One of the more interesting aspects of the Virginia gentry’s rise to power and maintenance of that power for generations is that it managed to inculcate the so-called “habit of command.” A term that was made famous by Henry Adams when he used it in his The Education of Henry Adams to describe the natural bearing of his Harvard classmate Rooney Lee, it refers to the quiet assumption of authority, leadership capability, and ingrained sense of public duty that defined the Virginia gentry from the colonial period through the nineteenth century.

Tall, largely built, handsome, genial, with liberal Virginian openness towards all he liked, he had also the Virginian habit of command and took leadership as his natural habit. No one cared to contest it. None of the New Englanders wanted command.

To a certain extent, this made sense. It developed out of the plantation, as Carl Bridenbaugh notes in his Seat of Empire, and Virginia was a land of plantations.

Nowhere did the eighteenth century provide a more thorough schooling in the management of practical affairs and in the handling of people than on these Tidewater plantations where young Virginians were reared. Early did they develop an awareness of their privileged status; early did they acquire the habit of command.

Similarly, Clifford Dowdey, describing their “habit of authority” in his book The Great Plantation, argues that the attitude stemmed from the culture of the plantation and was responsible for their dominance during the Revolutionary and Early Republic period, which coincided with the last decades of Virginia’s Golden Age. He writes:

Within four and, at the most five, generations from the arrival of the first obscure settlers in Indian country, families such as the Lees, the Washingtons and Jeffersons, the Harrisons of Berkeley Hundred, had grown sufficiently imperious to challenge the might of Great Britain and lead an armed rebellion that a new nation might be created on earth—for themselves.

They not only had imperiousness, they possessed the true leadership, and this, too, developed from the plantation culture. These men had the habit of authority, they were familiar with the assumption of responsibility, and making decisions was second nature. In the period of the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary leaders (the Virginia Dynasty), covering roughly the half century from 1770 to 1820, when Virginia produced more giants in a single era than any other region in America before or since, the plantation culture reached its fullest flowering and the aristocratic republic attained its "golden age."

That wasn’t all. It wasn’t just that they had this “habit of command”, but that in them it was a virtue rather than a vice. Rather than being the self-dealing, sneering and overbearing patricians one might imagine, they were by and large well-liked by those around them and generally recognized as governing in the interest of their fellows rather than just themselves. It is Carl Bridenbaugh who describes this aspect of the habit of command best, doing so in his Myths and Realities: Societies of the Colonial South:

Noblesse oblige was as much a part of the creed of the Chesapeake gentry as it was of the old regime in France. The inferior and middling sort of people generally found the owner of the big estate courteous, kind, and a fair and understanding judge on the quorum, ready to extend a helping hand before his aid was sought. A gentleman knew his neighbors of every rank and called them by name. Above all, the leading planters were imbued with the belief that they constituted a class whose obligations to serve and to govern well must be fulfilled in return for the privileges which were their birthright. This was a part of their code; this duty of service to the state was to be given without charge, as George Washington made clear to the Continental Congress when he accepted command of its army. There is no denying that aristocrats ruled in the interests of their class, but they brought to the political office a sound practical knowledge of the needs of their agricultural community, an understanding of how to deal with human beings learned on their estates, a habit of command that made them good leaders whether in politics or war, and a strong sense of justice. It was a responsible aristocracy.

There was a martial aspect to it as well. Historians of the class and the period tend to associate the “habit of command” not only with the development of the great plantation, but also with the added aspect of the danger of the Indian-inhabited frontier.

In such a view, the lifestyle of mastery that came with the running of a plantation and the necessity of being comfortable with and trained in the use of arms that came with the frontier turned the Virginians into such men as they were: virile leaders who viewed leadership as their birthright, and assumed it with natural grace and effort. Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker was the best articulator of this view, doing so in his famous Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia:

We see not the slightest inclination on their part to rush into the conflict for the love of fighting and adventure that was so typical of the aristocrat of the Middle Ages. They were more than content to stay at home to attend to the business of the plantation and to leave to humbler hands the task of defending helpless families of the frontiers. But the economic and political conditions in the colony were destined to work a change in this as in other things in the Virginia planter. The gradual loss of the mercantile instinct, the habit of command acquired by the control of servants and slaves, and the long use of political power, the growth of patriotism, eventually instilled into him a chivalric love of warfare not unlike that of the knights of old. It is impossible to say when this instinct first began to show itself. Perhaps the earliest evidence that the warlike spirit was stirring in the breasts of the planters is given in 1756, when two hundred gentlemen, moved by the pitiful condition of the defenseless families of the Shenandoah Valley, formed a volunteer company, and marched against the Indians.

To a certain extent, this makes sense. One can imagine how those who spent the overwhelming majority of their lives on self-contained estates, ruling them as kings or patriarchs of old, would come to grasp the mantle of rule by habit. After all, their lives were spent around those who were their dependants or chattel, and so it was they and they alone who made the daily decisions regarding everything from agriculture to construction, finance to disciplining slaves. One could not help but acquire a habit of expecting obedience from such circumstances, and that their economic circumstances meant they were called upon to lead the militia on the frontier must have made that habit all the stronger.

But that is a simplistic view, I think. For one, Rooney Lee—the exemplar of the habit of command and reason for the term—was raised in Arlington, which was hardly the plantation of a domineering master and was far away from the frontier. Further, much as it would be incorrect to claim the excellence Virginians demonstrated in political leadership and governmental design during the Revolution stemmed solely from their study of the classics—ignoring the way in which their cursus honorum cultivated the best men into the best leaders—to think only of their lifestyles and ignore how they cultivated their response to their daily circumstances to develop a more virtuous “habit of command” is a mistake.

After all, anyone can become domineering and swaggering when surrounded by those who must obey. That is the habit when left unrefined, uncultivated. What made men of Washington’s stripe different was how they paired the natural aura of authority they carried with them with a deep sense of public duty and self-mastery. That is what made the “habit of command” a virtue and positive we ought try to recreate, rather than a mere novelty.

This they did through the manner in which they raised their sons, which is covered well by Daniel Blake Smith in the great book Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society. I will cover how they did it, and what we should learn from that below, in much the same style as my recent articles on their cursus honorum, developing aristocratic excellence as they did, and learning from them how to build a counter-elite.

How the Virginia Gentry Raised Its Sons in the Habit of Command

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0:00 When Lee Defeated John Brown at Harper’s Ferry

4:52 Lee the Burdened Superintendent of West Point

17:17 Dull Duty on the Texas Frontier

27:05 George Washington Parke Custis’s Disastrous Will

33:49 Managing Arlington, Slandered by the Press

39:25 Lee Is Called to the Rescue to Stop John Brown’s Raid On Harper’s Ferry

43:48 Stopping John Brown: The Engine House Assault

51:45 Texas and Secession

54:02 Lee Chooses Virginia

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Transcript

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Detroit has long been a byword for dysfunction and disorder. That’s for good reason: a mix of globalization, union intransigence, and Civil Rights-fueled disorder hollowed it out in the mid-1960s and 70s, and it went from being the Paris of the Midwest to a hollowed-out hellhole. It’s now known for blighted neighborhoods where houses either sit hollow and rotting or are bulldozed to form empty, weed-covered blocks amidst crumbling infrastructure. Crime is high, the city declared bankruptcy in 2013, and industry no longer supports, much less invests in, the city in the way it once did.

So, if there ever was a city with much potential that could be unlocked by elites tired of seeing their city rot, it was Detroit a few years ago. More on this in a minute.

Meanwhile, we’ve also seen the renewed rise of a hyper-wealthy economic elite with more power to shape government than has been the case since the crushing reforms of the early 20th century. That elite has many flaws, but could be great should it choose to be, much as the Virginia gentry went from being a collection of grasping economic elites to a true upper class of noble, service-minded gentlemen over time.

Particularly, were the current crop of economic elites to return to caring about a particular place and people, as was once the case, and use their wealth to support the communities in which they live, all would gain a great deal from their doing so. Namely, they could become vastly more powerful at the local level by transmuting their wealth into political power, and in so doing make at least some of their wealth somewhat safer and more stable than if left invested in frothy public markets.

This is, after all, why the aristocracy—and those who wanted to join it—always invested in land until forced out of its estates during the egalitarian mess of the early 20th century. Land ownership can grant the owner significantly more political power than abstracted, financialized wealth if wielded wisely, as shown by the Virginia gentry and British landed elite. Similarly, the way in which the Fitzwilliam family parlayed its coal mining operation into immense local political power and no small degree of national political power shows the general manner by which the fusion of local investment and the scale of industry can empower elites with newer fortunes.

While that was crushed by expropriation and death taxes, it is now returning, and a form of neo-feudalism is developing as the wealthy—tired of being expropriated and generally sensing that the government has failed them and everyone else—try to turn their fortunes into political power. Author Joel Kotkin, describing this thesis in his The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, notes:

Feudalism is making a comeback, long after it was believed to have been deposited into the historical dustbin. Of course it will look different this time around: we won't see knights in shining armor, or vassals doing homage to their lords, or a powerful Catholic Church enforcing the reigning orthodoxy. What we are seeing is a new form of aristocracy developing in the United States and beyond, as wealth in our postindustrial economy tends to be ever more concentrated in fewer hands. Societies are becoming more stratified, with decreasing chances of upward mobility for most of the population. A class of thought leaders and opinion makers, which I call the "clerisy," provide intellectual support for the emerging hierarchy. As avenues for upward mobility are diminishing, the model of liberal capitalism is losing appeal around the globe, and new doctrines are arising in its place, including ones that lend support to a kind of neo-feudalism.

His thesis then goes off the rails from there, as he insists that the “neo-feudal” elites are on the same side as the “clerisy”, by which he means opinion-makers and shapers like professors.1 He also spends a great deal of time discussing climate policy, wealth inequality, and the like. I don’t think much of this is particularly accurate, as the sorts of economic elites who are attempting to turn wealth into power—namely the coalition of bankers, industrialists, and somewhat right-leaning technology types—are generally at odds with rather than aligned with the “clerisy” and are self-made. Elon Musk is a prime example.

Regardless, his basic point is a good one. The failure of government, rise of great fortunes, and unsettled nature of society at present collectively mean that money is no longer just money. It is, rather, the potential for power. Ownership of real assets that can be used to influence the shape of things in the real world—meaningful stakes in powerful companies, control over a politically significant amount of housing or land, or control of companies on which the government relies or platforms on which the public relies—can mean real power, the ability to decide the exception at a given level, typically local. Thus, the rise of “neo-feudalism” is not the combination of institutions and Big Business in a stagnant economic environment, but overlapping bounds of authority and obligation rooted primarily in political power built from and backed by meaningful amounts of concentrated wealth, whether in land, resources, or companies.

Elon, again, is one good example. Without SpaceX, America would be in a bind. His control of it means that he has a certain degree of wiggle room in terms of national regulation or political pull that a furniture maker might not; the guy whose factory makes your cabinets couldn’t cause a conniption by cutting off Ukraine’s satellite communications access after they threaten him. Then again, as an important local employer, he could do the same thing at the local level. Certainly much more so than an accountant or lawyer, even if their roles are more “prestigious”.

Much as the powerful in the feudal system encompassed lords, knights, and many others, with the number and size of manors generally meaning more power and the “middle class” such as it was largely excluded from power (except for the Hanseatic League, which turned commercial wealth into military might), power sharing neo-feudalism involves all those who have built enough wealth concentrated at a specific point to be politically relevant at that point, and to add weight to their opinions. Thus a local employer of note generlaly has more say than the fellow with a large stock portfolio or high income, and that can scale. This is not the mid-20th century, when all businessmen had to live in fear of an expropriation-minded government, nor is it the 1980s and ‘90s, when generally good government meant the wealthy could check out of politics and social atomization meant bad business behavior like mass offshoring and the like could be gotten away with.

This presents opportunities. Whereas in the mid-20th century, companies like Ford were at the mercy of the state and federal governments, which generally mugged them to pay for welfare programs, now companies can and sometimes do push back. Anthropic is feuding with the Pentagon; regardless of how that goes, it’s the sort of open conflict tech companies generally tried to avoid just a few decades ago. Gun and ammunition companies now routinely refuse to sell to states with anti-2nd Amendment legislation. Erik Prince thumbed his nose at the Obama regime and hunted pirates for the UAE after being harassed by and losing Blackwater thanks to the machinations of Hillary Clinton; now he is pacifying the Congo for corporate interests. The times, they are a changin’.

This leads us back to Detroit.

Some cities can still get away with mugging those within them. New York City has become infamous for this: with so many businesses headquartered there for legacy reasons, and so much capital invested in its real estate, it can tax and spend to its heart's content while doing nothing about the ever-growing crime problem. Or, at least, it used to be able to. The money might be drying up as the wealthy give up in disgust and leave.

Detroit has not been one of those cities with such public policy wiggle room in a long while, particularly after its bankruptcy. It, rather, was in a position where striking an informal deal to provide public safety in exchange for investment seemed like a tantalizing prospect rather than an intolerable abridgment of its authority.

That is, a quiet and generally effective form of Neo-Feudalism could fix it by bringing order and something approaching prosperity, much as the original feudalism rose out of the chaos of early Dark Ages Europe.

Neo-Feudalism and Detroit

Such is what has happened. The urban core of Detroit has gone from being a hollowed-out hellhole populated primarily by crackheads and vagrants to a relatively functional city featuring the usual amenities—restaurants, entertainment, sports teams, and so on—and law and order.

A hugely enlarged police force refuses to tolerate disturbances of any sort within the “Green Zone” of sorts that has been established, turning a chunk of the city into a livable place: thanks to renewed investment and policing, downtown Detroit, Midtown, Corktown, Brush Park, and Greektown are safe and relatively thriving areas. It is in that handful of areas that jobs, resident amenities, safe housing, and visitor attractions are concentrated. Further, it is that area that is safe. Outside that invisible wall of enforcement lie the barbarians of the wild—crackheads festering in rotting, abandoned homes as highwaymen, Moorish pirates, and Raubritter once lurked beyond the bounds of feudal authority.

Meanwhile, the other end of the bargain is being upheld as a few notable families pour resources into redeveloping the Green Zone areas of the city.

Dan Gilbert, owner of Rocket Companies and Bedrock, moved thousands of employees downtown and renovated dozens of buildings that he bought, revitalizing the area and reinvesting in it.

The Ilitch family—owners of Little Caesars, the Detroit Tigers, and the Detroit Red Wings—rebuilt the Fox Theatre, helped deliver Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena, and developed the surrounding District Detroit. Partnering with the Ilitches is Stephen Ross of Related Companies. He partnered with the Ilitches’ Olympia Development on the $1.5 billion District Detroit project, which includes the development of housing, offices, a hotel, and retail around Little Caesars Arena, along with the aforementioned revitalization of Fox Theatre and Comerica Park. Related brought additional capital and development expertise to the project.

Also participating is the Ford Motor Company and the Ford family, which has led, with a $740 million investment of its own, the ~$950 million restoration of Michigan Central Station in Corktown, and is further strengthening the local economy by developing an “innovation district” there to attract new engineers, researchers, and the like.

Finally, Tom Gores of Palace Sports & Entertainment has participated. Gores owns the Detroit Pistons and is involved in the $3 billion “Future of Health” collaboration with Henry Ford Health and Michigan State University. That project includes significant real estate investment, including redeveloping the former Henry Ford headquarters into apartments.

A few through lines run through these names and projects: those involved are either Detroit natives or have close familial and business ties to the city. They need not have decided to invest in it, but did so to revitalize the portion of it within the “walls” of police enforcement, and in so doing turned generally abstracted financial wealth into tangible, physical wealth that gives them more power over the local government and turns the prosperity of their companies into prosperity for their city.

Gilbert pulling thousands of employees into an area of the city he bought and redeveloped after ensuring there was enough policing to make it safe is the prime example: those real estate investments are paying off because Rocket and Bedrock employees have to be there for work, and they are ok with that because the area is nice, newly developed, and safe now…and their boss has an immense financial incentive to keep it that way. So long as they keep working for him and keep him wealthy, he’ll keep deploying the resources and political pull necessary to keep the area in which they live nice and on the relative ascent. Such is the informal bargain, and it appears to be working.

It was cooperation between the municipal authorities and the few wealthy families behind the project that made it possible. The city wanted to restore its tax base while drawing new visitors into what once had been an utterly decimated and hollowed-out urban core. The families, by bringing in thousands of workers and renovating old buildings, could make that happen. For a price, that is. Gilbert got over $600 million in tax incentives for his projects, for example.

On the public order side of the equation, the city provided extra downtown patrols, lighting, and ordinance enforcement. This is meant to keep the barbarians at bay and inspire confidence in the large crowds of sports fans and tourists, while protecting the high-value investment properties that are concentrated in the “Green Zone”.

Not content with or not trusting of the city’s efforts, Gilbert also built his own large private security force and camera network that coordinates with Detroit Police, paying out of pocket to ensure order is maintained and his investments are safe. What does that sound like?

The benefits to locals, particularly small property owners, have been immense. For example, in the most famous of these redevelopment projects within the Green Zone—Greektown—much of the real estate is still owned by local Greek families who held on through the chaos. They now implement the neighborhood revitalization at the local level, receiving many of the same tax incentives, credits, and city cooperation as Gilbert, just at a smaller scale. The grand projects of the great families—new offices, housing, stadiums, a restored train station, and entertainment venues—have helped them substantially, creating the necessary density of workers, tourists, and high-value property that led the city and private security firms to concentrate cameras, patrols, and order-maintenance in the downtown core and to make the local economy functional again. They, in exchange, have provided the sort of private amenities—dining options, for example—that keep workers and tourists around and thus make the grand projects of the great sustainable and remunerative.

In this, one sees the vague outlines of neo-feudalism, particularly the reciprocating bonds of duty and private parties gradually taking on some aspects of the role of the state due to its inability to deal with barbarians.

This is less formalized than in the feudal world, but is nevertheless present.

For example, the symbiotic relationship between the employees who have been brought to Detroit, the hugely wealthy families who brought them there, and the small real estate owners who fill in the cracks to make it work.

