Leaving Desolation Row
They're Selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad
They're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
A little bit ago I was at a banquet, where I had the opportunity to meet many of you in person, and some personalities I have interacted with for years, but never truly met. During a night whose theme was “community”, a reoccurring topic was “building a new aristocracy”, or “rebuilding the aristocracy that once was.” This peaked my interest, and reminded me of that book I promised I would write, but threw up my hands because Kant (the great stain on God’s good creation), and a busy life do not mix. Yet, it made me think about a few things, particularly the why and the how.
Cinderella
She seems so easy
"It takes one to know one" she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says"You're in the wrong place My friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Why do we need a new aristocracy? Put literally, why do we need rule of the best? An aristocracy, we must keep in mind, is not simply rule of the few, nor rule of the monied. That would be oligarchy. Aristotle gives us the definition,
“The term ‘aristocracy’ is rightly applied to the form of government which is described in the first part of our treatise; for that only can be rightly called aristocracy which is a government formed of the best men absolutely, and not merely of men when tried by any given standard. In the perfect state the good man is absolutely the same as the good citizen; whereas in other states the good citizen is only good relatively to his own form of government. But there are some states differing from oligarchies and also differing from the so-called polity or constitutional government; these are termed aristocracies, and in them magistrates are certainly chosen, both according to their wealth and to their merit.”1
Living in an oligarchy, democracy, or whatever we call this incompetent cosmopolitan, telescopic philanthropic, materialistic, desolate husk of a government, gives natural prompting to the question “what if we were ruled by people concerned more with virtue than their own self-aggrandizement?” “What if”, we ask, “those ruling where the best possible rulers, not just in practical terms, but moral terms as well?” From this consideration, the appeal of re/forming an aristocracy is apparent. There also exists a strategic angle that, given the thesis of the book I will likely never publish, makes this task a prime objective. Due to the disappearance of the nation-state (where the state exists to further the interests of one ethnic group), the collapse of the givenness2, and the inability of the right to redirect the trajectory of global politics for any long period of time, my current assessment is as follows: politically successful groups will be those who, while operating in, and not disrupting, a political system, learn to bend that system to the group’s needs. An example of this I hope to explore in depth at a later time is the Rum Millet under the Ottoman Empire. Through the formation of a pan-Orthodox identity, uniting Greeks, Slavs, and Cypriots, via the practice of hesychasm3, an international network developed that was able to pull the levers of powers (never to directly challenge the Ottomans’ hegemony, mind you) for the Orthodox’s advantage. Despite living under Ottoman Muslim rule, what was left of the Roman/Byzantine Orthodox population was able to secure certain privileges, and goods, for their people. What this led to was a rather comfortable pocket in the midst of a formally hostile empire. Eventually this comfortable pocket paved the way for independence movements. A similar option is open to us today, understanding the Ottoman Empire to be a primitive analogue to the emerging global cyber state. Independence movements or not, having the ability for communities to exist unmolested by the growing cyber state is a good thing.
