of my past were noble community leaders. Your 3rd degree Masons who classed up the community—like my Dad and Randy’s Dad. And yes, I was a Joe’s daughter and we are encouraged to perform community duty. And I think ours town prospered from their presence. They are gone today, and their absence is quite noticeable. He’s weren’t financially wealthy man. They were simple guys like my father managed marketing and distribution of a local newspaper. But they are always dedicated to the people of our town.
On another note, I lived in Las Vegas for one and a half decades. Nevada is a libertarian state. Las Vegas was very libertarian back in those days. The freedom of Nevada attracted them to the tiny desert town. As Las Vegas grew so did gated communities. It’s next to impossible to live in Vegas these days without living behind a gate where are you in prison yourself and call yourself a libertarian. I think you get the picture. You end up taking away your own freedoms.
I think part of the disappearance of people with strong civic pride and values is due to that fact that after the Great Society started, government took on more and more of that role, so people stopped bothering. If government disappeared tomorrow, all of that would be back, along with mutual aid societies and all sorts of other community and civic events and organizations.
Yes, great observation. Just like the minute corporate box stores and restaurants began replacing Mom and Pop establishments. And now Big Medical conglomerates control doctors. A single private doctor’s office is rare to find today.
I find our small community suffering from that overlording type of governing.
Grandpa was a Butler to some Lord or other and the family grew up on the estate. Dad taught us the manners, to be well read etc but also taught us that your worth as a human is not determined by how much land or money you have, that was the very least of it! I’ve never felt “less than”.
Wonderful!
If you read the whole Brague article, he talks about this: “The valet is a gentleman too.” (It is actually a really good piece.)
Thank you, I just read the full thing now, fantastic read.
I found this part, especially the end, quite beautiful:
We are called to honor this very long gallery of ancestors in its fullness, not just our fathers and mothers. How can we “honor” this chain of begetting and being begotten that disappears into pre-history, and earlier still, the chain of creation’s fecundity in producing and being produced? Let me give you two hints: First we can acknowledge the legitimacy of our lineage. An aristocrat doesn’t call into doubt his or her own genealogy. For him, his ancestors deserved their noble status, because they behaved boldly and well. In the same way, that which brought about our own existence is commendable, which is to say, basically good. Second, we can honor what produced us by ensuring the continuation of the story, thereby implicitly acknowledging that it was not launched in vain at the outset. A gentlemanly outlook on life will insist, warmly if necessary, that Being was not an unfortunate accident.
I need to brush up on my history 😂 I thought there was a massive feud and murders, but that was a running theme across the board 😅 We have family in the Borders, well all over Scotland really, there’s a lot of us.
Right, lots of feuds. And I wish now that I had paid better attention in my Scottish history class at St. Andrews, but I was a stupid callow kid. So now I know very little. Which feud with the Douglases are you referring to?
The Borders is a fantastic part of the country. We went to see the rideout in Lauder, and it reminded me of here at home, in farm country where we live. Yeah, it was all different, but it was still folks in the country keeping country traditions alive, which was nice.
Where are you now?
I thought they had killed someone in his family and had an ongoing feud, but I could be wrong.
Lauder is lovely, they have a good rugby 7’s too. Family in Jedburgh, Hawick and Galashiels. Also have a lot of family on Skye, Lossiemouth, Stirling, Falkirk, Glasgow and Edinburgh 😅
I’m in Australia, on Subshine Coast in Queensland, just a tad different, but stunning 🤩
❤️ Sounds lovely!
Is Australia becoming as repressive as we hear here?
If I had a mansion with a room with a wall large enough, I would put fans of my ancestry going back as far as possible.
They weren't all good people, I'm sure. (One of mine was the London mayor who put down the Wat Tyler rebellion, and another was a King who razed the lands of his own son.) But they all did what they did and I am here because of what they did.
What is it you liked most about that passage?
The fact that all of us should feel proud of how we got here and our own ancestry. I loved the “being was not an unfortunate accident”🫶.
A King?? Do you want to say what one? 😆
If all of Ancestry.com's crowdsourcing/genealogical records are correct, James II of Scotland.
Well, I for one LOVE that, being Scottish, oh and not from the Douglas clan 🤣🤩🫶🏴
Interesting and thought provoking chapter.
Yeah, we All deserve nice stuff too. Maintaining the wealth is challenging for people to do these days with all the ways that are being used to take it away. I could make you a list but it's too long.
We can be noble regardless of stuff, though, right?