Similarly, Gilbert and the Ilitches can hardly trust the city to provide police protection for their investments in the requisite amount out of the goodness of its heart. Instead, they pay for the privilege of having their properties defended by investing heavily in a compact (and thus defensible via exclusion) urban core, supplement that with private security, and recoup that cost through incentives and redevelopment. All are dependent upon all, with mutual and overlapping bounds of authority, duty, and financial incentive.

Further, it is not open but opaque, being a workable solution developed organically through tacit agreements regarding what had to be done and a web of one-on-one agreements that collectively make the project work.

Finally, though no wall of stone has been built, there is a wall of blue-uniformed officers, cameras, and private security that separates the “Green Zone”—that safe zone of a few areas described earlier—from the rest of the city, which is generally in hellish condition. Perhaps that will be fixed over time as the wall expands outward with more investment and renewal; perhaps it will contract a bit as the costs bite.

Regardless, it’s a generally workable solution for those inside the circle, and as they are the ones who pay taxes, they are the ones the distressed city government has to worry about. Further, as they’re represented generally by the big players in the redevelopment, they have a voice that can be heard. Detroit might not care about what happens to Suzie from accounting at Rocket, but if something happens to Suzie and Gilbert has to take that to the city, there will be problems for it, and it will have to rectify the situation, generally, at least. He has enough resources to get the city to listen, and his reliance on his employees staying there for his investments to pay off mean he has incentive to. There is some degree of obligation and duty on both sides of the equation, not just a garnering of money and power.

Such is what Neo-Feudalism looks like, and it will become increasingly common as public order continues to break down along South African lines for reasons of ideology.

Don’t want to be eaten by a cannibal? Well, if it is you alone speaking and your money is invested in mutual funds locked up in a retirement account, no one cares. You can exert no force upon the system. But what if you work for the guy who owns the developments along the street where a cannibal was caught eating somebody? What if the financially significant local manufacturing plant employed the person who was eaten, and the city is struggling to raise funds to pay for a new school? If that developer or owner is a reasonable man guided to at least some degree by virtue and duty, that situation can be rectified much as it was in Detroit’s Green Zone. Better yet, we all can and should aspire to be the person who can rectify the situation through exerting pull within the local government, direct oversight of it, or both. Either way, the barbarians need to be kept outside the gate.

I don’t think generalized public order is coming back any time soon. Perhaps once we’re through the genetic bottleneck of modernity, but not before then.

What is coming back is a set of conditions by which those who are frustrated with the anarcho-tyranny of the present can strike a deal that obviates it for their dependents, as has largely happened in the Green Zone areas of Detroit.

That looks much more like feudalism—a hierarchical system of dependency, obligation, and service in exchange for protection—than anything else. Thus, being either a dependent or provider to dependents (generally, in a feudal system, one is both at ones, as with the owner of a small manor who has those providing resources to him as he provides resources to a greater lord up the food chain) is critical, for it is the only way to get a good deal out of the situation and be within rather than without the Green Zone, the modern equivalent of the castle walls. Or one can take to the hills and hope for the best. Either way, avoiding being in a blighted zone is a must, and these are the paths to avoiding that.

Naturally, then, cultivating a virtue and duty-oriented elite is of immense importance. Here’s how Virginia managed that:

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0:00 Lee’s Mexican War Baptism in Leadership

3:41 Lee Gets The Call to War

8:01 The Texas Coast Landing

11:18 The Sheep Scout

18:03 Scott’s Veracruz Gamble

30:25 Into the Mountain Pass: Cerro Gordo Heroics

39:08 The Pedregal Crossings

48:13 Chapultepec Assault

55:29 Occupied Mexico City

58:49 Home to Arlington

1:01:27 What Robert E Lee Learned in Mexico

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1. Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India by Lawrence James

I've generally found Lawrence James's work lacking, but Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India is actually reasonably good. In it, he charts the course of British rule in India, first through John Company and later through direct rule by the British government. He explains how that rule came about and how it connected to imperial strategy regarding control of naval lanes and commercial opportunities, why the British East India Company went from being primarily focused on trade to mainly focused on ruling and taxing India's inhabitants, the costs and benefits of British rule for the natives, and the great men of history who pushed the project along. The most interesting parts are his discussions of certain figures like Lord Clive and the Wellesley brothers, along with the wars they fought to bring more territory under East India Company rule and how those wars were fought and won.

James also covers how the East India Company functioned in trade and war, the role it played in British politics and imperial might, the views of the natives toward it, and British opinion on the company. The general Liberal/Whig-Tory split that existed for much of the imperial period is, I think, covered much better and with less tiresome moralism in this book than in his The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. That is actually true of this one generally: he moralizes a bit, but on the whole it is generally a factual history rather than a tiresome screed about Dominion being mean, unlike his books on Africa.

Unfortunately, the last section of the book, which covers decolonization, is quite subpar. It is simply boring, being overly detailed and drawn out while also being somewhat uncritical of the Indian nationalists and their flaws. The one thing he does do a good job of articulating in this section is that the British lost the will to rule in the 20th century, and the Raj was lost because of that rather than because it necessarily had to be given up. He also covers the importance of the Raj to the prestige and wealth of the empire well throughout the book, and does a tolerable job of connecting the loss of India to the loss of the empire generally. What makes it lacking is his generally uncritical recitation of the claims of Indian nationalists, ignoring the benefits of British rule and sins of the nationalists as he does so.

Overall, this is probably the second best of James's works. It's not as good as his superb military biography of Lord Wellington, but is leaps and bounds better than all his other books about the empire. Personally, I'm glad to be done with reading his books, as they were on the whole tiresome and disappointing, if also full of valuable information.

2. Origins of the American Revolution by John C. Miller

Origins of the American Revolution is a really fantastic book about the American Revolution, why it happened as it did, and the important role the gentry played in it. In it, Miller explains the Whig and Tory ideologies in America and Britain alike, along with the economic conditions of the day, to explain the irreconcilable tension points between Americans in the various colonies and the British. He uses that to show why successive British governments were so intent on taxing the colonies and why they were unwilling to compromise past a certain point, along with why the colonists found such compromises unacceptable and from what sources they gained that understanding of politics.

In addition to explaining the economic and ideological factors that pushed each side to war, he explains how dissatisfaction turned to mob violence against the British, and what lessons from contemporary Britain and its politics the Patriots learned as they went about gradually pushing themselves away from the British before their hard break with the empire. Miller uses that to explain the important role the American gentry played in legitimating the revolution in the eyes of respectable folks, and why the Southern gentry was so much more open to the Revolution than the Yankee “gentry” (such as there was, with merchants and lawyers being the general “gentlemen” of note in the North).

Overall, Miller does a wonderful job of describing the characters involved thoroughly, keeping the narrative going along well, presenting both sides fairly, and tracing the origins of the various arguments made by each side to show why they stuck to those arguments even as crisis came. This is a terrific book that is well worth your taking the time to read.

3. Coming Apart by Charles Murray

In my view, it is near-impossible to understand why America is the way it is at present without reading Coming Apart by Charles Murray. In it, he shows the failures of America’s white new upper class and underclass alike, explaining how both got to be as rotten as they are

Particularly, Murray handles the upper class’s near-total lack of any sense of duty beyond the personal and its similarly total lack of empathy for those whites not of its ranks quite well, and then also shows why the white underclass is damned by its vices to a state of perpetual dysfunction that is a new thing for America compared even to the middle-late 20th century. That is interesting and important, for it shows that our dysfunction-related problems are 1) far from being exclusively racial ones, 2) of overwhelming scale amongst the new underclass (such as bastardy and welfare reliance), and 3) essentially predicaments rather than problems unless we can get the new upper class to do its duty and try to stop the proles from being self-destructive. Murray takes a kinder and less paternalistic tone, generally, but that is essentially the case he makes.

None of that should be particularly surprising. The lords of Britain tried to keep liquor like gin off their estates for this reason: the lower class couldn’t handle it and would be self-destructive if given access to it. That problem is now a million times worse with everything from narcotics to tolerance of criminality to welfare-subsidized bastardy. Duty, leadership, and paternalism must make a return if those problems are to be stamped out. That’s a tall order, of course. But it is nevertheless the case and ought be remembered.

4. Gray Cavalier: The Life and Wars of General William H. F. Rooney Lee by Mary Daughtry

Gray Cavalier is a very enjoyable book about the life and career of Robert E Lee's middle son, William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, known as "Rooney" to his family. In it, Daughtry covers Rooney's being a somewhat difficult child to raise given his independent nature, his time at Harvard, his time in the US military and Confederate cavalry, and his post-war career as a farmer and politician.

Overall, parts of the tale of Rooney’s life probably could have been trimmed down in some places and elaborated upon in others, but it is a generally good and well-paced book that does a magnificent job of capturing his character and accomplishments without being overly long, which is just what a good biography should be.

One small criticism I had, however, is that this biography doesn't really get into Rooney's status in the Lee family as the only child of Robert E Lee who really moved out from his father's shadow and stood apart. His sisters never married, nor did his elder brother Custis, who generally just followed in his father's footsteps but as a less exceptional, if still honorable and talented, man. His younger brother, RE Lee Jr, did marry, but sired no sons and was generally less exceptional as a man--though also brave and successful. Rooney was the real success story of the Lee brood, and while the book covers his successes, I think it fails to properly put them in the context of his siblings largely failing to do so.

In any case, it's altogether a delightful read, and is quite interesting. Rooney is often forgotten because of the exploits of his cousin Fitz--who had a similar name and ranked higher in the same cavalry--and of course because of RE Lee's fame. But Rooney was an exceptional man, and quite an interesting one in his own right, and ought be remembered.

5. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia by Woody Holton

Forced Founders is a great and fascinating book in two respects: 1) It promotes some relatively unique ideas about what causes compelled the Virginians to revolt, and 2) It shows why the Virginia gentry acted as it did.

The first part is covered throughout the work in an interesting discussion of how the Navigation Acts were seen as an immense tax and imposition because, unlike in New England, they could not be easily avoided with smuggling. While the Virginia gentry was tolerant of them on the whole until the late 1760s, they were seen as a massive tax, and so made further British attempts at taxation all the more galling. This was a point the British didn’t understand, but it was essentially a line in the sand with the Virginians. Similarly, Holton shows how the 1763 proclamation related to Western lands was a major betrayal of and hardship for the gentry specifically, as it was speculating in those lands, but not for the yeomen, who just squatted on them regardless. He notes that this was a major issue that radicalized the gentry, even if it wasn’t a proximate cause to war. And he shows how the gentry feared a slave revolt, particularly in the Tidewater counties, and Dunmore’s behavior as tensions rose made those fears all the stronger, helping push them towards war.

Related to all of that, Holton shows how the gentry’s response to the political situation that grew out of the 1760s was rooted in concern over all three of those matters, and also stimulated by fears that the ~80% of whites who were yeoman farmers were shaking off the gentry influence while the gentry fell deeper into debt that made its magnificence harder to support and show. So, how they pushed revolution reflected that: the non-importation and non-exportation efforts in the 1760s failed, but were an early attempt at this, and the same attempt in 1774 was hugely beneficial because it actually succeeded and drove up the price of tobacco while preventing imports (which fell from hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling to ~2000), meaning that when they did sell in 1775, the total debt to the English was reduced from 6 million pounds sterling to perhaps only 2 million pounds. That was hugely beneficial to them, in particular.

Then, as the revolution heated up in 1775, the gentry tried securing their continued leadership of the state through the organization of minuteman companies rather than militia, as officers could be appointed rather than elected. This failed, and it was a point of contention between the gentry and the commoners. The gentry salvaged the situation by doing the popular thing and voting for independence (something Holton argues the commons more than the gentry was demanding), leading to the revolution as we know it.

Overall, this is a provocative and well-done book. It’s also reasonably short, and is very easy to read.

6. General Fitzhugh Lee: A Biography by Nichols

"From plume to spur a cavalier, Who nobly wore a noble name.” Such is how Fitzhugh Lee--bold Indian fighter, dashing "Laughing Cavalier" of a Confederate general under JEB Stuart, Governor of Virginia, Brigadier General in the US Army, and Consul General to Cuba--is best remembered. A man who was the last of the Lees, a public servant committed to duty and a genius in the saddle like his Norman ancestors and close relatives--men like Light Horse Harry and Rooney Lee.

In General Fitzhugh Lee: A Biography, Nichols wonderfully tells the story of his life, focusing in particular on his post-war political career. This is a good companion book to Longacre's biography of Lee, which focuses far more heavily on his military career, something that Nichols only spends about a third of the book on. I found this one better written and generally more interesting than Longacre's, though combined the two are quite good.

If you're interested in the Lees of Virginia, this one is a must-read.

7. Fitz Lee: A Military Biography by Edward Longacre

How fitting that the last of the Lees, that Anglo-Norman clan that did so much for America, would be a great cavalier and respected governor named “Fitz”, an old Norman prefix! Longacre’s Fitz Lee is a tolerable biography of him. It covers his military service quite well, as could be expected from the title, painstakingly tracing his role in the Army of Northern Virginia’s cavalry over the course of the war, his qualities as a leader, his feud with Wade Hampton III, and his skill in commanding cavalry. It’s not a particularly long book, so that section is dense but not overly long.

The problem is that the rest of his life is just glanced through. His upbringing is noted and breezed through, and then his post-war career as a successful planter even in the devastation of the post-war period, a politician and governor, a consul to Cuba, and a military leader during the Spanish-American War is all handled in a matter of pages. While not as interesting in some ways as his time in command of the cavalry, it is a major part of his life and much of what makes him so notable as a man: in true Lee tradition, he had the dignity and prudence necessary to rebuild out of the ashes of a very bad situation, and do what others lacked the combined quality for. It is, in fact, thanks in large part to him that Virginia rebuilt as well as it did and was in such a relatively good condition in the first half of the 20th century.

But all of that is merely mentioned and moved on from, which makes this somewhat lacking as a biography. Since Longacre wanted to focus so heavily on the military aspects of his career and life, it would have been better to stick purely to that rather than having a couple of throwaway chapters about the rest of his life as well. Overall this is an enjoyable book to read because the prose is superb, the action is near-constant, and the attention to detail is stunning (though not overdone), but it is ultimately unsatisfying because of how poorly Longacre handles the non-Civil War aspects of Fitz Lee’s life, and his place within the Lee dynasty.

8. Planters and Pioneers by Parke Rouse

Planters and Pioneers is a very interesting book by Parke Rouse, one that is a good bit better than his Virginia: The English Heritage in America. In this book, Rouse concisely describes the various aspects of life in colonial Virginia, with his focus centered on the lives of the planters, from their economic situation to their preferred leisure activities. He discusses plantation life, carving civilization out of the wilderness, fighting the Indians, whist, horse racing, horse breeding, and much more

It is a good book, particularly if you want to learn a bit about the culture of the Virginia gentry without diving into the much longer and more tedious books out there on it, such as Mary Newton Stanard's Colonial Virginia, Its People and Customs.

All in all, I probably didn't need to read this one because I've done much of the other reading, but it was an interesting and enjoyable read. Rouse is a great writer, and his use of a great many pictures that I had not seen before helps bring the subject of the work to life.

9. Fairfax County, Virginia: A History by Nan Netherton

Fairfax County, Virginia: A History is a book that starts slow, is extremely good for the middle 600 pages, and then is terrible again for the last ~50 pages. Overall, it is a worthwhile read about the county that produced George Washington and George Mason, as its development shows the development of Virginia over the centuries.

After the initial bits about the Indians and geography are gotten out of the way, this becomes an in-depth study of the economics and socio-political system in Fairfax over the centuries, broken up by era. It discusses plantation agriculture and how it worked, the social lives of the Virginia gentry, the rise of Alexandria and how it was connected to trade on the Potomac and banking for planters and merchants, the river-based life of the planters, and much more. It then details why plantation agriculture gave way to small grain farms over the 19th century, how that harmed the famous Virginia gentry (and how inheritance patterns made the situation yet worse), how that shaped the politics of the county, and how scientific agriculture restored the prosperity of the county and gave the great planters another lease on life, if they were smart enough to take advantage of it. It then details the recovery from the Civil War and Reconstruction, how Fairfax changed dramatically as DC grew, and much more along those lines. The most interesting part of the book has to do with the late Colonial and early Republic period, as could be expected, but much of it is quite interesting, even the sections on the development of suburbia and the conflicts that arose with farmers as that happened.

The end is terrible. As this book was published by the county for the bicentennial, the town authorities used the last 50 pages to show how “great” they are. However, their achievements pale in comparison to much of what is discussed in the book, and the obvious self-promotion is annoying, so this section is ridiculous. It is also depressing, as it shows how a county that once birthed great men gradually just became suburbia inhabited by DC bureaucrats. But, as that is the story of Virginia as a whole, it’s probably worth reading, and the book does speculate some on why fewer great men were produced (the demise of plantation agriculture, essentially).

Overall, however, this book is surprisingly well done for a county-managed publication, and is quite an illuminating and interesting read. I very much enjoyed it, despite the grating bits.

10. Mansions of the Virginia Gentry by Henry Wiencek

“Of all Virginia’s treasures, its Colonial architecture is its greatest-a rich heritage of gracefulness in brick and wood, artistry in plaster embellishments, fine furnishings, and beautiful gardens. But, above all, the great houses of Virginia are distinguished by an uncommon elegance, refined by a love of order and rationality. It is an ideal adopted from classical antiquity, as so many of the historic ideals of Virginia society are-an ideal that is embodied perfectly in the six houses shown in this book.” Such is how the fantastic book Mansions of the Virginia Gentry begins, and that is what the book remains about.

It is a fantastic book covering the history of six Virginia mansion homes--Stratford Hall of the Lees, Shirley of the Carters, Wilton of the Randolphs, Kenmore of the Fieldings, Mount Vernon of Washington, and Monticello of Jefferson--and the social history of the Virginia gentry class as shown by those homes.

It is fabulously interesting, full of some of the most incredibly beautiful pictures imaginable, short and sweet, and does a great job of showing what certain elements of the houses and their trappings were meant to achieve, without getting overly detailed to the point of tedium. It’s really, really good, and well worth a read for anyone interested in the Virginia gentry or American architecture.