For a sub-state to be effective, it requires a group of capable men and women who have the eloquence, prudence, and will, to direct the energies of an otherwise indifferent (at best), or antagonistic (at worst), apparatus towards the sub-group’s goals. Who are these capable men and women? Taking from Russel Kirk’s chapter on John Adams in The Conservative Mind,
“…an aristocrat is a citizen who commands two votes or more ‘whether by his virtues, his talents, his learning, his loquacity, his taciturnity, his frankness, his reserve, his face, figure, eloquence, grace, air, attitude, movements, wealth, birth, art, address, intrigue, good fellowship…You seem to think that aristocracy consists altogether in artificial titles, tinsel decorations of stars, garters, ribbons, golden eagles and golden fleeces, crosses and roses and lilies, exclusive privileges, hereditary descents, established by kings or by positive laws of society. No such thing!” Even an hereditary aristocracy is not dependent upon positive law for its existence. In democratic America, aristocracy of descent continues unchecked. Aaron Burr obtained a hundred thousand votes on the strength of his descent from Jonathan Edwards; in Boston, the Crafts, Gores, Dawes, and Austins constitute a nobility; John Randolph of Roanoke is as much an hereditary aristocrat, by virtue of his great name, as any Montmorenci or Howard.”4
Elsewhere in the work, Russel puts it slightly differently,
“The word ‘gentleman’ has a positive and limited signification. It means one elevated above the mass of society by his birth, manners, attainments, character, and social condition. As no civilized society can exist without these social differences, nothing is gained by denying the use of the term. Liberal attainments distinguish the gentleman from other people; simple gentlemanlike instincts are not enough. Money, however, is no criterion of gentility. If the gentleman and lady vanish from society, they take with them polite learning, the civilizing force of manners, the example of elevated conduct, and that high sense of station which lifts private and public duty above mere salary earning. If they go, eventually civilization will follow them.”5
What constitutes the core of aristocracy, in the Anglo-American tradition, is character, eloquence, education, and style. If you are just, courageous, temperate, well-spoken, prudent, knowledgeable, well-mannered, carry yourself well, and dress nicely, people will tend to listen to you, and respect you. These qualities also tend to help one be successful in business, and work towards creating a good name. In the spirit of Aristotle, for the best to rule, there has to be those trying to be the best.
Now, the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortune telling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody's making love or else expecting rain
And the good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row
How do we cultivate those qualities in ourselves, or the future generation? In spite of the Twitter reactionaries, we will not be the new aristocracy, although bettering ourselves is a noble task. Our children, be they biological, or spiritual, whether they come from our womb or our heart, will be the ones to create the Millet. Raising our children to be gentlemen and ladies is the task of education, taking that word in the broad sense. Whatever position we are in, regardless of our own education, a critical way to educate the next generation is through good literature. Iris Murdoch, one of my favorite philosophers, provides key insights into the moral significance of good literature.
Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her 22nd birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an ironed vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row
In The Idea of Perfection, Murdoch develops the theme of “vision” which has particular relevance to the significance of literature, and how it shapes the soul,
“I can only choose within the world that I can see, in the moral sense of ‘see’ which implies that clear vision is a result of moral imagination and moral effort. There is also of course ‘distorted vision’, and the world ‘reality’ here inevitably appears as a normative word…The moral life, on this view, is something that goes on continually, not something that is switched off in between the occurrence of explicit moral choices. What happens in between such choices is indeed what is crucial.”6
Rather than a view of morality that says, “being good is making good choices when the opportunity presents itself”, Murdoch is articulating a view that to be moral is to see the world clearly. Seeing things as they are, and, more importantly, seeing people as they are, is a continuous moral act that makes traditionally moral decisions (telling the truth, standing up for the oppressed, being faithful to your spouse, etc.) possible. If I do not see the other as a person, who deserves respect by nature of being a person, then why, when presented with the opportunity to lie, would I refrain? Especially so if lying would benefit me, and telling the truth would harm me? When I see the other person rightly, as a being endowed with intrinsic value, then, if I really see her this way, it will be unthinkable for me to lie. Put differently, I use a hammer to hit nails because I see, rightly, that hammer is the kind of thing to hit nails. If I, instead, saw the hammer as a large fork, and tried to eat my dinner with it, you would be right to tell me, “Something is very wrong with your vision, and your idea of a hammer.” My proper use of a hammer is only possible if I see a hammer for what it is, and, continuing this to people, I can only treat them as I ought to if I see them how they really are.
