Why men cannot be both free and equal

Thus, not many men will become truly fit to govern a society that upholds authentic rights and freedom; to base a society on this assumption is unnatural in the extreme. The accrued wisdom of the aristocratic tradition can supply some lack, thank God. Still, to understand and to act well upon this tradition, especially beyond one’s private sphere, is not the lot of the masses.

Flawed Premises and Ends

The shift from the emphasis on virtue to an emphasis on “empowering” people with a pretense of education and “equitable” distribution of capital, is complex. To be overly brief, it can be tied to the development of the Bourgeoisie—the upper-middle class in the increasingly prosperous, Western civilization. They were prosperous enough folk to have a little too much and way too little knowledge. They came within striking distance of the nobility. Doubtless, not every nobleman was an exemplar of noble blood; many upper-middle class persons naturally felt quite superior to some of them, and resented their positions. As the Bourgeoisie grew more successful, they merely made formal what was already true, informally. In the words of Frederic Grunfeld:

“The government remained monarchic and aristocratic; the economy had passed into the hands of merchants, lawyers, manufacturers, and engineers-all legally barred from enjoying the prerogatives reserved for the nobility -a privileged elite that, together with the clergy, constituted less than one percent of the population in a nation of twenty-four million. The French Revolution, therefore, was essentially the chaotic and often violent process by which political power passed into the hands of those who already possessed economic power. In the words of one modem historian, it made “the bourgeoisie mistress of the world.” – The French Kings

The expanding wealth and knowledge of the middle class occurred during the old order of the Church and the nobility; rather than impeding education and prosperity, the Ancien Régime was too successful in fostering it! To credit revolutionaries with creating this (when in fact their chaos disrupted the process for some time), and to blame the aristocracy for impeding it, is wrong and unjust.

To justify the overthrowing of the nobility and its traditional culture of virtue and transcendence, we adapted a rhetoric and a culture of egalitarianism, assuming that all men were “equal” in the raw, and, given the opportunity (via education and prosperity), would govern themselves wisely and well. Hence two powerful engines of egalitarianism are universal education and the redistribution of wealth. As reality increasingly disproves this absurd, revolutionary thesis, the goal of equal opportunity is increasingly revised to mandate the expectation of equality of outcomes. Equality is mandatory, lest the theory be falsified! We, the intelligent and educated, know that our theories can’t be false!

A “caregiver” stays with my grandmother on the farm for a couple hours in the middle of the day; sometimes she watches Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz, and there are frequent commercials featuring bimbos who want to improve themselves by attending online college in their pajamas. And this illustrates the situation rather well; skip motherhood, ride the carousel, get an online degree in Communications and prepare for a life of depressing, hedonistic nihilism followed by crippling spinsterhood.

We have abandoned a sane society oriented towards virtue and transcendence for an insane society where the Economy is the supreme end, and the means for attaining it are “education,” vice and frequently superfluous “work.” Even women are indulged in their flimsiest pretentions towards “educated” and “independent” status. Nobody notices that these people have not been “educated” in the sense formerly understood to be indispensable for such an involvement in public affairs. The Universities no longer provide this education; they are vocational schools for people without vocations.

The abolition of virtue and the high standards of aristocratic hierarchy is an ongoing devastation. Temporary gains via technology (which would have continued under aristocracy) improved the material comfort of our lives; but the loss of virtue threatens worse calamities. The obsession with The Economy, to the exclusion of the more profound crisis of the West, tells the whole story. I don’t want to be mistaken for a Leftist or a Communist, simply because I use the term “bourgeoisie” and criticize the obsession with the Economy; I condemn Communism, though Capitalism and Communism are just two sides of the same coin, if in “Capitalism” you include the modern, unnatural tendency to generate or accrue capital that is not tied to real wealth (through usury, fiat currency, etc.).

To sum up: the masses are never really going to become truly educated, and so are never going to be fit for making wise judgments on sublimely difficult matters of religion, philosophy, statecraft, etc.; this is why aristocracy and tradition exists. Only a society with warped priorities, reads that as an insult against the masses.

Indeed, the society with egalitarian pretenses dooms the masses to the tragedy of pretending at qualities and achievements they can never truly attain (with all the political tension that promises), whereas a more sane view can find true dignity even in an illiterate scullery maid. Hence my articles emphasize such things as: 1) enjoying the traditions and culture of the West, which supplies much of what is lacking to us, by setting us on the shoulders of the great men of our past; 2) clear, simple thought on first principles; 3) developing personal virtue and a connection to the transcendent, so as to become the best men we can be.

If some of us are capable of rising to be a new aristocracy, it will be through virtue, a careful education and other, gratuitous gifts of nature’s God; if not all of us can rise to that level, virtue at least confers upon us something of immense dignity, and our greatest possible share of nobility, truly empowering us to rule ourselves and our immediate sphere of influence well. In any time, but especially ours, such a feat is aristocratic at least by participation—a veritable “Return of Kings.”

This article originally appeared on https://www.returnofkings.com/87471/why-men-cannot-be-both-free-and-equal

Contributor

Aurelius Moner

Br. Aurelius Moner is a Catholic monk who was has left the "nice" philosophy of Liberalism behind, having come to understand that the judgment, authority and strength of the Patriarchy is necessary to save civilization from "nice" people. He is a man of many imperfections, but he is confident that Christ will perfect the work He began in him. He has an inchoate blog: Ascension Hermitage If you are so inclined, you may contribute to his hermitage-building project here