11. The Byrds of Virginia: An American Dynasty, 1670 to the Present by Alden Hatch

As I wrap up the research for my series on the Lee family and start to research others, I decided to read this book by Alden Hatch on the Byrds of Virginia. It mainly covers the three colonial William Byrds, Admiral Byrd of Arctic and Antarctic exploration fame, and Governor/Senator Harry Byrd of political machine fame. Some of the men in between are briefly covered, but Hatch tends to focus on those five most famous men, and ends with Harry Byrd rather than any of his descendants.

Overall, it’s a good introduction to the family, but is weakened by being full of somewhat overdone praise for a few of its subjects, particularly Senator Harry Byrd. Hatch treats him as an almost saintly figure, and his hand-waving away of various supposed flaws comes across as being a bit much. That makes it seem less reliable than would be ideal. But, still, it’s reasonably good and quite interestingly written.

Despite my criticism of the section, the end of the book on Harry Byrd is fabulous, and contains much useful information about how being a well-regarded person is useful for a political dissident of sorts, as Byrd was one of the key conservative southern Democrats who fought FDR and won on at least some issues. Had he been a choleric and surly fellow, that probably wouldn’t have been the case, and America would have been even more destroyed by FDR. The best section of the book is on William Byrd II of Westover; Hatch does a better job of balancing criticism of his vices and praise of his virtues and accomplishments.

Unfortunately, the worst section of the book is the one on Admiral Byrd, a great pioneer of flight and explorer of the Arctic and Antarctic. I had hoped that section would be the most interesting, but sadly it is mainly just boring and a bit tedious. All in all, this is a good book, though not a must-read. I suspect the individual biographies I have ordered will be significantly better.

12. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 by Piers Brendon

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire is an ok book on the British Empire. On the whole, it is better and much more interestingly written than Lawrence James's very similar The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, but Brendon leans even more heavily toward very tiresome criticism of the various imperial authorities and their lack of respect for "human rights" at times, banging the drum of slavery's evils and so on at great length, at random sections strewn about the book.

Particularly, what makes that aspect of this book infuriating is the way in which settler “atrocities” are always played up, and the author meanwhile ignores not only the horrors the natives committed against the settlers but the depredations they inflicted on each other. So the Rhodesians are damned for defending themselves in the Matabele Wars and the Bush War, and left out pretty much entirely is that the Matabele were a horrible people known for being cruel beyond belief to the Shona, or that the Shona had been freed from slavery by the Rhodesians, and then rose up and stabbed the Rhodesians in the back as they fought the Matabele. The same sort of thing plays out again and again: whites are always in the wrong, and the crimes of the non-whites don’t matter for whatever “noble savage” mythology reasons.

That is infuriating, and totally nonsensical. If the author did care about the lives of some African tribe, he’d compare the conditions in which they lived when ruled by witch doctors and cannibal kings to the conditions in which they lived when ruled by the British. The British were indubitably better in every way, and that ought to inform the history. Instead, native atrocities against settlers are treated as justified, white reprisals damned, and native atrocities against each other ignored or downplayed. That poisons the history, or at least the sections afflicted by it.

The rest of it is better. When he leaves aside moralizing and focuses instead on telling the history of the imperial project, he is quite a good writer and tells the story very well, balancing telling detail and continuing the narrative fabulously. His anecdotes are also well chosen and add significantly to the narrative, rather than detracting from it, which I have found to be somewhat rare.

Ultimately, this work could have been great, but was instead almost ruined by the left-leaning nature of its author and his tendency to digress to push tiresome moralizing on the reader. That doesn't quite ruin it, but it does make it a significantly worse book than it could and should have been.

13. High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain by Simon Heffer

I found myself somewhat disappointed by Heffer’s High Minds, not because it is poorly written, incorrect, or simply bad, but because the picture painted of the Victorians--one the author intended to be sympathetic--made me like them a great deal less.

The problem is that many were simply a tiresome lot. The great adventurers were not. James Brooke and Cecil Rhodes, with countless others mixed in with them, were incredible men of great spirit. Similarly, the landed elite of the Victorian era, as a whole, at least, was generally interesting and much like its recent ancestors in its prioritization of duty, refinement, adventure, service, and so on.

But those were the minority of Victorians, and the Victorian era was much more characterized (as Heffer shows well) by an unpleasant mix of moral crusaders, newly prosperous middle-class types across the income spectrum, and myopic plutocrats. Tales of mill owners feuding with moralistic Unitarians can make for interesting enough reading, I suppose, but hardly paint a picture of a particularly pleasant or praiseworthy society. The same is true of much of the rest of it, from the self-indulgent kvetching of overly introspective Dissenters and atheists to the overly earnest entreaties of moralistic reformer politicians and telescopic philanthropists. It all just smacks of the worst qualities of the middle class, religion-obsessed, and industrial plutocrats being rolled into one and feuding over insanity or minutiae while missing the larger point.

In that, the Victorian Era contrasted quite strongly with the Georgian/Regency period. I think this is best exemplified by religion. There was less atheism in that earlier era and far less tolerance of actual dissent or non-conformity, whether Judaism or remnants of Puritanism, but religion was also something that burned far less fiercely. People were simply Anglicans, went to the Established Church (which defended rather than attacked social hierarchies of the sort that defined the day), and accepted that sin existed and we ought focus on giving glory to God and reveling in His Creation rather than being dour souls tut-tutting our neighbors.

Samuel S. Hill, Jr., describing this sort of Anglicanism, notes that it was “the language of stability and gradualism, of the affirmation of the world pretty much as it is.” Such, I think, is a much healthier attitude and world. It was the one embraced by the rich and poor of the Georgian day and in Old Virginia, and helped steer the intelligent away from moralistic neuroticism and all the rotten societal fruits that come from that, and towards building and maintaining a beautiful, ordered, and traditional society. That makes sense, as it was, after all, “the religion of many conservative members of the gentry: pragmatic Protestantism, emphasizing social conformity over religious piety,” as Woolley notes in Savage Kingdom.

14. Fifty-Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War by Norman Friedman

If you are interested in learning about the Cold War, how it was fought, what the American strategy during it was, and how economics, technology, and warfare interacted with politics, then Fifty-Year War is an unbeatable book. In it, Friedman shows how American Cold War policy was a schizophrenic mix of occasionally desiring to actually defeat communism and a constant effort to destroy colonialism, and how that led to absurd situations, such as us desperately building up armored forces along the Rhine while also alienating France by siding with the Algerian terrorists against it, despite Algeria being recognized as French territory under the agreements that led to NATO.

Further, he does a great job of showing how technological advances from nukes to smart bombs changed the calculus of war over the Cold War period, what real victories and defeats America suffered during the War, why we tended to conflict with the Europeans over both colonial and anti-Soviet policy, and how different key players viewed the “dirty wars” along the fringes of the Second and Third Worlds with the “main war” being prepared for in Europe. Additionally, he shows how America’s domestic view of anti-communism shifted over time, going from fervently anti-communist to somewhat apathetic.

Of particular interest to me was his discussion of how selling the Soviets grain depleted their hard currency stock and helped lead to eventual victory in the war. I hadn’t heard that before, and found it interesting. My only complaints are that he is far too kind to the FDR and Carter administrations, in terms of downplaying the communist connections of the former and hyping up the Cold Warrior spirit of the latter. But that is an issue of degree; he is generally on the right track in both sections (being hostile to both and showing how they aided the Soviets).

This is one that you really ought to read.

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15. Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees by Ethel Armes

Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees is almost a very good book.

On one hand, it is a terrific history of the Lee family members connected to Stratford Hall, and is a good bit better than the historical novel Tidewater Dynasty in that respect, while having much in it that Nagel and Hendricks do not include in their The Lees of Virginia books. The section on Light Horse Harry is quite good and is a more positive recital of what he accomplished and did than other books, and the section on Philip Ludwell is the only one I have read that I thought was generally fair to him.

But it’s also odd in that it then jumps from that to a lengthy history of the house and its being restored for the last hundred pages or so, which is understandable given that the group that restored the house funded it...but is also very boring, doesn’t really add much, and is just generally uninteresting in most respects. A condensed, 20-page section explaining much the same would have been far better, and accomplished much the same thing.

Overall, this is one I would recommend reading, but you can probably skip the end and not miss anything.

16. The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy by Christian B Keller

I really wanted to like The Great Partnership, but the problem is that it’s poorly executed, on the whole, in a grating way.

What is good about it is that Keller does a reasonably good job of showing how Lee and Jackson worked together during the Civil War, particularly during the post-Peninsular Campaign through Chancellorsville period that is most famous and was the high-water mark of the Confederacy. Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, and Chancellorsville are covered in depth. Those chapters are generally “fine” to good.

What is bad about it is that Keller attempts to include much else that generally distracts from the strongest and most interesting writing, which is the partnership between the two great generals. Instead, Keller includes lengthy asides on grand strategy, ways and means as related to strategy, leadership lessons from Lee, and so on. It feels very much like a self-published book written by an enthusiast who needed a good editor, though I don’t think it was.

You might enjoy it, but it’s not really worth reading. Lee’s Lieutenants by Douglas Southall Freeman is what you ought read if this general subject interests you.

17. From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry Since the Second World War by Geoffrey Owen

Interested as I am in industrial policy and re-industrialization, I decided to turn to Geoffrey Owen’s From Empire to Europe, a book that appeared to be a fascinating study in how British companies went from Industrial Revolution-era outsized success to mid-20th century scleroticism, and how the industries that recovered managed to do so largely by finding ways to compete with and in the European market.

At first glance, that’s quite interesting. In reality, it’s an exceedingly dry and essentially academic work that is a slog to read. I fell asleep about a dozen times while trying to get through it. That doesn’t make it a bad book—it is meticulously researched and generally packed with facts that help prove Owen’s point. But it is a slog.

Overall, the main lesson I took from this one is that the British Liberal elite was particularly dimwitted, and the free trade policies in which it obstinately engaged over the second half of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th were exceedingly deleterious to Britain in that they 1) made the empire essentially valueless by opening its markets to foreign competition, and 2) were devastating to national security in that they helped subsidize Germany’s industrial rise. Merely maintaining imperial preference would have done a great deal to blunt those hugely deleterious effects, but Churchill types refused to countenance such pro-domestic-industry tariff policies and so British industry was impoverished to the point of being unable to compete by its German and American competitors, which had much larger and better-protected domestic markets.

There were other issues with British industry as well, namely cartelization, but one massive problem was how deleterious trade policy was for so long, as it put British industry in a position where it lacked the resources to innovate or modernize. Given the present situation regarding China, that seems very relevant.

This is probably a book worth reading if you are interested in re-industrialization, but it is a slog.

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0:00 The King of Spades: Robert E Lee the Engineer Emerges

3:18 Building the Army Engineer

7:29 Fort Pulaski Begins

14:56 Hampton Roads Lessons

28:16 St. Louis on the Brink

44:59 New York Harbor Drudgery

52:23 Lee Goes From Engineer to Grand Strategist

54:20 Fort Carroll and the Temptation of a Filibuster

1:02:05 Engineering the Confederacy: Defending the Coast

1:05:51 How General Lee Used Spades and Siege Lines to Save the South, and Almost Win the War

Sources Referenced in this Episode:

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TRANSCRIPT

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Instead of facing the gallows or gibbet when caught, they are generally either given a slap on the wrist or nothing at all, and then unleashed on society once again so they can go about causing further havoc. From vagrants taking over public places to recidivists making entire swathes of cities uninhabitable, our system has created much misery by putting the “rights” of criminals ahead of the rights of law-abiding citizens.

But this is nothing new. Though things have been decidedly worse since the mixture of soft-on-crime and pro-crime policies really began in the 1970s alongside the general chaos of the era, this process has long been ongoing.

Listen to the audio version of this article here:

In fact, the Victorians were the first soft-on-crime society. Much like in modern America, they became a society in which both judges and juries were uncomfortable with the old methods of justice—hanging everyone who committed any crime—and as a result crime began a slow resurgence…which we are now dealing with in a very painful way across the Western world.

In fact, the Victorians increasingly struggled to enforce the law and punish wrongdoing with due vigor not just at home but across the empire as the years wore on, with the humanitarians increasingly insistent that it was wrong to scour the natives with the Maxim gun or Martini-Henry when the situation called for it. This, in weakening their will and constraining their ability to put down rebellions, helped bring about the end of empire a few decades on. Such is what I wrote about in the article below, if you’re interested. As I’ve written about it in the imperial context before, this article will be confined to the domestic context.

This runs counter to the common narrative. The Victorians are remembered as having been particularly harsh on crime, with their prisons that forced inmates to do repetitive, mind-numbing work in silence to their occassional private executions. So far as the public memory goes, the Victorians were about as harsh as Draco.1

But that is a false impression. The Victorians were harsher than us today, to be sure, whether in Britain (where there has been no execution since the 1960s) or America. But they were very weak on crime compared to their ancestors; where the Victorians were squeamish about hanging anyone even in the confines of a prison, even those who attempted to assassinate the sovereign, the Georgians were more than happy to hang anyone who stole something worth a few shillings…and did so regularly.

This was a dramatic change, and the reasons why it happened are largely the reasons why we are still dealing with crime today, despite it being a very solvable problem. Such is what I’ll examine through the lens of the book High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain by Simon Heffer.

The Victorians and Crime

One might think that the attempted assassination of the reigning queen would at least call for the hanging of he who attempted it. Not when a collection of lunatics repeatedly attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria. That they were lunatics was the problem, and that they were not hanged represented a radical departure from prior English efforts to weed criminality out of the gene pool.

Read more

Read more

As I mentioned in a recent note to subscribers, this weekend I was house-hunting because I will be moving from Virginia to Tennessee. Exciting stuff! I did not, unfortunately, end up having time to record a show on Robert E Lee to continue the series that left off with his graduation from West Point and his mother’s passing. That next show, on his time as an Army engineer, will come out on Wednesday. It’s a cool story. But I feel bad not releasing anything, so I have re-edited and am re-releasing this fan-favorite podcast on nobility in the Christian and European tradition that I recorded with a while back. I think the audio quality is now significantly better, and hopefully there are fewer filler words, and like annoyances. Additionally, Evan just came out with a new publication called , so hopefully this serves as a reminder that you should check out and subscribe to that!

I will strive to get back on track with the Lee series soon, and I apologize for missing an episode. Life is just very busy right now as we try to find a home. I hope you understand, and hope you like this show.

-Will

In this episode, Will and Evan Amato discuss the idea of Christian nobility and what it means to be truly noble within the European and Christian tradition. The conversation begins with Pope Pius XII’s speeches to the Roman aristocracy, especially his question of what nobility means at a time when noble titles were losing their public force.

From there, the discussion turns to the duties attached to privilege. Evan Amato emphasizes Pius XII’s call for irreproachable moral conduct, especially in family life, along with austerity, loyalty, compassion, prudence, and the ability to influence others without humiliation or force. He presents this as a distinctly noble form of conduct rather than a combative or self-assertive one.

A major theme throughout their discussion is the relationship between hierarchy, wealth, and responsibility. The conversation contrasts an older aristocratic ideal of leisure and leadership with modern egalitarian attitudes that encourage elites to hide their status. Evan argues that wealth and position should be treated as obligations, using the parable of the talents to show that gifts are meant to be stewarded and put to use. Additionally, they explore the idea of nobility as “yeast” in society: something distinct that raises and improves the whole. Evan explains that people with resources should use them to support culture, community, and public life, rather than simply withdrawing or pretending to be ordinary.

Finally, they focus on examples and practical application of the idea of Christian nobility. Evan discusses ancient European families and individuals he sees as living this way, and then turns to the task of passing these habits on to children through education, example, dress, and ordinary conduct.

Get the book they discuss throughout this episode, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites

Read Will’s thoughts on embodying aristocratic excellence here:

Find Evan on X here: https://x.com/SirEvanAmato

Check out his Substacks here:

The Habsburg Way

Discover your roots, raise your family in the values of Catholic nobility, and build a dynasty that thrives for generations.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 An Introduction to Christian Nobility

2:54 How Pope Pius XII Defined Nobility

6:47 Duty, Hierarchy, and the Talents

10:25 Aristocratic Yeast as Society’s Leaven

14:48 Rejecting Egalitarian Pretenses

22:02 Wealth, Responsibility, and Sanity

34:08 Living Nobility in Practice

43:11 Preserving the Human Element

48:20 Raising Noble Children

55:19 Dress, Beauty, and the Final Word

Transcript

Will:

[0:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to The Old World with Lil Tanner. Today we have on a very special guest, Evan Amato, who hopefully most of y’all know already, both from Twitter and from Substack. But if not, he’s a fabulous writer, really interesting thinker, has an excellent sense of aesthetics, and now he’s doing both through his Invictus Substack and his Letters from the Old World Substack, both of which are great and you should check out. And what we’re going to discuss today is something he discussed in Invictus a while back, which is Christian nobility and what being truly noble means in the Christian and European tradition. So I’m very excited about that. Evan, could you introduce yourself for people who might not know you?

Evan:

[0:39] Thank you, Will. Yes, happy to do so. So my name is Evan Amato. As you mentioned, I write for the Invictus and Letters from the Old World Substacks, in addition to the Culturist as well. All three of those touch on slightly different audiences, but they all have been a recurring theme of looking to the past and what we can learn from that for today. So for the sake of our conversation, Invictus, and specifically this article about Christian nobility, focused on looking at the idea of nobility as, In really a very interesting turning point of European history, and that is when Pope Pius XII was giving speeches to the Roman aristocracy where he’s speaking to them and speaking about the changes that nobility, had been experiencing, basically exiting the post-war period and going into a period of new distinctions where noble titles were about to be abolished and they did not mean this much. And so he’s really asking the question, what does it mean to be noble? And like I said, all this comes from learning from what we can pick up from people from the past. And so happy to explore this with you today.

Will:

[1:59] Yeah, absolutely. I thought it was a really good article because having read the book, which is called Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, it’s a mishmash of different things that are interesting, whether it’s the southern gentry or the Brazilian aristocracy, which up until reading this, I didn’t know Brazil had noble titles. And then paired with that is this introductory discussion of Christian nobility in both the words of the author and of Pope Pius XII that makes it fascinating all around. And what you did is really picked out more interesting and helpful parts of it. So I guess to start there with this idea of Christian nobility, what would you say it is? What... You know, what makes someone like this or the people to whom he was speaking, hopefully, be noble in the Christian tradition rather than just being titled aristocrats?