Einstein disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
Now, he looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row
How do we learn to see? By forming the moral imagination, which is done through good literature. Reading good works opens up to us new ways of seeing, and, thus, new ways of acting. Works like the Iliad, Aeneid, and The Song of Roland, show, through the characters eyes’, the reader how to see in a courageous, knightly, and patriotic way. All three works of art paint a way of seeing where your honor, and the lives of your comrades, come before your safety or gain. It should be little surprise, in light of Murdoch, that there is so little patriotism today. When literature and media like the Iliad, Aeneid, and The Song of Roland, are not only absent, but what is consumed is predominately anti-patriotic, and are critical of America’s foundation (spoken of as “racist”, “unjust”, and “oppressive”), and these forms shape the moral imagination of the youth, they, having only learned to see in an anti-patriotic way, find any other view incomprehensible. Lest I give the impression that it is equally possible to see the world in patriotic, or anti-patriotic terms, and that “see” is a morally neutral word, I should say that to see America’s foundation as racist, unjust, or oppressive, is to see wrongly. “To see” in Murdoch’s account is a normative statement, and means “to see rightly.” As, using the example of lying above, the person who has learned to see others in a degraded way such that it is okay to lie, then that person has not really learned how to see, but how to be blind. If that person could see rightly, she would see what was right in front of her: that people have intrinsic value, and part of respecting them means telling them the truth. To not see that, or in the case of those who grow up to hate their own country, is not a have a difference of opinion, as many would hold, but to be ignorant of reality in the same kind of way that a person using a hammer as a fork is ignorant of reality.
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They are trying to blow it up
Now, his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have mercy on his soul"
They all play on the penny whistle, you can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough from Desolation Row
Murdoch articulates the same idea differently in On ‘God’ and ‘Good’, where she, as an atheist, explores prayer, and spirituality. Leading up to a description of reading literature as a spiritual exercise, Murdoch frames the discussion,
“One of the main problems of moral philosophy might be formulated thus: are there any techniques for the purification and reorientation of an energy which is naturally selfish, in such a way that when moments of choice arrive we shall be sure of acting rightly?”7
To combat the primal selfishness, deriving from a Freudian psychosis, or the Fall of Adam, Murdoch looks at activities that take our attention away from our own will, and reorientates our attention.
“Great art teaches us how real things can be looked at and loved without being seized or used, without being appropriated into the greedy organisms of the self. This exercise of detachment is difficult and valuable whether the thing contemplated is a human being or the root of a tree or the vibration of a colour or a sound…Beauty is that which attracts this particular sort of unselfish attention.”8
Giving our children great works of beauty, literature or otherwise, gives them something to unselfishly enjoy…something that is to be appreciated for its own qualities, and not because it can be used for my own desires. Eliot, Dylan, Kontoglou, Gibran, and Bronte, to name a few, all produced works of art that cannot be appropriated for anyone’s selfish desires. Their works of art stand and demand the type of respect we normally give to persons…there is a type of autonomy, and dignity, that requires us to gaze in silence. When we give the proper respect, we are orientating ourselves away from our own selfish will, and towards beauty.
In an age where selfishness abounds, where “the love of many have grown cold”, and our political leaders lead in iniquity, the future generation must, lest it suffer the same fate as the culture at large, learn to fight the primal selfishness. Having the ability to appreciate, without “seizing” or “using”, is one quality of that kind of man described by Aristotle as “absolutely the best” rather than a relative best.
Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
In a perfect image of a priest
They are spoon-feeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the phantom shouting to skinny girls
"Get out of here if you don't know"
Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row
Here I want to address the question of wealth. When most think of aristocracy, they think of blue bloods with sizable trust funds, who are too well-off to do their own bills. Aristotle and Kirk both made mention of wealth in the quotes I provided, and I am taking them to be authorities on what makes an aristocracy. Am I not ignoring both popular my own authorities, and popular consensus, by saying “give kids good book”? To this charge, naivete could be added because I also heavily implied that if you have good manners, and are a virtuous person, you will be successful, when there are numerous examples to the contrary.
