Embodying Aristocratic Excellence in Modernity

What Would A Rebuilt American Gentry Look Like?

Welcome back, and thank you for reading! Paid subscribers: thank you so very much for your support, I have another paywalled article for you today. All those who are not yet paid subscribers: while some of this article is free, please subscribe for just a few dollars a month to support this project, get access to audio episodes, get ad-free versions of my history videos, and read this article in full. As always, please tap the heart to “like” this article if you get something out of it, as that is how Substack knows to promote it! Listen to the audio version here:

[AUDIO] Embodying Aristocratic Excellence in Modernity

My interest in Tiberius Gracchus, primarily his unique blend of long-time horizons, blue blood, and a pro-social attitude that led him to fight to the death for the yeomen of Rome against the rapacious oligarchs of the post-Punic Wars period, led me to develop an interest in aristocracy generally. Particularly, a subject with which I have a now-enduring fascination is what marks a true aristocracy, and separates it from a mere plutocracy.

The trite answer is that it has titles rather than just money, but I don’t think this is accurate. Who today thinks the life peers of Britain are aristocrats in any sense of the term? Are they really more of an aristocracy than the untitled gentry of the 18th and 19th centuries, whether the Cavaliers of Virginia, gentlemen-farmers of Rhodesia, or the landed elite of England? No, of course not.

Nor is it Gracchan-style populism, of course. Lord Wellington was the consummate aristocrat, but was no populist. Love of place and one’s people is probably involved, but hardly a sufficient feature—Kid Rock is rich and loves America, but is no aristocrat. Nor is it purely military leadership. Many American military officers are great guys, but not aristocrats.

So then, what is it? A good definition comes from Lawrence James’s otherwise unexceptional Aristocrats: Power, Grace, and Decadence: Britain’s Great Ruling Classes from 1066 to the Present, in which he notes:

The word aristocracy appeared late in our language, arriving via France in the mid-sixteenth century. It was a compound of the Greek 'aristo' (the best) and 'kratos' (government) and defined an Aristotelian notion of the distribution of political power in an ideal state. Aristotle's aristocrats were men of learning and wisdom whose wealth gave them the leisure to devote their lives to government and the general welfare of the rest of society.

Such seems a reasonably good definition. It is the class that possesses the wealth, inclination, talent, and virtue to lead across the social, economic, and political domains. Excellence in those areas of life that matter would be another way of putting it.

What is remarkable is the degree to which America no longer has such a class of men. We once did, to be sure. The Virginians of the 18th and early 19th centuries were the best example, and the WASP aristocracy that led the nation after the War Between the States is the other classic American example. Both classes are now dead. The Virginians because they were killed in the War or lost what they had stewarded for generations during Reconstruction, and the WASPs because they fell apart due to an addiction to leisure and the ravages of taxation and inflation.

The result of that levelling social shift in which the head has been cut off the body politic and a bureaucratic hydra has replaced it has been substantial and hugely negative. Instead of being governed by a largely virtuous upper class¹ that is committed to our land and its people, we are managed and ruled by self-interested buffoons. What remnants of the old order exist are largely parodies of their former selves, and have been for some time, as Tom Wolfe subtly notes in both of his most famous novels.

So, in addition to having lost the upper class that once did a reasonably good job of building and governing the American republic, we lost the folkways that led to it. All of the little things, like taste and culture, and all of the big things, like a sense of duty and understanding of what sort of wealth abets it.

Does any American public figure today express such a sentiment? If he did, could he express it in such terms?

Such is what I have set about trying to discuss and restore in what ways I can, as have other good authors on here like Johann Kurtz, Gregory Treat, and Evan Amato, all of whom you should follow.

One aspect of such a restoration that is underdiscussed are the practicalities of what such excellence looks like, and toward what skills, metrics, and behaviors one who wants to be an aristocratic leader can strive. Mindset—primarily inculcating and embodying virtue, dignity, and decorum—is important, and has been oft discussed. But the practicalities that support it and make it functional are equally important, and so are what I want to attempt to begin discussing here: what would a renewed American aristocrat in the highest sense of the term, one who can lead in the modern day, look like?

To begin, I think the basic way to start thinking about this is to think of it like the Olympics in Ancient Greece. Wrestling, the javelin throw, the discus, racing, and more all mattered because such were the ways in which a man distinguished himself in that martial world. Hurling a javelin precisely, throwing a rock like Ajax, sprinting into the Persians at Marathon, or grappling with a disarmed enemy after the breaking of a phalanx or atop a city wall could distinguish you and alter your city-state’s history. Thus, showing such skills in a ritualized way served both as a warning to other city-states and provided a means by which the best men could show their capacity for excellence.

Medieval tournaments functioned in much the same way,² though with modifications for the time and place. They required a great degree of wealth to participate, as the armor and horses were wildly expensive, as was the lifestyle required to appear at such an event in a way that would add to one’s dignity. They required a proper mixture of cunning, honor, martial prowess, and understanding of small-unit tactics—all of which were required on both the medieval battlefield and in simply running a medieval polity of whatever size, from the manor to the kingdom.

In both the original Olympics of Classical Antiquity and the tournaments of the Middle Ages, then, what was being tested was the collection of qualities and skills that mattered for one’s success as a leader and for the success of the state one might have the opportunity to lead or govern. Those qualities and skills, from manor management to couching a lance, changed over time. But it was nevertheless the constellation of them that defined the best men that was being tested.

Our age is far different from theirs. It is much more weighted toward competition in the economic than the martial sphere, though comfort with violence matters in more ways than one might first think. Similarly, the democratic nature of today makes one’s ability to influence others somewhat more important than directly leading them than in the past, though leadership of course remains important.

With all of that in mind, I have put together a collection of attributes I think collectively mark those who could be modern aristocrats, along with what excellence in those attributes would look like and why they are included. They encompass everything from athleticism to wealth accumulation, hobbies to learning. A few are ones at which I excel, others are ones at which I am absolutely awful. All are ones that George Washington—renowned for his strength and athleticism,³ leadership, stewardship of wealth, competence at governance, and much else besides—excelled, and standards he would meet. Some are more easily attainable than others. Excellence is by definition for only a select few, after all: the best!

Collectively, however, I think they are important and should be towards what we who care about personal excellence and think it is the path to national renewal should all be working. Together, they are the standards of cross-domain excellence—namely learning, wealth, wisdom, and prowess—that indicate a true aristocracy that can lead, inclines toward leadership, and does lead, rather than just a plutocracy. As how one should lead, with what goals in mind, and so on, has already been much discussed elsewhere, I will not do that here; this is an article on what supports such virtue and behavior, on in what ways one ought try to be in the top 1% or so of one’s countrymen.

The Marks of the Modern Best Men