Evan:

[2:55] Absolutely. Well, I think that none other than Pope Pius XII spells this out pretty explicitly, so I’m just going to read what he says to them. This is from a discourse he gives to the Roman nobility on the 9th of January, 1958. And he says, first of all, you must maintain an irreproachable religious and moral conduct, especially within the family, and practice a healthy austerity in life. So right off the bat, we have those two things, irreproachable religious and moral conduct, especially within the family. I think it all starts here. And so that’s why Pope Pius XII, he mentions this first. But then he goes on and does something that I think is really insightful on so many different levels, so we can kind of unpack this throughout the show. But he says, Let the other classes be aware of the patrimony of virtues and gifts that are your own, the fruit of long family traditions, an imperturbable strength of soul, loyalty and devotion to the worthiest causes, tender and generous compassion towards the weak and the poor, a prudent and delicate manner in difficult and grave matters, and that personal prestige, almost hereditary noble families, whereby one manages to persuade without oppressing, to sway without forcing, to conquer the minds of others, even adversaries and rivals, without humiliating them.

Evan:

[4:15] And so there’s one more part to this, but I’ll save that for later. I think that last line, though, is very, very important because part of a lot of the discourse that you see online, that we all see online, is very, very combative. It’s, you know, don’t tweeting on other people, kind of just showing, oh, you’re an idiot, here’s why, and having this be very contentious. But this is a thoroughly, thoroughly noble concept.

Evan:

[4:47] Is that you persuade without oppressing, you sway without force, you conquer the minds of rivals, even adversaries, or minds of others, even adversaries and rivals without humiliating them. And all of this has to do with your personal conduct, has to do with your personal behavior, and it has to do with those things that are, as he mentioned before, the fruit of long family traditions. So I’ll leave it there. I’ll let you direct this wherever you want to take it, but there’s a lot to unpack in that.

Will:

[5:17] One thing that I wanted to touch on in relation to that is what he mentions next, which is... Next part of the article and also from the same speech, social inequalities, while they make you stand out, also align or also assign you, excuse me, certain duties toward the common good. And then skipping ahead from the highest classes, great boons or great harm could come to the people. I think that’s interesting because if you look at like socioeconomic histories of the upper class, particularly in the Anglosphere after World War II, the death and income taxes that were inflicted on that group, I think, really changed that. And this is something that’s highlighted in a book called Class, where you go from the great country manors and city houses of the old days, from where the elite had their power but also were able to interact with the poor and members of their community, to what we’re used to today, which is secluded estates that aren’t really seen, certainly aren’t thought of, and in which those social inequalities aren’t highlighted because they’re hidden, they’re gone. And so I think that’s important because

Will:

[6:25] The duty of leadership is lost when you’re able to hide yourself away. And in embracing that there is social and political and economic inequality, you’re then able to, I think, act as a leader from there because of the duties assigned to you as a result. So I guess to unpack this as a whole,

Will:

[6:48] What do you think the Christian basis is of this? Because I think a lot of people think of the teachings of Jesus, particularly regarding the rich man, where he says you need to leave it all behind, give it up and follow me, and the rich man refuses to do so. But I don’t think that’s what Pope Pius XII is getting at here. And instead, it’s this calling to duty and duty is related to hierarchy. So could you unpack that in relation to what we just talked about and described, which I understand is a broad question, but I think it’s important to touch on. Absolutely.

Evan:

[7:21] Well, I think the parable of the talents is much more applicable here, because in the example of Jesus and the rich man, Jesus identifies that, the man’s wealth, as something that was a very, very strong attachment for him. And the more of the story is less, just abandon everything related to wealth, and more about abandoning the things that you are most attached to and that keep you from following Jesus. Us. Now, why can we say that is to move to the parable of the talents, which again, elucidates this, because talents, by the way, is not a skill, but actually it’s a talent, which is a measure of money, essentially. So it’s actually literally talking about money in the parable. And in the parable of the talents, you know, the man who gets five talents is expected to invest that well and to steward that to the best of his ability. The one who gets 10 talents is expected to invest that well and steward it to the best of his ability, and he’s held to a higher standard. He’s not called just to throw it away and put it in the ground. And in fact, the person who was given one talent, who essentially did just that.

Evan:

[8:32] Is reprimanded for doing so. And so this is the whole thesis underlying Christian ability, is that you’ve been given much, and you ought to do things with that. You have an immense duty to steward what you have been given. You have been given it for a reason. And so you have to live up to that because it is certainly one of those things.

Evan:

[8:54] With the privileges of it all come the responsibilities. And so it’s something to be very, very aware of and to take deadly seriously.

Will:

[9:03] And I think that’s important to note, because one thing that’s noted in the author, whose name I’m not going to try to pronounce because I have terrible pronunciation, he notes that they are the yeast, society is the dough, speaking of a truly noble elite, which is where I wanted to go with this and why I think that discussion of the talents is important. Because if you look at what the old nobility was, at least at its best, it was this uplifting force that really added a lot to society. Like the London season in the Regency that Jane Austen included in pretty much all of her novels. or just the similar situations where the architecture was beautiful, the people strove towards beauty. You look at pictures from the Victorian age and even like the lower and working classes have suits that they’re wearing because they see presenting themselves well in that regard as being important and were taught that by the elite. And those are just a few superficial things. But I think there really was that yeast effect where it lifted all of society up and that was related to this embracing of inequality and understanding of hierarchy and the duties associated with it. So could you unpack that and what you think is important there and then how it relates to this Christian understanding of it regarding like the talents and using what you’ve been given and kind of that situation and thought regarding it.

Evan:

[10:26] Of course. So I want to read the rest of that quote by Oliveira. He says, to imagine that yeast is the enemy of dough because it is distinct and raises it, acting as a driving force and stimulus to elevate and increase it, is to combat progress, eviscerate evolution, paralyze life, and impose boredom on everyone. And so this is, as you said, the idea that the nobility or the yeast in society is the dough. Now, the whole point of the privilege of nobility being the yeast is something that we don’t often understand because even so-called elites themselves now, they shy away from this. You know, what they will say is, oh, man, I could not work if I wanted to, but that would be really bad, and I need to go do a job just like everyone else.

Evan:

[11:18] In the older conception of nobility, it’s saying the complete opposite, saying, no, everyone else has to work a job. You have the privilege of not doing that. Therefore, you must use that privilege to be the yeast in society. The dough cannot lift itself, but you as the yeast can help do that. And so in understanding this role, this is essentially what’s being said, is that, look, high culture, I think is a very accessible example, high culture is something that most people can’t partake in. You know, most people cannot become high-class architects or visual artists, but the things that those artists and architects produce does impact the lives of thousands. It impacts the lives of people in your community. And so that is the whole point of this, of the responsibility. It’s not to say, again, most people kind of.

Evan:

[12:14] Browbeat themselves and they feel bad about this because they say, oh man, other people have to work and I just feel so fortunate that I don’t have to, but it’s saying, well, no, no, no. That doesn’t mean you should just go get a job to soothe your conscience. What you should do really is take advantage of the opportunity that you have. You should do it precisely because other people can’t do it. That’s the whole reason. It’s not that, oh, you should feel bad that you get to read old books all day or develop as an artist. No, you should do that precisely because everyone else can’t. You’re one of the few who can. Therefore, it is your duty to do so in order to help society as a whole because society needs those things to lift it up.

Will:

[13:01] Yeah, that’s a fantastic point. And it’s something that it’s just fortuitous that it comes up now because I’ve been reading a good number of books by Gordon Wood and Clifford Dowdy lately, both of whom are historians really of the early republic, whether in Virginia or elsewhere. And one thing both note is this concept of like leisure and its tie to the duty of being a leader in one’s community, where in both Aristotle and Adam Smith, which I didn’t know about Smith, they describe how an elite in society, particularly a landed elite that doesn’t need to work, because it can spend its time on leisure, is then better able to understand political issues or social issues or whatever they may be, and from there actually lead a community and do a better job of it than in the sort of bureaucratic democracies we generally have now, where that’s very much not the case. And it was this immense burden because political positions went unpaid, and the community members who performed them had to be willing to accept it without pay and to lead because they thought they ought to do so rather than out of any pecuniary pursuits. And it’s just, it’s such an interesting shift in mindset.

Will:

[14:15] And I just, I find it so interesting. But one thing that comes up and that comes up in nobility and analogous traditional leads is how the egalitarian view, and the Democratic view is one that’s also inserted in there, tends to weaken and erode that and replace it with something else, which is what we now see. Could you describe, like, um, why that is or how they describe it as happening and how that egalitarian view of society conflicts with this leisure gentlemanly view of leadership.

Evan:

[14:49] Absolutely. It’s worth noting that historically Americans have never very much been confident or comfortable, I should say, with the idea of being elite, of being noble. We had a wonderful example actually in Johan Kurtz’s book of John Hancock, who was very confident in being so. He would go and visit the poor and he’d do so in a gold carriage and fancy, fancy clothes. But part of that was because it actually ennobled the people that he went to see. He wasn’t trying to be Bill Gates standing and waiting in line for Burger in a quarter zip and jeans. He knew, oh no, I’m a prince of the city and I’m going to do you the dignity of being visited by one. And so anyways, this idea comes out in many different ways. I’ll actually give just one more funny example.

Evan:

[15:40] My wife, who is Italian, when she visited the U.S., I guess it was last summer, we were in a Target parking lot and we see this guy pull up in his Tesla. And it’s like, you know, one of the nicer Teslas too. And he gets out and then he’s wearing pajamas essentially and my wife was flabbergasted you know i mean even to me it was a little bit more off-putting but for her she had never ever seen something like that in her life she just said what in the world like if you’re gonna drive a tesla look like you actually do and to her it to her was actually offensive, that he would he would do such a thing as as to wear pajamas and so.

Evan:

[16:19] Anyways, all of this to say that part of being noble is being unashamed about the fact that you are.

Evan:

[16:28] I don’t know much else to say. To know that that is what you are, and to have a confidence about it. This is, again, another really interesting way. I know some very wealthy, high net worth individuals in the U.S., and all of them always try to downplay this. They never like to, and it doesn’t mean that you have to be flashy or that you have to flaunt your wealth, but they always try to pretend like they’re just, oh, I’m just one of you. And it’s kind of like, no, you’re not. You’re not. So don’t act like it. And I think part of the reason why people actually avoid that is because it does hold them to a higher status. It holds them to a higher bar of responsibility.

Evan:

[17:09] And so in the Christian conception, it says, be honest. It says, be humble. You know, being humble does not mean to go in and continually belittle yourself or to pretend that you’re something that you’re not. That’s actually rather prideful to do so. It’s more akin to pride, presenting yourself as something you’re not, than it is to humility. Because humility is simply to see things as they are. You can be a man who’s very wealthy and very good at something too and say, yes, if I can honestly assess my skill as this, then I am being humble in doing so. You’re seeing the world exactly as it is. And so actually the Christian call with regards to nobility is to be honest and is to be humble in the sense of knowing that you are different from the masses and so therefore you ought to act differently. I’ll read again from Oliviera here. He says, Concretely, this new quote-unquote nobility frequently is not, nor could it be, a true nobility for mostly because a great part of its members do not wish to be noble. And so, he says, I’m trying to think if I want to skip down a little bit.

Evan:

[18:24] He says, while the historical nobility was and wanted to be an elite, this modern antithesis of the nobility frequently prides itself in not differing from the masses. It strives to camouflage itself with the ways and habits of the masses, purportedly to escape an impenet vengeance of the demagogic egalitarian spirit. This spirit is usually fanned by the mass media, whose owners and top executives, paradoxically, often belong to the same antithetical nobility. So anyways, there’s a ton in there, but the whole point of priding yourself and not differing from the masses is actually one of the most ignoble things that you can do. It is far more when it comes to living a life and ability. And this is what I talk about, actually. I was just on the phone last week with someone, who’s in a position, someone who’s done very well for himself and he’s saying look like i want to actually start to make good on this stuff he’s been reading some of johan’s work as well, and that was the advice i gave him i said you know go for it and be unashamed about it and the fact is you are different from everyone else that’s doing this, and so act like it and and don’t be don’t be afraid of that it’s actually in stepping into that difference that, you step up to the responsibility as well.

Will:

[19:42] It’s interesting because President Trump is in many ways not what we’re talking about here. But one thing he does well is this, where if you remember the incident where he went to work at McDonald’s for the day and like interact with the workers, and he’s also done this at his Trump hotels and with the garbage truck thing. He’s always in his suit with the French cuffs, with the cuff links and it’s all it’s a well put together outfit befitting his station as a successful businessman but he always wears that to whatever the situation is where he’ll put on you know the apron or whatever he has to over it, but he’s not, he doesn’t hide his wealth and he tries to show who he is, which is quite in contrast with the other oligarchic congressmen in America showing up in their flannel shirt to some stupid farm event where they know nothing about farming and giving their little speech. And it’s something of a throwback to, um, you know, men I’m interested in like Coke of Norfolk, who was this famous agricultural landlord, but also a promoter and scientific agriculture and the Regency period. And he was extremely wealthy, has this huge Palladian house the family still owns. But he would host these farming events with all the farmers, bring people in from all over the country. And it was a big thing, but he never tried to hide who he was. Who he was was very much part of this duty and this tendency he had towards trying to improve the nation, which it’s just such a different view of

Will:

[21:10] Who we are and what we ought do. Before getting into some specific people you know or specific families we could talk about, one thing I wanted to ask about was how not doing this might be caustic on society or cause problems because we have gone from true nobility or at least an attempt towards true nobility and leadership by people of that sort towards the egalitarian, ignoble sort of situation described where it is people who hide their wealth, it is people who hide their position, It is this democratic spirit, which is also discussed by Pope Pius in nobility and analogous traditional elites or the speeches included therein. So I was wondering if you could unpack how the opposite of this, how the democratic egalitarian spirit might cause problems that were not problems under the old system.

Evan:

[22:03] It’s a great question. I think one of the ways to approach it is to come at it from the most charitable reading of why someone might have this approach to their wealth. You know, let’s say they’re in the context, they’re an American, so they’re not titled noble by any means, but they are wealthy, they’re in the upper part of society, and they are thinking of how they’re going to raise their kids. You know, what it comes down to is for many of those people, they’ll say, well, I don’t want them to lose touch with quote unquote reality. I don’t want them to feel like they’re different or better than other people. And I think part of this attitude is, again, it comes from this American discomfort, but that discomfort comes from the idea that differences are bad, that you can’t, it’s just a discomfort with the fact that there are differences. And in my perspective, it’s a little bit delusional in the sense of there always is going to be an elite of society. There always is going to be an upper class where we don’t live in a world in which that’s not the case. And pretending that it’s not that to make people feel a little bit better actually won’t be of much assistance at all. What is better for everyone is if you live up to that and you do it well. Again, this is something when Christians talk about money.

Evan:

[23:33] Having wealth is a great responsibility. If you think of all the people in the world who have wealth and do a lot of evil things with that wealth, then suddenly you having wealth is a great opportunity. And bring that out from just wealth itself to say opportunities for your children, ways that they can grow up and experience the world and become good stewards of a family legacy, good members in their community, productive citizens. What you realize is that if you’re in the position of raising children, then you might find that, wow, they actually have some great opportunities ahead of them. And sure, it might be different from what 90% of the other kids get to experience. But to the point, that’s why you should do it. Because it is something that, look, again, I just can’t beat the dead horse enough. There are so many people who are doing evil things for their money or irresponsible things. And what you have to be okay with saying is it is okay that there is a difference. It is okay that we are different, that my kids grow up different, that my kids grow up as an elite. It is okay that they do that because by doing so, they will be better able to actually take care of the people that they ought to take care of. And I think Winston Churchill, he actually we had this quip earlier.

Evan:

[24:59] He was the last aristocratic PM the UK ever had. And what he pointed out once was that, you know, I forget the exact circumstance in which it came up, but basically he had run into someone of the more working classes in the UK and someone had tried to make a joke and said like, no, why would I be against a man for being poor? Like that’s out of his control. He just comes from a different class than I do. Like, yes, of course I would never do that because it’s not fitting to my class. But also, it’s not like I view him with disdain for having it. And so it’s actually a more human and compassionate view, too. Because instead of looking at everyone around you like, oh, I can’t believe they can’t figure this out, you can say, well, no, of course they’re not going to. They don’t have the same resources and stuff, so that’s why I need to step in. And it is a bit of a paternal view. Critics would call it paternalistic. I think it’s part of the benefit is the fact that it is paternal, but that is a good thing. We need people to take care of us in society.

Evan:

[26:07] When you’re a kid growing up, you need a strong father figure to guide you and lead you. Now, that paternal instinct can, of course, get corrupted into controlling autocrats, or an oligarchy who just wants to force the masses to do whatever they want. But it is very much worth saying, the people who are most likely to turn into those people are the people who are not openly paternalistic. It’s the people who do think that they got there because of some merit of their own. And therefore, I’m smarter than everyone else, or I know this better, or I put it into practice, no one else did. Therefore, I have the authority to rule over them. Whereas someone who actually grows into it who inherits wealth and this is part of the one of the benefits of the.

Evan:

[26:57] Of a monarchy for example that’s inherited just by by nature of your birth is the simple fact that you know I didn’t deserve it, I was just I just happened to end up here but therefore I have all the more responsibility because of it you’re actually less likely in that case to award over others because you don’t think that you earned the right to rule over them, you were kind of given it and stepped into a position. And now you’re called to steward that well, because that is your duty.