Yeah, absolutely! But we all deserve nice things too, like you always say.
And the old money snobs don't want that because there's no reason to work for them and do all their "dirty work".
When full blown automation hits and money ends. The equilibrium begins.
I would personally not mind building a civilization or society that ultimately would make me and everyone else, not want, and that provided everything that we all basically need to simply live.
I believe that we're getting there within our lifetime. At the very least we will see the beginning of the transformation. That would be enough for me to have purpose. And purpose is what drives humanity to strive for excellence.
You mean like a Star Trek replicators sort of scenario?
😂 Actually I do not belong to any comicon cultures or dress up as any sci-fi characters. But... I do subscribe to The Venus Project and study work by the founder Jacque Fresco (r.i.p. 2018). I'm no Amateurs Solar (hope I spelled that correctly) either but she's on the right track.
As soon as money and financial systems and taxation become classified as a form of theft and extortion and lending is classified as a crime to/of usury; the better.
Re: replicators, I was just talking about anything that produces a post-scarcity scenario.
I don’t have a problem with money. Money as a concept is a useful store of value. Barter is so inefficient as to border on impossible. The problem is government monopolies of money, fiat currency, etc.
Similarly with lending—there are times when one person has high time preferences for money and another has low. Interest is the price of those high time preferences. The problem is laws that allow banks to engage in funny business.
In a free society, people must also be free to invent forms of currency and use them as they see fit, so long as it is consensual with both parties. Laws that forbid money altogether would be just as bad as laws now that forbid competing currencies.
Hey Christopher, don't you sleep? Regardless, I do appreciate your integrity. I barley get in four hours myself these days!
Certainly, it's (currency) value is only based on perception of value, not actual value. Actually it's an illusion of value. Much like anything else
regardless to the matter of what is considered a store of value. But there are certain things that are priceless and those things should never be above benevolent principles and life itself. Put some barriers to and make up laws and rules for something like currency - and the middlemen (kings) become gods.
In reality Humans can imagine anything. Believe in anything. Problem is that once you believe in a lie it's extremely difficult to change your perception of what is the difference. Facts of the matter is that We (living things) are actually the currency and the store of value. Material things are what we either consume, extract, experience (not including feelings and emotions) and/ or create (not including other living things, animal and human).
Going way back to the creation of currency by kings that supplied the army's to enforce the regime and control the commodity supplies in order to foster obedient slaves. That which serves to maintain control of the kingdom. Wash rinse & repeat...
So to your point of writing your books about the facts that humanity should now be able to self-govern. Knowing full well of what is inevitable. Correct?
Again, tokens would be as far as that goes with regard to an alternative or as a complimentary exchange system to bartering for those larger materials and other things that make bartering for/with - extremely difficult at scale.
Enter: blockchain technology: crypto(currency) and the DAO ecosystem and tokenization of assets and the Internet of things (IoT).
Unfortunately the Tradfi cabal and the existing globalized trade system engineers have been hard at work to compromise and assimilate with the immutable ledger that makes blockchain technology actually work against manipulation, centralization, inflation and all the middlemen that siphon off and manipulate any real or perceived value of whatever they get their paws on.
We need to think way, way out of the box where all the traditional means of civilization is concerned here.
Enter: The Venus Project...
So then, back to your extremely interesting perspectives on the traditional ruling class indemnity and globalized NGO's proliferation. As we can now experience the additional entropy that these globalized NGO's provide the ruling class against free will, sound democracy, and threaten any type of self-governed societies and ecosystem.
One more hurdle to the matter is the occult and religion. Biblical prophecies, right to rule. And sacrificial ritual sickness. The only ritual that I can comprehend is that the Earth will revolve around the Sun.
Personally I can't relate with much or anything beyond what I must believe is only natural benevolent understanding - Nature itself. I don't care to dissect the understanding of how God works. I can't change what is or has been done. And like nature requires - humanity can only correct and improve or be extinct.
We cannot allow any self proclaimed authority to digress and subvert what God (Nature) creates or allow any creation to stray from the path of righteous cause and effect.
Equilibrium with Nature and humanity and technology can coexist without traditional nuances. In fact it's imperative that America understands this reality if ever there is a truly Free World.
It's either we reign in the aforementioned technology away from the globalist agenda and localize the applications. Or end it's planned secret proliferation through democracy and/or other means of negotiation. Out of the UN WTO WHO WEF and the rest of the perverted amounts of NGO's that control local governments' policy's. Because their ideology will never attain the equilibrium with Nature.
