Hey, everyone,
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 Evan Amato 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 The Habsburg Way, 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:
Get his course on style here: https://sixweekstostyle.com/
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.
