A Dirge for the Aristocracy (Magazine Excerpt)
Culture is often a bearer of such practical wisdom. Indeed, the reason we listen to the experienced and wise, despite their lack of formal education, is that their experience has imparted practical wisdom. Theoretical wisdom is implicit in this down to earth practicality. Although the village elder might not be able to say why a certain behaviour is virtuous, her account, being correct, could be elaborated to reveal a true and natural principle. Extending this to an entire culture, we have one basis for social conservatism. The accumulated experience of ages has a sort of implicit wisdom to it, which can be potentially made into a theory, even though nobody may have yet done so. However, this isn’t enough, lest we be agnostic pragmatists like David Hume. For the one clinging to classical ideas, all practical wisdom has a theory behind it whose objective springs we can discover through reason.
One such cultural heirloom that is greatly misunderstood these days is aristocracy. Most cultures in human history have had aristocracies of some type. A noble class existed in ancient Mesopotamia, Persia, Mesoamerica, the Andes, Egypt, China, Japan, Greece, Rome, among the Celts, as well as mediaeval and early modern Europe. Indeed, aristocracy of some type has been one of the most common institutions of humanity across history. Yet in the last three hundred years, aristocracies have shrunk, from the predominant ruling elites of the world to disempowered and mocked cliques, clinging to privileges regarded as archaic.
Britain is one of the few countries that still has an institutional aristocracy. But its influence is ever diminishing, its numbers ever depleting, and its ideals waned to nothing. I doubt many would contradict me if I said its public image is far from positive. I believe the cause of this decline is that it is a remnant of a previous ethical outlook, one rooted in ancient Greek and Roman thought, and Christianised in the Middle Ages. This outlook collapsed in Britain during the eighteenth century (before it did in most of Europe). Whig liberal philosophers like John Locke chipped at its foundations. The aristocracy as a result became an institution without a purpose, embedded in a new society totally hostile to it.
So, what are these foundations? I think three: human goodness as function, a communitarian spirit, and a family-centred life. Really, it’s only the first, functional goodness, the latter two being elaborations of it.
Goodness as a function is simple. To be good is to function properly according to a species’ ideal. In the same way a good hammer is good at banging nails, and a good oven at baking bread, so a good human being is good at “human-ing” to coin a verb. The question ‘what is goodness?’ for ancient and mediaeval thinkers is almost invariably ‘what’s the function of humans?’ Yet because humans have reason, unlike animals who merely follow their instincts, our function involves more than survival and reproduction. We make art and science, and can appreciate the value of things through understanding. We are the animal that is happy with a garden and a library, as Cicero says.

This is an excerpt from “Mayday! Mayday!”. To continue reading, visit The Mallard’s Shopify.
In Conversation with Curtis Yarvin III (Political Testosterone and BBC Pidgin)
Curtis Yarvin, known by his pen name ‘Mencius Moldbug’, is one of the most prominent social critics and reactionary writers of the contemporary era. Yarvin’s blogs, ‘Gray Mirror’ and ‘Imperial Melodies’, can be found on Substack.
Yarvin’s words are in light.
Are you familiar with my favourite institution of journalism? As you know, Orwell worked at the BBC, a great service. I used to listen to BBC short wave as a kid in Cyprus. It used to go ‘beep, beep, beep, beep’, you know, but there’s another part of the BBC that most people don’t know.
Oh!
It’s BBC Pidgin.
Yes! I knew you were going to say that.
[*Laughing*]
You know how many people’s minds you can blow when you show them BBC Pidgin?
Oh my God, oh my God, it’s like the sophisticated version of Rick Rolling.
Oh, it’s so good.
You send them to a story, I’ve been sending people to the BBC Pidgin story about FTX, right?
It is impossible, this is the thing, it’s impossible to read it without sounding like you’re doing something incredibly transgressive.
No, no, no [*Reading from an article on BBC Pidgin], “Dis na as rumours say di FTX and oda firms wey im own bin dey shake financially cause pleti pipo to start to try to dey comot dia money from di platform wey dem dey take buy and sell digital tokens. As mata come tie am rope for neck, Oga Bankman-Friend bin try to organise bailout but e no work.” [*Laughing*] and um…
Oh my God. I’m going to have to type out that transcription.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I would start with a Google and get it right, like the poem. You know, you don’t wanna [*inaudible*] oh my God. Yeah, but in any case, like, it’s, it’s, you know, the easiest way to explain, like, how like, Mary Tudor, you know, would look at England today, would be like…she’d have the same response to everything that we have to BBC Pidgin. And, and, right –
Even the Victorians, even the Victorians.
Even the Victorians.
It’s like, you know, Blockbuster still exists but its last outlet is in some pointless town in Wisconsin or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is basically the United Kingdom today. It’s uh…
Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be. Knowing that decline is just a consequence of a form of government should be this endlessly exciting, invigorating, hope, where like, absolutely no hope seems to exist. The fact that no hope seems to exist means that sort of all of these bullshit paths toward hope like Brexit have been exhausted and no energy should be diverted into them, which is good, because they’re traps, and like, the energy of a complete collapse is not really the energy of a collapse, it’s the energy of a reinvention. It’s like, you know, this amazing, joyous, recreation of the modern world, kind of shaking off its 20th Century birth pangs. It’ll be incredible. And it’ll be incredibly wonderful and exciting and glorious and certainly not violent in any particular way because…
Because it doesn’t need to be.
It doesn’t need to be. You know, and, and, and, Sir Arthur Scargill is no longer in the building, let alone like, you know, the workers of London will rise up and there will be a new Peterloo. So, you know, like the clack of history turns, and it turns for them as well as for us.
There’s not enough testosterone for anything like that anyway.
There’s not enough testosterone and actually, you know, literally, there’s not enough testosterone as well as figuratively in many ways, and so you’ll just see these old regimes just crumble like East Germany. And it’s like…people will be like “Why didn’t that happen earlier? Because it could have happened earlier, but it didn’t”.
And, yeah, so, you know, the extent to which the problem of like, spreading this picture, and especially spreading this picture in a way which doesn’t scare anyone, you know, because there’s nothing scary about it. Like, you know, and there’s absolutely nothing scary about it and this is the job of we, the dark elves, on both sides of the Atlantic.
It’s been a huge pleasure. I’m getting a little bit tired.
Curtis, thank you very much for your time.
It has been a great pleasure talking to you and thank you for listening.
Photo Credit.