Will:

[27:27] One point I want to touch on there, and it’s something of a loaded question, but do you think the form of wealth that serves as the basis for this nobility matters, particularly in the difference between the old landed elite, property elite that was most of the West for most of the period in which this was a mindset versus the more plutocratic forms of wealth now? Because one point, just while you think about it, Gordon Wood makes in one of his books, I think it was Empire of Liberty, is the founders, America’s founding generation, tried to model themselves after the British gentry and British aristocracy in many respects. But their wealth, whether it was plantations in the south or mercantile ventures in the north, wasn’t as stable. And so though they tried to present themselves as leisure gentlemen and in many cases tried to live up to that duty, they often had trouble doing so because they had to focus on their merchant empire or managing their plantation or whatever it was. And if they didn’t do that, they lost it and then weren’t gentlemen anymore and weren’t able to live up to the duties they thought they should live up to, with Robert Morris being one of the prime examples. So anyway, do you think that the form of wealth matters for this and matters for a Christian nobility?

Evan:

[28:47] I think it does a little bit over the long term, and that little bit becomes increasingly large the longer your dynasty goes on. But I’ll say this. I think, obviously, in many ways, something that is tied to the land is very beneficial because you have a tie to the community. However, for most of the people listening to this, for most people in the world we live in today, their initial wealth will probably not be generated through something like that. Now, it is okay, certainly, within a generation or two to earn wealth and to still live in a place. But I think the longer you go on, the easier it is, and the more your money is still not tied to anything local, the easier it is to uproot and to go somewhere else. And I think that is a fairly destructive tendency, both obviously to your local community, but also to your family itself. It’s just to have that sort of move.

Evan:

[29:53] Does tend to destabilize things. So I think as you go on, you want to get the actual wealth that you have and be able, to put that into more local things, whether that’s local stores, coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, or if it’s actually land, if it’s actually, kind of agriculture around where you live, whatever that may be. But trying to go into something that actually does have more concrete ties to the place in which you live, I think, becomes increasingly beneficial and important. I also think, really, for one’s sanity, . It is especially having wealth in the day and age in which we live, it becomes increasingly important. Now, I am far from being a high net worth individual myself, but what I can tell you is that having the freedom, for example, to move even just within the EU, you know, because my spouse is Italian, we can move anywhere, basically wherever we want within the EU. We can move anywhere in the U.S. because I’m a U.S. citizen.

Evan:

[30:59] But it almost feels a bit like that’s too much. The simple fact that you could go anywhere. And again, I’m not even one of the wealthiest people in the world, obviously. And so imagine having real, real genuine wealth and then having that possibility. Like, you could do anything. You could go anywhere. You could do whatever you want. It actually is rather destabilizing. and what you really want to do and what I have found is that we find much more security the more we lean in to say like hey this is where we want to go this is where we want to invest and we really want to become a part of the community, we really want to do that and I would encourage really everyone else especially you have wealth I think it becomes more important for that reason and again anecdotally, the people I know who seem to be the most level headed with wealth are the people who’ve done exactly this they have, earned their money and then they really become a figure in the community and they’re trying to give back. They’re trying to do things in the community. They’re trying to build up and that is how they maintain a level of sanity while also doing a lot of good work.

Will:

[32:09] The one point on that, and it’s another TV show that is very much not about this, but is somewhat relevant, is in succession, they’re deciding whether to sell the business. And I’ve only watched the first couple episodes. But one of them says, you know, any collection of idiots can have a billion dollars and waste it. But right now we have a media empire, which makes us somebody. We actually are something. And I often think about that, not in that context, because they’re all terrible, but in the context of like a local landed elite that does something. I forget the city in South Carolina, so I won’t try and guess and accidentally badmouth or talk anyone up. But in one of the larger cities in South Carolina, there’s a family that still owns much of the urban real estate, at least from what I’ve heard. And they’ve used that not just to become wealthy, though they are, but to keep the city nice and keep the city pretty. And when some out-of-town real estate developer tries putting up one of those horrid, like, five-over-one apartment blocks, they generally block it unless it’s pretty, or some other office building block it unless it’s pretty. And they use it to uplift the community, to be the yeast. And were that whatever amount of money it is that’s tied up in South Carolina urban real estate transmuted into shares in the S&P 500 or, you know, whatever it is, they wouldn’t be anyone. They wouldn’t have that power. They wouldn’t be able to influence much or do much. They’d just be like in the show one of those idiots but because of the the way their wealth is poured into community as you describe

Will:

[33:34] It’s something different there is that power there is that ability to do good um and i just think that’s it’s something important to remember and that ties into what i wanted to talk about next as we talked about before the show which is people you know or families you think of in this context that might represent well examples of christian nobility and uh living this well um so floor is open to you you said you had some people in mind you wanted to discuss i’d love to hear those stories

Evan:

[34:01] Absolutely. Before I get to those, I just want to touch on something you had said earlier about this family in South Carolina.

Evan:

[34:08] Part of what they do and the bids that they make or the people that they turn away, I’m sure they even lose some money on this deal. And this is another real characteristic of Christian abilities that you have to be prepared to do that. This is one thing that a lot of, I don’t mean this, don’t use the term disparagingly, just saying it as a fact, but people who are new money don’t always immediately understand is that it’s not always about just what works financially. You have to be prepared to do things that are illogical on the balance sheet because they mean a lot more in the human element of life. And I think that we have this crisis of belonging in our modern world, a crisis of actually having a place, having a thing of, you know, so much of our lives are online and can be online, and that’s great. I mean, we’re talking about this and we make our livings, you know, online, but you have to, it only serves as a funnel to do stuff in the real world. Like the real world’s always going to be the real world and you’re always going to have real world needs. And so to always be able to go back and do that is very, very important to be prepared to make those sacrifices. Now, with regards to people who actually do that, some people that I’ve met, I’ll start with one that you’re probably well aware of and probably many of your listeners are, but Edward Habsburg.

Evan:

[35:30] I had the privilege of spending time with him I’ve spent time with him on a couple occasions actually but he is just one of those people who it radiates out of him that there’s something special, And it’s really hard to describe. I mean, you can see a little bit of it on his Twitter presence, even in the sense that how he responds so cleverly to people who clearly hate him. And he does so immensely charitably.

Evan:

[36:00] And even kind of wins people over to his side. I mean, really, he lives that quote that I had mentioned in the beginning about winning people’s hearts and minds without being antagonistic towards them, without having them feel conquered. He’s able to deflect and have a lot of fun with people online, but in person, you get so much more of that in terms of kind of the interpersonal graces and whatnot. And he was talking about a relative of his, the Empress.

Evan:

[36:31] Zita, so the last empress of the Habsburgs. She was Blessed Carl’s wife, and she would go and speak to people in the Austro-Hungarian army, and she’d greet one man in his language, and then greet another man in his language, and then greet another man in his language. So she knew, you know, seven or nine languages and could actually do that. But then she also knew, and Edward told me this, he said, I remember going over and spending time with her when I was little. And she would make everyone in the room feel like they were there, they were present, she was with them. But not just when having a one-to-one conversation, but she could kind of play the room and design the flow of the conversation to be inclusive to everyone, for example. And this is really an art. And this is the sort of thing, actually, for which you are raised. This is why, again, not everyone has the luxury of being raised like a noble. But for those who do, this is part of what you have to learn, is that you have to learn these skills because they are gifts to people. They really are. It is like them being the yeast. So just to say, when you meet, in my experience, it’s very much like this. Every time I’ve met someone who actually is a Christian noble, let’s put it that way.

Evan:

[37:54] You can’t help but get this sentiment. Like, oh my gosh, this was an amazing encounter, a wonderful experience. I.

Evan:

[38:05] Feel very paid attention to and heard. And there’s this sort of very human presence there. So anyways, that’s just one fun thing and something that stuck out with meeting Edward was certainly a lot of that. Another thing, though, is that I’ve said this many times. One specific French family comes to mind with this, but a lot of the modern-day aristocracy that’s still going completely behind the scenes, people you’ve never heard of. It’s like, okay, you’ve heard of Edward, but most of these people, you’ve never heard of. There’s no trace of them anywhere online. And, you know, they are like the rangers in society. I can use a reference to Lord of the Rings. So this is, you know, in Lord of the Rings, the rangers are these people who are, Iragorn is one of them, but they’re practically invisible, unheard of. The locals in the Shire don’t know of them, but they’re just keeping the forces of evil at bay. You know, the hobbits have never heard their name. They never know what they do, but the rangers are out there keeping the Shire safe. And this has been my impression of meeting these people. It’s like, oh my gosh, these are the Rangers. They’re doing stuff that is just remarkable, running some very deep behind-the-scenes things.

Evan:

[39:33] I don’t think this is specific enough to out this family, but I know of a family who basically, they’re in France. They run a, how do you call it, the Conseil d’Etat. I think the Council of State in France. So the weekly meetings that Napoleon started, that’s like the weekly council meetings where they go over all the affairs of the French state. And they continue to this day. So like every, I think it’s every Wednesday, but I’m not sure. But, you know, every week, Macron and all the senior officials in France, they get together for the Conseil d’Etat. Okay. And there’s basically this one group of French nobles who run like an equivalent one in the case that the French state were to ever fall and, you know, one of them needed to step up and do things. But it’s like crazy that they’re actually doing this. And they take it super seriously and they’re super on the ball, on the nose with actually understanding what’s working, what’s not in France.

Evan:

[40:38] They take this stuff with immense responsibility and immensely seriously and then they go out into the world and do what they can because of that still in the real day to day. And so it’s funny because I was even, oh my man, I was even listening to a podcast, recently and someone they said this as if though they were taking a dig. There’s this French theme park I think it’s Puy du Feu or it’s Puy du Feu, I’m not sure which one it is.

Evan:

[41:09] But it’s this theme park outside of Paris and it is phenomenal it’s basically recreating Roman chariot races and evil fights. I mean it is the coolest theme park ever because it’s so real, it’s so interactive, it’s so actually historically accurate on everything. And it’s basically run by French monarchists. And the guy I heard talking about, he’s like, oh yeah, the French monarchist, I think it’s run by these looms. You know? And I’m like, no, no, no, like you don’t get it. This thing is awesome because it’s run by these people, not despite it. What are you talking about? Like, because someone who doesn’t, who isn’t of that persuasion would never put something like this together. They wouldn’t be willing to do the financial sacrifice and the things that a corporate board meeting wouldn’t care about. You know like the accuracy of the costumes how you know the specific historical events that they’re covering.

Evan:

[42:10] Um i mean something like you and everyone in your audience would love it’s really awesome, yeah but it’s it’s you know monarchists who who run it, and just like even that just a theme park it’s amazing it’s is really is really neat that um they do this i know another family who’s very involved with um, with running things at the sanctuary at lords, and this is something that they, really pour their heart and soul to is to taking care of the sanctuary making it great for pilgrims and this is one of the main pilgrimage sites in all of Christendom, millions of people go there every year and so to think that you just have these families.

Evan:

[42:55] Keeping the things running keeping the lights on behind the scenes and keeping the lights on again.

Evan:

[43:02] On the deeper cultural human levels, I think that’s really one of the signs

Evan:

[43:08] of Christian nobility is to be able to do that. It’s not just to be able to run things competently, which that is a prerequisite, of course, but I think so much of our world is so material and obsessed with the bottom line dollar that it loses the human aspect. And historically again the, role of nobility the role of the aristocracy is to, be the voice of the people to keep things human you know the role of the king of france and this is something that people miss all the time even just with the french revolution they say oh well yeah it was an absolute monarchy no it wasn’t actually the french revolution only happened because the monarchy wasn’t absolute enough. It was the parliaments, you know, the dozens of parliaments.

Evan:

[43:57] That caused chaos and they were, you know, they wanted a little bit more privilege and all this stuff. And had the crown actually been absolutist, it would have done something different. But people always saw, this is why like a lot of poor people in society have always identified with monarchy in Europe, obviously, because the king is their guy. Like the king is their guy. We had been talking before the show about Naples and this is very much so in Naples, actually in the period we were talking about Horatio Nelson too. But the Sanferisti these are the people who came and were like pro when the Napoleonic forces tried to kick out the.

Evan:

[44:37] Monarchs from Naples it was the commoner who came up, but this goes in to defend the monarchs but this goes completely against the revolutionary propaganda that says oh no we got rid of these people because they were absolutists and going against the wish of the people it’s like no the role of the king has been to be the voice amongst the oligarchs and the wealthy society, to be the person representing the people. And Franz Josef said it best. He was, obviously, Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria. One of a U.S. president, I’m forgetting who, but a U.S. president actually went to visit him, and he said, oh, so, you know, what’s your job? I mean, you have politicians, they do stuff, so like, what’s your role, even at this point? And he said, my role is to protect my people from their politicians. And I thought it was brilliant. It’s just one of those banger lines that sums up exactly what he does. And I think it’s still a powerful reminder to anyone who would, on any level that they can, aspire to be noble, is to be the person who preserves the human element. We had talked before about kind of the unnecessary things on the balance sheet. You have to be prepared to do that. You have to be prepared to make those sacrifices, to do things that are good for the people.

Will:

[45:53] This is something that’s interesting Roman Empire, where I forget if it was Hadrian or Trajan, was traveling through the provinces. And some, I think it was in Greece, some common or very poor elderly woman came up and tried to share a complaint with the emperor in the hope he could fix it. And he said, I’m too busy. I need to keep moving. And she said, well, if you’re too busy, then you should lay down the crown and stop being emperor. And he said, well, that’s fair. And so he stopped, listened, and fixed whatever her minor problem was. And it’s something I think of whenever this comes up, because you do see the two strains. On one hand, now there’s this rapacious money to lead that I think generally doesn’t do that, doesn’t much care. But there are remnants of this older order that still exist. And one example I go back to constantly, so sorry for the podcast listeners who have heard this before, is in a book called Aristocrats by an author named Robert Lacey, he profiles a couple of the thousand-year families that have existed in Europe. And one he focuses on the most is the Grosvenor dynasty in England. And at the time, the Duke was Gerald Grosvenor. And Lacey makes the point that, you know, this is a guy who was worth however many billion dollars in 1980. He could have had the jet set lifestyle had he so wished and just traveled to the various spas and palaces of Europe. Instead, the guy had a

Will:

[47:15] 300 events a year where he met with agricultural tenants and did sheep shearings or whatever. He was a colonel in the local militia and did that constantly. He did all the things that one would expect of an actual aristocrat instead of just someone who won big in a casino or the stock market or whatever. He was actually an aristocrat. And it represented something different and was a tie with the people who were fortuitously reliant on him to the past. And it was just, it was a manifestation in the modern day and a semi-public one at that of what it meant to be noble and what it meant to do these things. Unfortunately, I don’t get the impression that his son, the current Duke, is like that, but alas, there was this example for a while, which ties into what I wanted to discuss last, which is something you’ve mentioned now a couple times, which is, you know, how does this concept relate to the modern day and people who are listening to this? What lessons or takeaways or just important things do you think people you know, keep in mind, try and live out based on your study and research and what you’ve written about?

Evan:

[48:20] Well, I think that one of the most important things to keep in mind is how you raise your children. I really think it all comes down to that because we live in a cultural situation. You and I grew up in a culture that is rapidly changing, rapidly evolving, and rapidly in decay and also just corrupt. And so we’ve kind of found out, all right, we’ve found our footing over here.

Evan:

[48:45] Now, what do we do with this? You know, it’s like the survivors of a shipwreck who have kind of all, all right, we’re starting to get together and we’ve latched onto this boat and now we’re good. But what do we do now? You know, where are we going? Are we going to go land on an island? Are we going to go, you know, build something up? And I think that’s the task that most people listening to this will find themselves in is that they’re somewhat first generation and they are tasked with the actual building up of things and the transmission down to their kids. Who will step into a much different reality than they came from.

Evan:

[49:19] And so the real responsibility, the real challenge, is to be able to pass these things down to one’s children. Now, the best thing that I have thought about this so far, you know, I have two young kids, and I’m thinking, you know, how am I going to do this? It actually came through the metaphor of language. Because I’ve mentioned this before, my wife’s Italian, I’m American, so I speak English to my son, and my wife speaks Italian to him. And so he grows up with both of these languages, and he knows intuitively how to speak them. You know, I know Italian because I had to learn it, but he will know it, and he will have an intuition that I will never have. Now, what I can do in other areas of his life, and this is where it comes down to our task, is to give him that intuition in many other things. For example in the realm of dress, this is something that i’m passionate about now it’s why i started uh.

Evan:

[50:18] The new sub stack publication letters from the old world but dress is something that i did not grow up knowing how it was not an art that i knew how to master it was not you know it’s like okay what do you put on today or why do you even care you know it wasn’t something that i knew how to speak fluently, but now having learned it again like i’ve learned another language, I can pass that down to my son to work to him in his second nature. And I think there are many other things that you can pass this down to your children with. So that is really the task that I see before us is how can you raise your children to be native speakers of whatever it is that you’re trying to transmit, you know, for a lot of people. And so that can be, you know, your faith. It can be your values. It can be kind of business know-how. It can be, you know, an actual family business. It can be the art of dressing.

Evan:

[51:14] Any of this stuff. This is stuff that you want to pass down so that your kids grow up with it fluently. And they can speak it, they have the intuition for it, they don’t have to question it. And that is really what, again, to go back to Pope Pius XII once more, what he describes as the fruit of these long family traditions is something that’s just inherent in you. You have have just embodied it in a different way, like one embodies a native language. You just know that things sound off, or they feel weird, or these things you do or don’t do, okay? For us, you have to learn these things. The best thing we can do to our kids is to help them have that as their first language. And again, we’ve touched at maybe a tension that perhaps some listeners might ask, okay, what are we supposed to make of this? You know, because we both said, be unashamed about raising your kids to be different from others, but also don’t go, you know, be an aristocrat who’s actually very like of the people and with everyone else. And it feels that sometimes, perhaps, you know, when people first hear that, it feels like a little bit of a contradiction. Well, hang on, like, if I want my kids to be able to have that relationship with other people, shouldn’t they, you know, frequent the same schools and do this and whatnot?

Evan:

[52:36] And I think it is a gentle dance, but I think really, again, I just lean back to be okay with the difference. Be okay with the difference and having your kids grow up differently from others and raising them differently, but never lose sight of who you’re called to serve. And if you’re actually doing things to serve those people, to partake in the community, the rest of the relationships will form naturally. You know, if you’re talking about, okay, yeah, I want to help my community. I have wealth. What can I do? And then you hear about farmers. It’s like, all right, well, let’s go meet them. Like, let’s go actually figure out what they’re doing. You know, someone who is merely a philanthropist, and I use that word merely intentionally, you know, they just give money to a cause and that’s it. Like, here, let me just write you a check for this.