Maybe that's what the Satanist actually wants and there really is a eternal war going on between Nature, good, and righteousness. Maybe it's all in people's minds and that - that mind must change the current perspectives of reality.
Thankfully there's empathy within folks like us and you that have solutions to the existential facades of human purpose, our reality and harmonious existence, with Nature.
'Til next time - keep up the amazing work and hopefully we're on our way to making a better way out of this mess that They made of America.
"Knowing which fork to use may seem like a meaningless indulgence, but it bespeaks the maintenance of standards and traditions—of holding the line against decay into the ordinary. In this same way, practicing walking with a book on one’s head develops the habit of good posture, holding the line against a descent into slouching."
Yeah, and that is all neat and stuff.
But can we reimagine the Spork and do away with the short fork and spoons, once, and for All?!
My Spork prototype is amazing...
... Now I will continue reading onward into this Chapter's profound perspective and provide you with My thought input within another comment. 😁
😁 I want to see your spork prototype. Have you solved the “stabbing yourself in the lip while trying to eat soup” problem?
😂 That's like saying we should do away with the fork, entirely. But seriously, the only difference between my Spork and the original is the shape of the spoon so that you can sip from either side, left or right handed. That which solves "your" problem. 😁
🤣 Do you have a picture or blueprint?
Certainly!
https://substack.com/@planetprison/note/c-76102518
Well... I have a fair bit to say. LOL! First, that money creates "classes," and gives power. Should We all have the option to live as richly as We choose, I give high probability that nobility will rise.
Add to the money realm that it promotes psychopaths who today are working on degrading Humanity, grooming Them to base behavior (not "based..."), dividing Them to blame One anOther, and so on... Without money, that will stop.
When We have no money and no controlmind (government), We will have a society of Ethical sovereigns, and the slave's creed (the "work ethic") will be supplanted with the Betterment Ethic (a true Ethic).
And social currency will promote gentleOnely behavior...
I would type it all out here, but as typing hurts, and I have typed all this before...I offer a few articles:
The GentleOne’s Solution (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/the-gentleones-solution
Social Currency (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/social-currency
The Betterment Ethic vs. the Slave’s Creed (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/the-betterment-ethic-vs-the-slaves
Love always!
I watched one of your videos recently, and finally heard how you actually pronounce your name 😁
Awesome! Which vid?
Rules of anarchy 🧡🤎🖤
Ahhhh. Yeah, that was a better one of Mine. Thank You for watching!!!
Wish I had more time to watch, read, etc. everyone's great stuff. But I write every day until my brain turns to jello, and then I have the rest of my responsibilities. It leaves little time.
I grasp. My articles are short (My signature is long and makes them look longer… LOL!), but even two pages’ worth can bite into time when time is precious.
I will post My links and if You do catch a moment to read, I will consider Myself well paid. Others can read as well, so there’s that.
Love always!
I like the idea of you Becoming Nobility Ourselves Project.
It’s not exactly about salad forks, but it kind of is. Nobility does have much to do with observing manners and mannerisms, and the little habits of daily life. In Latin American people always greet one another with a handshake and every conversation and text young and old, poor and wealthy begins with a Good Day greeting. Titles of respect such as Mr and Mrs are still used. People dress up for church. I think it was America and all her parade of Hollywood and advertising messages that made everything cheap and crappy and created a lackadaisical lifestyle.
America brought fast food to the world. We were the first ones to start eating in our cars, throwing the trash on the highways. We brought the t/shirt and jeans onto the scene and now it is pretty acceptable to wear any old thing anywhere. America lowered the bar in many ways. I won’t go on. But what I think we’re talking about is the whether life itself has a soul, and whether we are willing to live with dignity. This kind of goes back to basic virtues and their staunch opponents- the vices.
I agree with all of that. 🖤🤎🧡 I am definitely in favor of developing good manners and mannerisms. Whether we develop some new ones or look to the past (or some combo) is an open question. But manners and mannerisms are important, and can also help bind a culture.
My caution in the verbiage of this article was motivated by a desire not to give the impression that I am saying we should bring back all the old trappings of aristocracy, or, “Hey, let’s all be neo-Victorians.” Whatever we do, I want it to be organic and authentically ours. I don’t want to give the impression that I am calling for any sort of LARPing.
But that does raise a question. What do you think of actually using the term “House” as the next unit of organization up from the individual member level? I think it has a lot to recommend it. It is cogent and known and immediately has some positive connotations. But it is also drawn from the past. (Not that that is necessarily a bad thing.)