Evan:

[53:26] It’s actually very lazy and it’s very unhuman, you know, because you haven’t taken the time to actually sit with these people. And again, people do this with good intentions. So I don’t want them just to hear all calling me lazy. But it’s like what’s actually the biggest thing that you can give is your time and attention, especially if you are someone who knows how to manage things well, how to do with resources well. Like go sit with people, learn what they’re actually struggling with and learn how you can support and come alongside them. You know, don’t just write a check, but actually build relationships with these people. Again, so much of our life, we forget this, but we are far more embodied, than we realize. And we have far much more.

Evan:

[54:10] A need for belonging than we realize. And so our wealth is a means to an end, but it is by no means just something that you write a check and send it off to someone else. That will not accomplish things. You have to be, you know, the salt of the earth is the Christian phrase. Like salt by itself does nothing. You have to really know what you’re actually mixing it in there with to give flavor, or else you’ll just be used to embalm dead things. You don’t want to do that. You actually want to use that salt tastefully and you want to use it to bring out the flavors that are already there. It enhances a dish. It doesn’t just overwhelm it. It doesn’t look like you stepping into community. Oh, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to help this community by just saying, let’s build this building and let’s make this investment and all this stuff and kind of asserting yourself over it. No, you’re going to say, all right, what are we working with? Huh, how can we bring out the natural flavors of what’s here in order to make it shine? That’s what salt does. And I think that’s perhaps a good way to end that reflection, being the salt of the earth, as all Christians are called to be.

Will:

[55:19] I think that’s a fabulous point, particularly about teaching kids or those around you what it means and how to do things. Because with what happens during the 20th century, so much of what used to tie us to the past and the reasons things were done the way they were was lost. One very minor example that I just, it struck me when I read it is there’s a book called The Refinement of America, which is about how Americans tried to develop something of a high culture out of the frontier and the conditions. At one point, the author, whose name I’m forgetting, makes is that the way waistcoats were designed in the period, so the vest you wear under your suit jacket or frock coat then, they were designed to pin your shoulders back so that instead of slouching, you were always looking like a gentleman. You had your shoulders back and upright, and you weren’t just hunched over. And that was intentional so that your figure struck people well and so that you could better lead by example and uplift those around you by looking like you were intentionally keeping your shoulders back and doing the uncomfortable thing instead of just being hunched over and slovenly. And a hoodie does not have the same effect on one’s appearance. And that’s, of course, a terribly minor example, but it’s just one of the many things that have been lost. And a lot of that, I think, needs to be recovered because of what it means for those around us.

Will:

[56:42] So to round this off, could you describe the three current writing projects I think you have going on and where people can find you and what the differences in those different projects might be?

Evan:

[56:54] Absolutely. So The Culturist is the largest publication I run. I think we have nearly 300,000 readers on that. That’s on Substack, and we talk about literature breakdowns, kind of fun facts from history. It’s more of a wide-ranging general knowledge sort of appeal. So for people who just want to kind of dip their toes into fun little parts of history and literature, that’s the main publication there. And then the other two publications I run are much more focused on very intentional audiences. So with Invictus, each week we share lessons from great men of history and what you can learn from them. This week, for example, actually today, I’m about to post an article about Sir Walter Raleigh, a letter that he wrote to his son, knowing that his son would grow up without him and the advice that he gave him. Everything from finding a wife to going out and going on adventure and all this stuff like the actual advice that he gave him out all this and that is what we do on Invictus and then, over at Letters from the Old World. This is a twofold approach. Our free articles, and I keep these free because it’s really the mission of what we’re doing, is to talk about the philosophy and the theology of beauty. To say that you actually have a duty to make your life beautiful. And people will, especially Christians, have a lot of objections to this.

Evan:

[58:19] What about modesty? What about this? What about that? And so we kind of go through and address those and see them in their proper context. And then, you know, say, no, like this is, you know, you have your body as a temple and what does God actually command about temples and how are they supposed to be adorned and whatnot? And what does your...

Evan:

[58:39] What does your clothing say about you? Actually, it was Pope Pius, another Pope Pius, either the 10th or the 12th, I am blanking on this right now, but he said that what you wear is a vote for what you want to see in the world. He said it’s a vote for your values, for your morals. It’s a vote for what you want to see in the world. And so we explore this. And then on Fridays with that, I send out a very practical kind of breakdown of like, hey, here’s something. Typically, it’s something I’m wearing. it’s kind of breaking down like why does it work why doesn’t it how can you apply this to to what you’re uh, to what you’re wearing because the whole really with dress and something that anyone who gets into it will quickly realize is not just about wearing a suit it’s not about specific styles it’s not like you have to find someone who has your style it’s just if you learn the principles you can apply that to anything it’s just like architecture in many ways classic architecture, is not contrary to popular belief. It’s not just Greco-Roman. You can have anything be classic architecture, but that is, you know, Art Nouveau classic architecture or Thai classic architecture or whatever this might be.

Evan:

[59:50] The whole point that makes it classic is that it follows a set of proportions that are mathematically and visually pleasing. They’re harmonious. And so much address actually follows just a lot of these rules so that you can look elegant whether you’re wearing, whether you’re a cowboy wearing overalls and denim or you are someone wearing a suit to the office every day. And so it’s just helping people really tap into what that looks like and start to say, look, we have this duty and your clothes, they’re not just for you. They’re for people in your community. So for people who are, again, I guess a lot of people who would be listening to this in the sense of, Like, hey, you are going and founding a dynasty, and you are trying to live up to a higher standard. This is just one of those many elements of what we have to learn in order to actually go and project that to the world and live up to that duty and all that other than it entails.

Will:

[1:00:48] Great. I think that’s a good place to end it. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I really appreciate it. And everyone who listened, thank you for listening. I’ll see you again.

Listen to the audio version of this here:

Social Security trends toward bankruptcy regardless of who is in charge. Welfare programs balloon, and are ever more obviously a way of transferring resources from the industrious to the slothful. Gangsters with rap sheets longer than CVS receipts continue to prowl the streets because they are released time and time again by a “justice” system that has no intention of holding them accountable, and turn once-great cities into uninhabitable slums. Costco and airports look ever more like the Raj during the Mutiny, and European cities are so overrun with Africans that there’s a term for the psychological state that results when tourists arrive.1 Further, all of that is exceedingly unpopular.

Yet rarely is anything really done about any of that, or the terrible leadership and governance that leads to it. As put it on X, “Understanding that mass migration to the West has proceeded against popular support nearly universally and with little interruption is a great first step into understanding how politics actually works.”

Much as people complain, it must be said that they do very little about it. About half of Americans vote, so a quarter elect the president. Around the same percentage of each state and district elects senators and congressmen. But that has limited worth, given the scale of the matter. It’s easy to just shrug, admit that what you might do is worthless, and do something else instead. Perhaps the grocery store or gym will be less crowded, after all, if a few people are busy at the voting booth instead.

That oughtn’t be done; voting is a civic duty, and sometimes matters. A recent election in which the worst sort of Establishment Republican was replaced by a somewhat better Republican was decided by three votes, after all.2 And, in any case, despair is a sin for a reason. But apathy is easier than duty, and so is usually the impulse into which the apolitical person gives.

And why wouldn’t they? At the scale at which our elections occur—tens of millions on each side for the presidency, many millions for the Senate, and hundreds of thousands for congressmen—it’s hard not to just shrug and wonder what the point is, however awful the state of the nation is. Voting rates have fallen off a cliff in England as well.3 As voting is the easiest and least risky means by which a man can make his voice heard, the other forms of political action are similarly neglected, swamped by despair and festering apathy. It is a well-organized and motivated populace that rebels, and such a populace votes, or participates in what forms of civic participation are available. A demoralized and apathetic population doesn’t.

As a result, the destruction continues, as does the decline that comes from it. The malice-minded rulers pay no heed to popular discontent, for those who are discontented never feel a sense of ownership over the situation. Participation was not earned, but given broadly and freely. Whatever their station in life—high or low, rich or poor, somewhere in between—those who can participate in the political process have no real inducement to do so other than a lurking feeling of guilt or responsibility.

It’s hard to feel like a valued member of the civic process, or think you can much shape it one way or another, when your vote counts the same as that of the crackhead whose ballot was harvested for $20 and promises of more money for Dewayne Geld programs.

Such is largely why the bad governance continues as it does. There is never a moment when those who are deeply invested—not just financially, but spiritually and personally—in the situation realize that what has gone on has gone on for far too long, and that not only must it stop but they must be the ones to stop it. Such men, by and large, don’t exist anymore. They were destroyed, and destroyed for a reason.

Uncoincidentally, this happening is the moment hope begins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The forces of Darkness are strong, endless hordes are on the march, and all appears lost. And then an entity of the old world, his kind long since long since lost to memory and shrouded in myth, awakes and realizes that it is his duty to fight for the preservation of his people—in this case, Fangorn Forest—against the ever-encroaching hordes who have done so much damage to it. And so he marches on Isengard, and the forces of darkness receive their first real check in large part because of his leadership and bravery.

Such is just a story, of course. The Two Towers does not lay out a coherent path to political victory, however fun to read or watch it may be. Regretfully, very few of us are trees that can pull down a fortress of evil and drown its denizens, however much those denizens might remind us of current problem-causing Americans.

But there is something in it that gets to the central problem we now have: why is nothing done? Why does the bad governance continue, sticking around regardless of what attempts at treatment are imposed?

This wasn’t always the case, after all. Victorian governance was not always the model of picture-perfect leadership, but was generally competent and tended to eventually redress reasonable grievances of the industrious populace, rich and poor alike. Pre-Civil War American government might not have been universally good, but was generally competent. Even after the war, once Reconstruction was given up on and a state of relative normalcy returned, we had some good leaders. Cleveland, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and Coolidge were all pretty good. Taft and Harding weren’t great, but were exemplars of excellent government compared to the general state of things today.

Worst in that period was Ulysses Grant, who, despite being a generally good man himself, was 1) utterly incompetent as president, and 2) taken in by corrupt plutocrats who used his presidency as an opportunity to loot the country. That they were able to get away with it, and that he was in office at all, was largely the result of the South being excluded from the political process and the mix of deeply egalitarian Radical Republicans and avaricious carpetbaggers “representing” the South instead. For that period, there was no brake upon democracy and its worst impulses, and so the Radical Republicans could impose their will without check after riding a rising tide of envy and vengeance all the way to its inevitable conclusion.

Fortunately, such men as Fitz Lee and Wade Hampton III—both of whom were dashing Cavaliers who served under JEB Stuart and who later served as post-bellum politicians who helped undo Reconstruction—stood as a check against them, in the end, and helped the South shrug off its burdens and resume its position as a check upon mass democracy. A much more minor check than previously, of course, but a check nonetheless.

This continued far longer into the 20th century than most imagine or remember. Governor and Senator Harry Byrd, the last distinguished member of another ancient Virginia line, built a hugely powerful political machine that dominated Virginia for decades, and he spent the last 30 years of his life using it to exercise a check upon FDR and egalitarian progressivism. Much damage was done despite him, but he always stood in the breach and held back the tide with as much strength as could be mustered, fighting in particular for fiscal restraint and against the Civil Rights Cultural Revolution. The Byrds of Virginia by Alden Hatch includes a relatively brief (~100-page) and generally sympathetic biography of him that describes his war with FDR, and what deeply inculcated, very Virginian political values and personal virtues led him to wage that war.

In Senator Byrd, one can see that about which Tolkien wrote coming to life. His blood was of the First Families of Virginia. His ancestors had crossed the Atlantic before the war with the Stuarts and built a great fortune that empowered them as one of the great leading families of Virginia and exemplars of what the American gentry could be, though it was a fortune and opportunity that William Byrd III frittered away. Consigned to relative poverty, they retreated to the Western frontier and rebuilt a small fortune in the Shenandoah, one that the hard-driving, hard-working Harry Byrd turned into a vast fortune once again, doing so largely through his own innate excellence rather than with the help of others.

Lurking in the Western woods, he grew disgusted with the machine politics he saw operating in Virginia, with all the waste, fraud, corruption, and bad government that grew out of it. From the immense debt burden that had to be assumed by an impoverished taxpayer to the backward state of country-managed roads, he saw what democracy at its worst could be.

He eventually decided that not only was that something that had to stop, but that he would be the one to stop it. This he did. He became governor, destroyed the old political machine, and built a new one that was characterized by its honesty and efficiency. In imposing poll taxes that limited the electorate, he constrained mass democracy, and used the opportunity for reasonableness that came from only answering to a limited electorate of competent men to ensure that good government and good policy remained the case in Virginia for decades. As a result of that action and the machine he constructed, one that lasted until the communistic Civil Rights regime finally won in the 1960s, he was able to restore Virginia and fight FDR’s pinkos, imposing a great many checks upon them.

The forgotten man of blood long consigned to myth emerged from the woods, and battered down the rot that had resulted from the absence of his kind.

Such is the very thing that mass democracy seeks to prevent. The reason that the pushers of equity sought with such vigor to destroy the gentry and abolish poll taxes and like constraints on the electorate is that those constraints on democracy, when paired with good government, allowed for men like Harry Byrd to remain in power for a long enough time to shape the course of history.

Any demagogue, populist, or talented politician can take office, even in a mass democracy. What voters there are will be upset, and vote against the terrible government of the present regime to spite it. That’s not much of a problem for the regime, for, as we have seen with Trump, it can just throw up procedural hurdles for long enough to avoid facing any real reforms or changes. With perfidy and obstinacy, it can buy itself enough time for the reformers to tire out or the voting base to turn on them over “betrayal” (being temporarily stymied by a regime that has long been in power). The typical Barabas-choosing tendencies of democracy result, those who might reform the system lose power, and from there, it can get back to “business,” which largely consists of looting in one form or another.

Constraining democracy to those who have shown they are stewards of their own lives and can thus be trusted to be stewards of the fate of the nation changes that. As shown in Rhodesia and the Virginia of Byrd’s ancestors, an electorate limited to such men as are personally capable of impulse restraint—shown largely through accumulating the wealth typical of the middle class (generally the bottom 50% was excluded)—can stick with good leaders long enough for them to do good things. In both Virginia and Rhodesia, this meant first building high civilization out of the wilderness and then using the riches of that new civilization to fight a grinding war against the great imperial powers of the day. Virginia won and Rhodesia lost, but in neither case would it have been possible had the electorate been governed by impulse rather than a sense of stewardship informed by deep life experience.

Similarly, it’s hard to imagine a Virginia other than the one led by the Byrd machine putting up such long-lasting and temporarily effective resistance to the Civil Rights regime (this was called Massive Resistance) at great financial and reputational cost. But it did so because it understood the importance of defending its culture. Non-coincidentally, Harry Byrd was also Rhodesia’s staunchest defender in the Senate, for it was fighting against the evils of egalitarianism as well, and doing so at the same time.

Such is what the egalitarian regime does not want. It knows it is unpopular. It knows its policies bring death and poverty rather than human flourishing; indeed, that is the point of race communist expropriation efforts. And it knows that long-lasting resistance to its failures, exactions, and intentional disasters would bring the defenestration of it, and creation of a pre-Great War type world in which excellence reigns triumphant once again.

Its method of preventing that, everywhere it has successfully done so, is mass democracy. The Congo, Rhodesia, and South Africa all went from (relative) heaven to certain hell when they got mass democracy, as such empowered equality and the machete it used to literally and figuratively hack civilization apart. America finally got the same when poll taxes were destroyed and the break upon democracy that was the South got obliterated; we’ve since been ruled largely by John Brown’s spiritual heirs, and that has gone much as could have been predicted. Europe went from the crowning flower of civilization to a backwater increasingly owned by China and populated by Muslims and Africans with the equality wrought upon it. Democracy and the trend towards despair-induced apathy it creates has constrained once great peoples of the world as Gleipnir constrained Fenrir,4 and our elites tremble like gay and imbecilic versions of the Aesir in the fear that we might muddle our way out of that wet paper bag.

So long as we remain constrained by the strictures of mass democracy and its magical ability to lull us to sleep in the face of national death, they have nothing to fear. But if a man such as Byrd rises…they have much to fear, for the catastrophes they have heaped upon us might be undone.

How so? At the very least, felony disenfranchisement—already on the books in most states, particularly red states—would allow a motivated politician to disenfranchise enough of the electorate in any state to achieve dominant control of it. By pairing tougher regulation/prosecution of marijuana offenses with felony disenfranchisement and plea deals that push those cases through the system, millions upon millions could be disenfranchised. This is why Tennessee is as deep red a state as it is; it has the most felony disenfranchisements in the nation. If that happens alongside the general trend of leftists having a rock-bottom fertility rate (about 1/4 that of conservatives), the world could be a very different place in a few generations. One that is less democratic, and much more focused on legacy, tradition, and the long-term.

It is our duty to make it so. Not only must what is happening at present stop, but we must be the ones to stop it.

Read about felony disenfranchisement and how it relates to the Rhodesian voting system here:

Read about fertility and the remaking of the electorate here:

Read about how we can form a political counter-elite of the sort needed here:

I have been told people like getting the emails with the audio episodes, so here you go. I would recommend hooking up the RSS feed to Overcast (h…

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As a reminder, these history episodes are provided ad-free to paid subscribers. If you would like to watch it in full without subscribing, you can listen on YouTube or Spotify! If you would like to read it, the (rough) transcript, with timestamps, is provided below the paywall.

Check out our sponsor, the Classical Society, here, and tell them that Will sent you: https://theclassicalsociety.com/

Robert Edward Lee was born on January 19, 1807, in the decaying Stratford Hall, as his father, Light Horse Harry Lee, faced financial collapse. His mother, Anne Hill Carter Lee, was ill and deeply distressed by the pregnancy, but the newborn Robert became her steady companion and source of comfort.

After only a few years at Stratford, the family moved to Alexandria in the wake of Harry Lee’s arrest and release from debtor’s prison. There, Robert grew up in the shadow of George Washington’s memory and under the care of his mother while his father ultimately abandoned the family. As his mother’s health worsened, Robert took on household responsibilities and cared for her.