On further thought, the traditional values, virtues and salad forks that previously guided human behavior and exchanges were forcibly adopted as social norms. Violating these standards had grave social consequences.
Having now entered the crux of extreme individualism, these beliefs, attitudes and practices can no longer be forced upon us externally, but they can be taken up by the free individual who understands their value for self and community and participating in a world that is livable. The classic virtues and healthy social manners have not changed. How we live by them or not has changed.
As long as it's all by choice. Consent is key!
Bingo!!! It’s about making choices. A good port of us are wishing to practice ethical individualism, understanding our own well being is intrinsic to the greater good.
Thank you for this initiating this conversation which has beneficially occupied me today. I have come to inner clarity about this essential issue of self and community.
Great! We are helping each other.
Hi again- you might find this interesting.
https://youtu.be/L86y21bYPyU?si=ZTkZjW_Riq04HZL9
Thank you :-)
What will come next for humanity must be rooted in what we have learned from the past. Our extreme materialistic culture and equally overvalued sense of individualism had born little fruit in terms of an admirable culture. It seems we need to both return to tradition- to the tried and true observance of basic human values and virtues that guided the development of culture in the past in order to be able to move forward. Out of the pain of emancipating ourselves from everything traditional we can have have a new awareness that being an individual bears responsibility to the whole. Maybe this is what you mean by home? The new nobility of the liberated individuality means to live from a heart-centered self confident enough to understand the world from many standpoints- in other words, to be able to empathize with other individuals. We are far from this but we could get there quickly.
Yes, house and home. Whom you choose to share your time and yourself with. These things matter.
We should work on expanding our circles of trust, but part of that is that people must be worthy of that trust. At least if we start forming a nation, we will know that there are people with whom we share certain values. That's a start.
Thanks for another thoughtful article, Christopher.
I think there will be an opportunity to achieve the objective you seek. It lies in the coming future of people having digital identities (that they own and control, not State digital identities *shudder*) and having those identities reflect many elements of their character. Perhaps their integrity to honor their contracts, their history of keeping their word, and any other illuminating characteristics that evolve in a more digital society will be contained in their digital identity.
This is a pathway to visible public respect and personal dignity that the aristocracy were simply gifted from birth. In this way, for example, a woman in Burkina Faso or Jerkwater, Idaho with a minuscule financial net worth could nonetheless have a publicly visible (blockchain?) integrity score perhaps far beyond the owner of the lakefront mansion with a butler.
And what would that do to culture? What happens when everyone is raised to know that their integrity, honesty, and treatment of their fellow man is something that can be quantified and recorded? This could go far beyond fine silk, table manners, and good posture. It could sensitize people to the deep merits of being a truly good person, instead of just acting like one.
I think your instincts on this are good and you are visualizing a very positive social evolution.
Intriguing. Naturally, such a technology could be abused by control freaks. But I suppose any technology can.
So do you have a vision for how this tech should be built, or who might do so?
The short answer is, yes I do have a vision for it. The longer answer won't fit here - a dilemma I'm sure you experience daily. But the crux of it is that Nation States work with averages, demographics, and sociographics. But today we have off-the-shelf technology to easily provide granularity down to the individual, thus no need for crude averages. That's a sea change in (voluntary) human governance. And I believe it will shift the values inside our culture and other cultures worldwide.
Do you have the tech savvy to make it? Or know someone?
No on both, lamentably. But it needs to be open source and after I get two books written I will publicly outline some features and constraints I think it will need to have. I try hard to view things with a 50-100 year window even though I'm 65 already and won't see most of it.
“ I try hard to view things with a 50-100 year window even though I'm 65 already and won't see most of it.”
🧡 That is the right way to do it. “We did not light the torch; we will not see the bonfire.”
So how would you answer the concern that this, in spite of its voluntary nature, amounts to a kind of social credit score. I know that will be an immediate question raised…
It's only a "social credit" score that the people you authorize can see. Because you would own your identity and you'd "own" your score. Nobody gets to snoop. But if you and I are doing a 1,000 BTC transaction we could both know who we are dealing with. And an airline could sell me a ticket knowing I'm not a danger to them.
I talk a little about the privacy and the compartmentalization of data in this article: https://www.apennyfornewton.com/p/how-digital-identity-expands-your
But for today, I wanted to relate to your observations around living a more deliberate life - the way aristocrats do - and how if individuals in the wider society had the ability for their merits to be more visible they would also be motivated to do their more tangible and meaningful version of a regal bearing.