He also developed into a strong, active boy and received a rigorous education through local academies and family connections. At Alexandria Academy, he studied advanced mathematics and classical languages, and his teachers noted his diligence and morality. With no inheritance and little money for further schooling, he decided on West Point as the path that could provide both education and a career.

Lee won his appointment to the United States Military Academy after visiting the War Department in person and gathering recommendations from family allies. At West Point, he endured the harsh discipline of the academy without receiving a single demerit, graduating second in his class, first in several military subjects, and with a positive cash balance.

The episode ends with his return to Virginia after graduation, when he found his mother dying at Ravensworth. He spent her final weeks as her nurse, and her death in July 1829 marked the close of the formative chapter that, the episode argues, made Robert E. Lee the man he became.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 The Marble Man’s Origins

4:02 Stratford Hall’s Fall

10:39 Robert E Lee’s Alexandria Childhood

24:17 Training Young Robert E Lee

33:13 Lee’s Admission to West Point

36:31 The Marble Man, the Perfect Cadet

43:17 Lee Graduates West Point, and Loses His Mother

47:33 Lee’s Character Forged

Sources Referenced in this Episode:

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support the show at no added cost to yourself, you can do so by using the links below to order and read the sources I used to create this episode. Thanks!

Armes, Ethel, Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees, https://amzn.to/4wxAAfl

Cole, Ryan, Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero, https://amzn.to/4wiZOy3

Crocker, H. W., III, Robert E. Lee on Leadership: Executive Lessons in Management, https://amzn.to/4gvXpds

Dowdey, Clifford, Lee: A Biography, https://amzn.to/46lDf14

Flood, Charles Bracelen, Lee: The Last Years, https://amzn.to/4gDcA4I

Freeman, Douglas Southall, R. E. Lee: A Biography, https://amzn.to/4gkaqrx

Hendrick, Burton J., The Lees of Virginia, https://amzn.to/4xshjNe

Lee, Cazenove Gardner, Jr., Lee Chronicle: Studies of the Early Generations of the Lees, https://amzn.to/4q7GiTI

Nagel, Paul C., The Lees of Virginia: Seven Generations of an American Family, https://amzn.to/4wUxkfi

Nichols, James L., General Fitzhugh Lee: A Biography, https://amzn.to/4qeURoz

Royster, Charles, Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolution, https://amzn.to/3TKWspX

Sanborn, Margaret, Robert E. Lee: A Portrait, https://amzn.to/3SA6EkN

Thomas, Emory M., Robert E. Lee: A Biography, https://amzn.to/46qVL8c

Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Transcript

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The debate about Flock cameras continues to rage online, particularly amongst the right.

On one hand, there are those who think that such technology is worth supporting because it could be used by pro-law-and-order local governments to crack down on the sort of rampant criminality that blights many of our communities.

It’s a tempting argument, to be sure, as there is a great deal of truth to it. Setting such cameras up in those urban zones that don’t have “good schools”—or whatever euphemism is currently in vogue—would certainly provide motivated prosecutors more evidence to use against the criminal underclass.

Were an American Bukele with the iron spine of Lee Kuan Yew readying a blitz against gangsters and that sort, such technology would probably be useful.

But, then again, Bukele didn’t need a surveillance panopticon to deal with El Salvador’s crime problem. To turn a nation that was the most hellishly violent place on Earth into a relative paradise safer than Canada in the blink of an eye, he simply locked up the gangsters who had been terrorizing his country. He sent in his legions of armed enforcers, rounded up the gangsters, and crammed them into hellish warehouses where they can reap the wages of their sins one bleak day at a time.

How did he do so? By arresting everyone with a face tattoo. Turns out, there’s a near-100% overlap between having gang signs tattooed on your face and being a net detriment to society. No camera network needed!

I jest, I jest…somewhat. He does appear to have locked up pretty much everyone who looks like a gangster, and that worked extremely well, as could be entirely expected. Discrimination works.

The truth, after all, is that crime is a solved problem. As our ancestors found, the pillory post, gallows, and gibbet make serious crime a non-issue so long as they are rigorously applied against the obvious criminals. You might still get pickpockets and occassional serial killers, but there were no Decarlos Brown Jr. equivalents in Georgian England, for they had all been hanged.

Further, the “lack of evidence” problem suggested by crime television and such loathsome groups as the Innocence Project is entirely made up. There is plenty of evidence to leave a reasonable jury satisfied in the guilt of pretty much every criminal… again, and again, and again, as they are generally recidivists: 1% of the population is accountable for 63% of all violent crime.1 Entirely coincidentally, I’m sure, that 1% number is also the percentage of each generation that Europe hanged when it solved crime.

Nearly all crime is committed by a small number of repeat offenders. Dealing with them would solve the problem and obviate any ostensible need for such a massive surveillance network.

But, of course, we don’t do that. Anywhere. Red states and blue states, hellscape hive cities and small towns alike only “administer justice” in a very narrow band of ways calculated to be found acceptable by the softest-spined and weakest-willed amongst us.

Recidivists are put in programs that help them recover. Vast sums are lavished on feeding and housing criminal vagrants, so they can do drugs while destroying the habitats provided for them at taxpayer expense before going on to blight society in some other way. Lengthy trials in which the obviously guilty repeat malefactor is given every benefit of the doubt so that a sleazy public defender can convince a gullible jury that “criminal insanity” was the reason he shot the shopkeeper 15 times over a bottle of malt liquor, if indeed that was him. If found guilty, he’ll be housed at taxpayer expense in jail rather than public housing. More likely, he’ll be let go and returned to public housing so he can leech off society legally while plotting further depredations on those who pay for his housing.

That is not a problem that will be solved with more evidence. We have the evidence already.

It is a spiritual problem that has been around ever since the Victorians began their criminal justice reform efforts—such as by banning public hangings—and the attempt to partially ameliorate crime with a camera network is an attempt to solve a spiritual problem rooted in softness with technology that lets us avoid the hard decisions.

“Well, if the cameras catch a picture of him shooting the clerk and fleeing the scene, then surely the prosecutor will have to charge him!”

Alas, that’s not a solution. The same spiritual problems that have created our present problem—a governing regime that has no intention of dealing seriously with crime, as to deal seriously with it requires actions those who get squeamish at the sight of blood or act of profiling find unsavory—will remain. They are the issue, not the excuses given for allowing the problem to continue, such as a supposed lack of evidence.

Flock will do nothing to fix that, nor will any other piece of crime-fighting technology.

This sort of issue is present generally in America.

Obvious solutions exist for most of the problems that plague us, from the national debt to crime. But what those solutions require is the willpower necessary to do the difficult thing, regardless of how unpleasant some find it. To do whatever the equivalent of euthanizing the pit bulls is, and do so both consistently and ruthlessly.

Questing after a technology-based solution that uses some new thing to solve a spiritual problem—our squemish refusal to do what is necessary and press the “fix everything switch”—is the path to not just failing, but making everything worse in the process.

A somewhat lower-stakes version at present is X (formerly Twitter). Ever since Elon began allowing creator monetization of content on Twitter, it has been blighted by scammers based in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and so on. They use rage bait, stolen content, and AI to make a few dollars—meaningless sums in America but vast riches in Calcutta—while utterly poisoning discourse and dialogue on the platform.

Much as there is an obvious solution to crime (hanging criminals), there is an obvious solution to dealing with various slop-peddlers pushing monetized engagement bait. That solution is to stop countries known for fraud from accessing the monetization program. Indians and Nigerians don’t care deeply about American politics. They’re on the platform to make $5 from posting about Trump or divorce and then live like the King of Calcutta for a week, not to add value for anyone else. They could simply be cut off from doing so with location-based demonetization. That would chase such types off the platform and stop them from ruining it. Notably, X users who enjoy posting and engaging with thoughtful discussion on the app, or just having fun in an environment unpoisoned by Bangladeshis, constantly demand exactly this. It’s not a novel or bespoke solution, but rather the obvious one.

Yet that isn’t what X has done. Instead, it has attempted to algorithmically suppress their monetized slop by tinkering with what sort of content the X algorithm recommends. As a result, the sort of content that gets traction on the app constantly changes, while generally converging to the lowest common denominator. Long-form posts will do well for a bit, and then will be suppressed because the scammers start using them to push slop. The same has happened with videos, threads, short posts, media posts, and every other variation of post one might imagine. The scammers always find a way around the tinkering, and everyone else suffers doubly. Not only do we have to see the Indian slop poster content, but we also have a harder time posting or seeing clever, thoughtful content created by Americans.

As a result, the platform’s usefulness and enjoyability have degraded significantly.

Much as with crime, there is no easy technological fix that obviates the need to discriminate. Worse, the quest to find one despite the evidence that none exists makes the overall experience far worse for everyone else. It also makes it harder to justify investing time in growing accounts on the platform, buying ads on the platform, or doing the other little things that would benefit its owner and make it the digital public square Elon wants it to be. That is a great shame, as he has sacrificed heavily in buying it and defending free speech on it. So, I continue to use it and encourage others to do the same. But his underlings lack his will, and his attention appears to be focused elsewhere, for now (many such cases), and so the problem continues. Hopefully it gets better. In the meantime, it’s a great shame.

There are solutions to our problems. But those solutions involve doing the hard thing ruthlessly and in the face of significant caterwauling, not in finding exquisite or bespoke technological solutions that dodge doing that hard thing. We must relearn that lesson.

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As a reminder, these history episodes are provided ad-free to paid subscribers. If you would like to watch it in full without subscribing, you can listen on YouTube or Spotify! If you would like to read it, the (rough) transcript, with timestamps, is provided below the paywall.

Check out our sponsor, the Classical Society, here, and tell them that Will sent you: https://theclassicalsociety.com/

Anne was born into privilege at Shirley Plantation as a daughter of Charles Carter, one of the richest men in Virginia. She received a refined education in literature, French, music, and Anglican devotion, and was her father’s favorite. Her life changed for the worse when she married Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee in 1793, after watching him court her cousin Maria Farley first. Harry’s financial troubles, debts, and unfaithfulness quickly ruined the marriage Anne had hoped would be happy.

After the marriage, Anne lived through years of neglect, isolation, and worsening poverty at Stratford Hall. Harry’s speculation and debts pushed the family toward ruin, while Anne remained with him and kept her unhappiness private. Her father later protected her inheritance through a trust, so Harry could not take it. Even so, the household became increasingly desperate, with creditors, arrest warrants, and locked doors turning Stratford into a chilly hell.

Anne’s health declined, but she focused on raising her children, especially Robert. In Alexandria, after the family left Stratford, she created a frugal household and taught Robert to manage money carefully, avoid debt, control his emotions, and submit to duty. He became her nurse and companion as her illness worsened, and she supported his path to West Point before dying at Ravensworth in 1829. Robert and his incredible character were the living result of her sacrifice, as he reflected on for his whole life.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Robert’s Life, Anne’s Legacy

2:16 The Heiress of Shirley Plantation

6:03 Anne’s Marriage to Harry Lee

17:02 The Winter of Ruin, Birth of Robert

22:16 A New Start in Alexandria

25:25 Robert and Anne’s Deep Relationship

30:10 Robert’s Character and Sense of Duty

37:43 Anne’s Last Legacy

Sources Referenced in this Episode:

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support the show at no added cost to yourself, you can do so by using the links below to order and read the sources I used to create this episode. Thanks!

Armes, Ethel, Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees, https://amzn.to/4wxAAfl

Cole, Ryan, Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero, https://amzn.to/4wiZOy3

Evans, Emory G., A Topping People: The Rise and Decline of Virginia’s Old Political Elite, https://amzn.to/4z2x6nL

Freeman, Douglas Southall, R. E. Lee: A Biography, https://amzn.to/4gkaqrx

Hendrick, Burton J., The Lees of Virginia, https://amzn.to/4xshjNe

Lee, Cazenove Gardner, Jr., Lee Chronicle: Studies of the Early Generations of the Lees, https://amzn.to/4q7GiTI

McGaughy, Kent J., Richard Henry Lee of Virginia: A Portrait of an American, https://amzn.to/4xn1qaS

Middlekauff, Robert, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789, https://amzn.to/4cbhg05

Nagel, Paul C., The Lees of Virginia: Seven Generations of an American Family, https://amzn.to/4wUxkfi

Nichols, James L., General Fitzhugh Lee: A Biography, https://amzn.to/4qeURoz

Royster, Charles, Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolution, https://amzn.to/3TKWspX

Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Transcript:

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Of all the incredible feats of arms conducted by Rhodesian security forces during the Bush War, the cross-border operations into Mozambique were the most incredible. Multiple times over, small bands of brave Rhodesian troopers attacked the bases of communist terrorists who had been given sanctuary in Mozambique by FRELIMO after Portugal gave its old colony up, and wreaked havoc while slaying thousands upon thousands of those terrorists.

Of these, Operation Eland was the most incredible, and probably the most tactically successful. Unlike the raids, which generally involved the use of military airpower and large numbers of conventional soldiers paradropped in or helicoptered in, Eland consisted of under one hundred Selous Scouts—white and black Rhodesian special forces talented at infiltration of terrorist groups—raiding and defeating thousands of guerrillas with the aid of just a few armored cars. But it was also Rhodesia’s biggest strategic defeat, as the predictable backlash to it cost Rhodesia the war.

Operation Eland

As I discussed in my podcast on why Rhodesia lost the Bush War, the Bush War changed substantially with the overthrow of the formerly Salazar-led Portuguese government in the Carnation Revolution. Its replacement with a leftist regime uninterested in continuing the colonial project meant that Mozambique fell to the communists in 1975. The Portuguese handed off their centuries-old colony to FRELIMO, a communist group against which they had long fought, and skedaddled.

This was a major problem for Rhodesia and led to Operation Eland in 1976.

Prior to FRELIMO’s takeover of Mozambique, the communist terrorist bases had primarily been confined to Zambia. As the Zambia-Rhodesia border was relatively small and generally defensible, this limited the scope and scale of the Bush War somewhat. Particularly, it meant that relatively few farmers had to contend with attacks on their farmsteads, and that relatively few guerrillas were able to make it into the country and place landmines on the roads while trying to terrorize the Rhodesian blacks in the Tribal Trust Lands (TTLs) into supporting communism. Further, Portugal was an ally, and so its hold on Mozambique meant that Rhodesia could import much-needed oil through the port of Beira.

All of that changed in 1975. When FRELIMO took over, it welcomed in ZANLA, the primarily Shona-supported communist terrorist group led by Robert Mugabe. Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA, supported mainly by the Ndebele, primarily stayed in Zambia.

ZANLA operating out of Mozambique changed the war. The border to defend was suddenly about three times as long, and the Mozambique stretch was largely unprotected by natural barriers of the sort that made the Zambian border easily defensible. It was, instead, just a land border and the rebels poured across it. They wreaked bloody havoc as they attacked farms en masse, made roadways unusable by planting mines, and terrorized the TTL inhabitants into supporting the communist cause. If you are interested in this aspect of the war, I wrote about it here:

This expansion of the war began a demographic disaster for Rhodesia: frontline farmers gave up and fled the country. This mass exodus starved the Rhodesian war machine of white recruits and caused increasing problems for the Rhodesian economy, which was already overstretched as it struggled to pay for the costly Bush War. The problem started in 1975, and was in the process of becoming critical by 1976.

As the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization put it in mid-1976, ‘….we go from crisis to crisis …. our terrorist threat has developed to the greatest we could possibly expected …1,600 terrorists within Rhodesia, 2,000 under training and possibly 10,000 waiting in the wings for training…. the increased call up for whites has affected the economy….. unless terrorist casualties exceed their present rate of infiltration, no amount of continuous call up will of itself provide a military solution…. Indeed it is doubtful whether any purely military solution (by RSF) is possible…the official CIO assessment is Rhodesia is beginning to lose the war.’1

Two strategies emerged as the Rhodesians sought to get a grip on this threat.

One was the development of Fire Force units: scouts, observation posts, and aerial reconnaissance would identify communist terrorist groups, and Rhodesian light infantry would be immediately paradropped right on top of those “floppies” to close with and destroy them. Backed by airpower and helicopter gunships, these Fire Force units were highly effective and eventually achieved ~60:1 kill-to-death ratios. These hugely effective missions had the advantage of destroying guerrillas within Rhodesia’s borders, so international enemies of Rhodesia could hardly use the tactics against the Rhodesians. However, they had the disadvantage of putting immense strain on very limited numbers of Rhodesian infantrymen and airframes.

Yet worse, to overtaxed and under-threat Rhodesian farmers, it looked like the government was just trying to keep a lid on the terrorist problem rather than close with and destroy it to get the war over with and allow normalcy to resume.

Out of that political pressure came the second part of the strategy: raids on communist terrorist base camps, particularly those in Mozambique. The Rhodesian government hoped that by obliterating large number of communists at a time, it would relieve much of the pressure on farmers while also showing the Rhodesian people that concrete steps were being made to destroy the enemy and win the war.

The first of these raids came in early 1976, and provoked the UN’s Resolution 386,2 which condemned the Rhodesian government—a government already despised by the UN—for sending its security forces over the border.

This freaked out the South Africans. Though there was no love lost between them and the UN, their mid-1970s strategy was one of detente with the rising tide of African nationalist governments in the hope that a somewhat more peaceful Africa would get the UN and its hectoring member states to ignore apartheid and focus on something else.

So, while South Africa had generally supported Rhodesia in the Bush War by providing it with weaponry, defending militarized police units to guard some border areas, supplying it with oil and serving as its export market, it was unwilling to stand with Rhodesia in expanding the Bush War into Mozambique. It made this clear to the Ian Smith-led government, particularly after Resolution 386, that it would not support the Rhodesian war effort if they kept up the cross-border raids.

The Rhodesians were infuriated by this seeming effort on South Africa’s part to make Rhodesia bear the full brunt of atrocity-filled communist assaults as those communist terrorists broke international law by operating out of a third country, all in the name of “detente” that would never actually come. Still, they had to take it into account, as South Africa was their lifeline and it turning on them—as Kissinger had pressed it to do since 1975—would mean certain defeat.

Thus, there were no more attacks for the rest of 1976…until August. Then, after a series of deadly early August attacks on Rhodesian soldiers and civilians from ZANLA rebels operating out of base camps in Mozambique—attacks which led to even more intense criticism of and pressure on the government from frontline farmers and whites tired of trying to negotiate with murderous communists—Rhodesia decided to ignore South Africa and launch a counter-attack that it thought to be well-justified.

Out of that decision came Operation Eland. In the name of deniability, the Selous Scouts would conduct the operation, they would use FRELIMO uniforms, and they would primarily use captured communist weapons, such as AK-47s and 12.7mm heavy machine guns. Working with a ZANLA turncoat who led them to the rebel camp, they would descend upon it in a flying column of heavily armed trucks and armored cars, slaying as many of the enemy as they could, and then beat a hasty retreat before anyone could figure out what was happening.

It went more or less as planned, and Operation Eland was so tactically successful that it has entered the realm of legend. Those 84 Selous Scouts, with the white members of the raiding party wearing blackface to confuse the guerrillas, smashed into a ZANLA encampment in Mozambique and slew over a thousand of the enemy guerrillas. Organized into a flying column of armored cars and light trucks equipped with everything from anti-aircraft cannons to heavy machine guns, the Selous Scouts had the turncoat ZANLA operative with them blow the whistle signifying “come to parade ground”, and then wiped out about a thousand terrorists in a lightning-like blitz on the camp. did a great video on the operation, for those interested in learning more.

No Selous Scouts died. A thousand communist terrorists were slain. ZANLA got a bloody nose, Rhodesia got some breathing room, and so the operation was a success. Or so it first appeared, as it was indeed a major success at the tactical level.

But not at the strategic level. The humiliated communists immediately went into damage control mode, and both played up that the Rhodesians had attacked Mozambique while claiming that it was not really a training camp, but a refugee camp, and the Rhodesians had slaughtered a thousand refugees. Amnesty International led the charge in denouncing the raid, insisting it was "a gross human rights violation and a war crime". Western governments and communist regimes joined in, attacking the Rhodesians for the case of very successful cross-border retaliation.

That would have mattered little if the South Africans were made of sterner stuff, and remained committed to opposing communism in Africa. But they were led by the execrable Prime Minister John Vorster. Left unnotified of Operation Eland, which came despite his insisting to the Rhodesians that they must not launch such cross-border raids because of how those raids would reignite world hostility to Rhodesia, he was furious.

He was so furious, in fact, that he decided to start working more closely with the anti-Rhodesian Kissinger, and to shut off South African military aid to Rhodesia. Almost overnight, Rhodesia lost a significant percentage of its air force support personnel, the militarized police that had been guarding its more peaceful border zones (thus freeing up the Rhodesian security forces for where they were more needed), its source of munitions resupply, and its source of oil. I wrote about this diplomatic disaster here:

Cut off from everything it needed to continue prosecuting the war, Rhodesia buckled. At the behest of Kissinger and the South Africans, Smith signaled his commitment to eventually achieving black majority rule.

At that point, the war was lost. Though fighting continued for years longer, the war became about putting the least awful black government in power rather than holding onto what made Rhodesia so successful—its Responsible Government.

Operation Eland was a tactical masterstroke. At the trifling cost of a bit of machine gun ammunition, a thousand enemies were slain. But it was a horrible strategic defeat, for out of it came the international backlash that led to Rhodesia losing the war…as it had been warned would happen before it planned or launched the raid.

Learning from the Eland Debacle

Prudence is a virtue for a reason.

Rhodesia’s great strength as a nation was its people and its “Responsible Government”. From the beginning, when Rhodes put together the Pioneer Column and sent it north, Rhodesians were distinguished by their personal excellence. They were better educated and more competent than average, and their immigration policy enhanced rather than weakened this. Paired with that was the limited nature of democracy in Rhodesia. Instead of letting just anyone vote, only he who had shown himself to be a steward in his personal life could help steward the fate and hopes of the nation through voting.

The great advantage of that people and system was that it let the Rhodesian government be more prudent than average. While the rest of the once-great West followed the path of egalitarianism-based national disaster, Rhodesia embraced the old values and grew tremendously as a result. It didn’t have a grossly ballooned welfare state, nor was it wracked by out-of-control inflation. It didn’t let Civil Rights-style protests destroy its system without a fight, nor did it go along with voluntary death via decolonization. It remained an exemplar of what the West once was, and still could be. All because it was led by excellent men who could be and were prudent, rather than pushed along by the disastrous tides of mass democracy.

That weakened in 1976. Exhausted by years of bitter warfare, frustrated with the poor treatment it had received at the hands of every nation, staring down the barrel of a long death via demographic decline, Rhodesia abandoned the prudence that otherwise characterized its every move, and flung itself at the guerrillas in Operation Eland. Quality made its superiority over quantity known, and the raid was a great tactical success. But Rhodesia died as a result of that tactical victory, for very predictable reasons. Past Rhodesian governments would have clearly explained the dangers of lashing out to the limited electorate, and used the advantages of the relatively small base of enfranchised voters to stick to a Fire Force-dominated wartime strategy of prudence and long-term commitment rather than rolling the dice on landing a very risky knockout blow. Abandoning prudence for a moment has meant decades of suffering and disaster.

We ought not forget that. America too faces the spectre of demographic disaster as a result of decades of unchecked migration, and treacherous judges, NGOs, business owners, religious charities, and similar sorts who have brought those invaders and their toxic views to our sacred soil. That demographic disaster must be reversed. Similarly, the Dewayne Geld-induced debt disaster is a major problem, as are the continual ravages of race communist disparate impact law, as is inflation making housing out of reach for many Americans.

That various judges and bureaucrats are throwing every roadblock imaginable in the way of the Trump Administration’s efforts to deal with those problems is frustrating, much as the weasel Vorster’s backbiting and hesitance to fully support Rhodesia must have been frustrating.

But we must not lose sight of what matters, which is steadily chipping away at those problems as the immense tailwind of conservative TFR dominance over the left starts to aid us in retaking power more fully.

Rhodesia’s one hope of victory was slaying as many terrorists as possible and weathering the storm until some sane leader rose to power in the West. Ronald Reagan, generally favorable to Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, probably would have been that guy. Rhodesia almost made it to 1981. But not quite, largely as a result of leaving prudence by the wayside, rolling the die on Operation Eland, and coming up short.

We ought not do the same. Our hope of eventual victory comes from winning the waiting game while notching victories that allow for and accentuate our TFR advantage, namely ever larger numbers of deportations, keeping the border closed, and undoing as much as we can of the high-tax, high-regulation regime under which we currently suffer. There are reasons to suspect we can achieve that, and are on the path to doing so.

It won’t be easy, nor will it scratch the itch of self-gratification that would come from doing something much more radical in the hope that accelerates the victory timeline. But staying the course is important. Remaining prudent is important. Such is the path to victory, and we ought not try to scratch the itch of wanting more dramatic action—whatever the culture war equivalents of cross-border raids rather than Fire Force operations are—and risk throwing away our advantages and ultimately losing quite badly to the forces of race communism.

As a reminder, these history episodes are provided ad-free to paid subscribers. If you would like to watch it in full without subscribing, you can listen on YouTube or Spotify! If you would like to read it, the (rough) transcript, with timestamps, is provided below the paywall.

The son of Light Horse Harry Lee and heir to Stratford Hall, Henry began as a promising young man, educated at Washington College and the College of William and Mary. He served with distinction as a major in the War of 1812, and inherited a family estate in deep financial trouble, thanks to Light Horse Harry’s debts and sales.

Stratford’s survival initially depended on a trust arranged by Henry’s mother, Matilda Lee, which protected the property for her children. When Henry came of age, he took control of the estate and later married Anne Robinson McCarty, who brought a large fortune in land, bank stock, and other assets. Her money restored Stratford Hall, but the marriage also brought Anne’s younger sister, Betsy McCarty, into Henry’s household as his legal ward.

After the birth of Henry and Anne’s daughter Margaret, the household seemed settled, but in 1820 the child died in a fall down the stone steps at Stratford Hall. Anne was overwhelmed by grief and became dependent on laudanum. In that strained household, Henry formed a close relationship with Betsy McCarty, and the two began an affair that led to her pregnancy. The scandal became public, and Henry was disgraced.

Disgraced Henry then faced ruin over the money he had taken from Betsy’s estate. He tried to escape the consequences through a failed scheme involving Dr. Robert Mayo and a proposed marriage to Betsy, but the courts moved against him and Stratford Hall was sold in 1822. Henry and Anne left Virginia impoverished, later living in Washington, D.C. and surviving on limited means.

Henry then rebuilt his career through writing, becoming a political ghostwriter for Andrew Jackson and helping with campaign material and Jackson’s first inaugural address. Jackson named him consul general to Algiers, but the Senate rejected the appointment after John Tyler exposed the Stratford scandal. Henry left for Europe in disgrace, lived in poverty in Paris, and spent his final years writing a biography of Napoleon. He died there in 1837 in an unmarked grave, while Anne died three years later. The episode ends by linking Henry’s downfall to the severe self-discipline and sense of duty that shaped Robert E. Lee’s later life.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 The Lee Family of Virginia’s Fallen Heir

2:49 Stratford’s Ruin Begins

6:38 Anne’s Fortune Restores Stratford

10:01 Grief Turns to Scandal

19:39 A Desperate Cover-Up

23:13 Stratford Is Lost

25:53 A Ghostwriter for Jackson

30:42 Senate Rejection in Paris

32:40 Exile and Napoleon

36:29 Robert E. Lee’s Burden

Sources Referenced in this Episode:

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support the show at no added cost to yourself, you can do so by using the links below to order and read the sources I used to create this episode. Thanks!

Armes, Ethel, Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees, https://amzn.to/4wxAAfl

Cole, Ryan, Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero, https://amzn.to/4wiZOy3

Evans, Emory G., A Topping People: The Rise and Decline of Virginia’s Old Political Elite, https://amzn.to/4z2x6nL

Freeman, Douglas Southall, R. E. Lee: A Biography, https://amzn.to/4gkaqrx

Hendrick, Burton J., The Lees of Virginia, https://amzn.to/4xshjNe

Lee, Cazenove Gardner, Jr., Lee Chronicle: Studies of the Early Generations of the Lees, https://amzn.to/4q7GiTI

McGaughy, Kent J., Richard Henry Lee of Virginia: A Portrait of an American, https://amzn.to/4xn1qaS

Middlekauff, Robert, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789, https://amzn.to/4cbhg05

Nagel, Paul C., The Lees of Virginia: Seven Generations of an American Family, https://amzn.to/4wUxkfi

Nichols, James L., General Fitzhugh Lee: A Biography, https://amzn.to/4qeURoz

Royster, Charles, Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolution, https://amzn.to/3TKWspX

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Pictures and videos from the past are radicalizing. That is not just because they show a different world. It is that they present a picture of a very different world that is nevertheless one we still see glimmers of today, and thus is a world we still could have if only we had better defended that which used to exist. We still have many of the buildings it created, from the country houses of England to the magnificent Art Deco skyscrapers of America. We even still have some of the clubs, social events, and so on that the men of those days started.

Yet everywhere there is an odor of decay. Clubs aren’t quite the same when the dress code grows lax, and more and more wives show up with dyed hair and plastic surgery alongside fat husbands with spotty beards wearing rumpled, untucked shirts. Art Deco buildings can be awe-inspiring, but are noticeably less so when some vagrant sits out front of them blasting mumble rap on a Bluetooth speaker as he hawks counterfeit luxury goods. Modern art is added to older architecture to create the same dispiriting, disquieting effect.

And that is the decline present in those few places that have tried to hold onto the old world somewhat.

Most have just given up, as one can be reminded of by taking a trip to any American mall or airport. It is chaos rather than order, slovenliness rather than beauty, and comfort rather than cultivation that have won out. Waistcoats went the way of the dodo and suits are following them, while pyjamas and tracksuits grow ever more omnipresent.

Paired with that is a vague sense of “self-expression” being important, but only being something one can accomplish by shocking observers. Hence the proliferation of men in cargo shorts and graphic tees waddling around next to women barely clothed in spandex or pyjamas and covered in piercings and tattoos. Not quite the world that used to exist, at least out in public.

This is the world of prole drift, as Paul Fussell wrote about in Class, as I recently covered in some depth.

In response to that article, many asked me how I think we can fight back against prole drift and either ameliorate it or reverse it.

The simplest answer is this: prole drift is the process by which base impulses are put before the little things that build and maintain civilization. Comfort, a gaudy desire to tastelessly display riches, and unrestrained lust drive much of the degradation in aesthetics, spirit, culture, and morals that we now face. The proper response, then, is to find ways to reject that and to do the opposite. To put refinement, cultivation, and order first. Or, to put it more bluntly, to put that which must be developed before primal instinct and base urges.

That is a very broad agenda, and could be achieved any number of ways. In this article, I’ll give five concrete examples and explain why they are important, in the hope that the general mindset behind them and explanation of them proves useful in helping readers push back against prole drift in any way that they are able.

Rejecting and Reversing Prole Drift in Six Steps

1. Bring Back Beauty

As I discussed in my recent article on George Washington’s rules of civilized behavior, Washington is a marble-like figure who stands out as a different sort of man. Whereas others are personalities or personages, if even that, Washington was one of Plutarch’s men and was recognized as such in his day, as he still is in ours. He and his dignified face—an expression he cultivated and was very intentional about holding—stand out across history as being one of the last great examples of a republican aristocrat of Classical days brought to life.

Aiding him in cultivating the dignity that he had to acquire to become so remarkable was the exceedingly intentional approach he took to his appearance. He always ensured his clothes were appropriate, properly tailored, accentuated his form, and helped him create the impression of being a topping man who was excellent in every way; Leftists still hate him for this meticulous approach1 to his outward appearance, as it smacks of rejecting the anthill in which they want us all to live. And so they denigrate him and his style, claiming he was merely vain and self-obsessed.

But it was not vanity that drove Washington. For example, after the War for Independence, he made a point of wearing American broadcloth to support American industry. The silks and satins of Europe were certainly nicer, but showing his patriotism through his dress in a dignified way (he would have found an American flag t-shirt repulsive) was important to him. But even then, what he wore was finely tailored, well-fitting, and exceedingly dignified. He understood that “The purpose of fine dress and living is to project taste, beauty, order, care, and hierarchy out into one's community, that they might be inspired to pursue the same virtues,” as put it in Leaving a Legacy.

While few were as meticulous as Washington, that concept was generally understood in his world. Richard Henry Lee made sure to use his appearance for dramatic effect during his speeches, the British redcoats maintained their stifling woolen uniforms in hellishly hot environments like India to impress the natives, and Sir James Brooke famously used his flag and yachting uniform to impress the natives of Sarawak into submission.

Today, most lack such an understanding. Now, dress and appearance are generally seen not as a way of projecting uplifting virtues and creating a certain positive environment, but as a way to indulge in self-expression while being as comfortable as possible. Hence the proliferation of graphic tees and sweatpants in the airport.

That decline in the general appearance of society is one of the clearest visible signs of prole drift, as it is the very attitude the old world rejected wholesale.

In the past, participating in the elevation of society through maintaining a dignified appearance was seen as a near-sacrosanct duty of every civilized person. Dr. Ronald Moore put it in From White Gloves to Tattoos: How America Lost Its Public Grammar: “From the late 19th century through much of the 20th, American society operated with a common assumption: Public life requires elevation. Clothing was not merely personal—it was participatory. One dressed not only for oneself, but for the world one inhabited.”2

What’s more, this attitude applied to more than just dress. As Nasaw writes of this period in The Chief, Harvard gentlemen were taught that it applied to everything from fine art to furniture. To those men, “A well-ordered, well-decorated, and artfully furnished residence was an antidote to the disorder in the world outside. It soothed the soul, mended the spirit, and improved the character.”

That matters. Beauty is under assault, and is fading as ever larger segments of society succumb to prole drift as it applies to dress and appearance, forgetting that “beauty is one of the chief battlegrounds of the West,” as notes in Offensive Christianity.3

To indulge in one’s appearance-connected appetites—which in terms of dress typically means to embrace some mixture of comfort, sloth, and encouraging unrestrained lust—is a dereliction of duty. That duty is to set the standard. To uplift. To elevate those around, and show “the unity of virtue and status, duty and reward.”4

So, how can that be done?

For one, simply dressing well in a way appropriate to the environment is key, as I wrote about in the two articles below. The general rule of thumb is that dress ought always be as refined as is appropriate, without giving way to vain frippery. It should be dignified, fit well, and be uplifting rather than looking terribly out of place.

The same attitude ought be applied to everything else related to appearance, with the basic idea being this question: does the environment and impression that you have created serve as a beautiful antidote to disorder that uplifts rather than confuses, disconcerts, depresses, or shocks? If so, you are succeeding.

But that is just at the individual level, and more must be done. After all, this is an all-of-society problem related to behavior and appearance in the public sphere. So, look for ways to push back against the decline in decorum of dress and appearance in public life that has come with prole drift. Here are a few examples

Are there restaurants in your area with a dress code, such as coat and tie, that they still enforce? If so, patronize that place! Are you a member of a club that has a nice dining room rather than just another grill in a bar with TVs showing sports? If so, patronize the nice dining room! Is there a church that still preaches the Gospel faithfully and encourages parishioners to wear their Sunday best? If so, attend it! And, of course, both encourage your friends to do so as well and appear appropriately as you do so.

What nice things are left that still contribute to a sense of victory over disorder and cultivated beauty rather than base comfort are rare. When they enforce the rules, they are often accused of “racism”, or something similar. If we do not patronize them and support them in their defense of the rules of decorum, they will fade away…as has already happened, to a great extent.

So, in conclusion, do the modern versions of what Washington spent many of his 110 rules describing. Avoid tattoos, dress well, stay well groomed, and support those places that still help cultivate such an environment. Failing to do so is to allow prole drift to continue winning a monumental victory in the public sphere, and to prevent that, we all must be the change we wish to see in the world.

To see the remaining four suggestions and the explanations for them, please become a paid subscriber. As a reminder, if you become a paid subscriber, you get access to: every article, audio versions of every article, the transcripts of my history videos, and the ad-free versions of my history videos. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work, if you are not already. Thank you!

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