In my defense, my insistence upon good works of art is for two reasons. First, the presence of wealth does not make an aristocracy, but can easily make an oligarchy. Our leaders are not bad leaders because they lack wealth, but because they lack virtue. Making frens rich, while a good thing, would not create an aristocracy either, but simply a better oligarchy. A true aristocracy requires intentional education over the course of many years, preferably starting at a young age. Our heart grows crusty over time, and it takes considerable effort to jumpstart it, making it feel how it ought to, and see how it ought to. For sinners like me who have started to acquire the tools for this defibrillation rather late, it is harder, but for those who begin young, they will have a much easier time.
Second, although I have internalized the fact that the right is not really trying to effect societal change, a realization that has tempered by disappointment, I am, and will likely always be, action oriented. Giving kids good literature is something anyone can do, whereas amassing a large estate is something very few can do. If you have any sort of relationship with children, or teenagers for that matter, it is easy to give a book as a present. Maybe they do not read it for years, but when they do, if it is truly a beautiful book, something will stick. Now, if you can do more than this, and have the time to seriously cultivate a child’s moral imagination (which looks like reading out loud to a little, or talking about the book to an older), then more will stick. Whatever you are capable of will make a difference, as even the dimmest light in a dark cave will bring illumination. Simply one good poem can still with a soul for decades.
At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row
Here I would like to bring in a complementary perspective. Good literature, and good works of art in general, train us to see the world as it is, and move away from the primal selfishness that we all inherited, but it also connects us to our cultural inheritance. Michael Oakeshott, an English philosopher, says the following about the task of education,
“To the teacher things must appear differently. Obliquely and upon a consequence he is an agent of civilization. But his direct relationship is with his pupil. His engagement is, specifically, to get his pupil to make the most of himself by teaching him to recognize himself in the mirror of the human achievements which compose his inheritance…To initiate a pupil into the world of human achievement is to make available to him much that does not lie upon the surface of his present world. An inheritance will contain much that may not be in current use, much that has come to be neglected and something even that for the time being is forgotten…the business of the teacher (indeed, this may be said to be his peculiar quality as an agent of civilization) is to release his pupils from servitude to the current dominant feelings, emotions, images, ideas, beliefs, and even skills, not by inventing alternatives to them which seem to him more desirable, but by making available to him something which approximates more closely to the whole of his inheritance.”9
Aristocrats are not common men and women, and so they are not bound by what is common. Current trends, ideas, and fashions, wherever they be found, are common, and cannot bind the aristocrat’s mind. A proper aristocracy has a familiarity with times past, recognizing herself in her ancestor’s struggles, hopes, and aspirations, and sees herself as a continuation of a great tradition. Being able to situate herself in history, understanding, and appreciating, what came before, the aristocrat will be free of any common dependencies, and by being free of these, will be capable of greater prudence than otherwise possible.
Furthermore, without a strong culture, or knowledge of the past, it is easy to cave into political pressure. Having no memory of when your people stood firm in the face of great evils, and did not waver, or having no knowledge of seemingly invincible empires collapse, makes it incredibly hard to stand against evil. Why make a stand when you have heroes to base your struggle on, and no evidence that good might triumph? If, however, you have a strong culture, or a deep knowledge of the past, then you have numerous weapons with which to fight. You know the stories of your ancestors, and great men, who came before you, who, even when defeat was the likely outcome, fought for the good, the true, and the beautiful. You also know that all civil powers fall, and that the emerging cyber state is simply another power that will fall too. Knowledge of the past presents new possibilities for action, and identifying with the past makes these abstract possibilities possibilities, or even duties, for me. The view from nowhere has no teeth, but the man with a rich cultural inheritance has a great armory.
Praise be to Nero's Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody's shouting, "Which side are you on?!"
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row
Though the possession of wealth is a constituent part of an aristocracy, wealth on its own only has the power to create an oligarchy. A true aristocrat is a virtuous man, who, even in democratic systems, is able to hold more than one vote on account of his manners, character, education, dress, and eloquence. Mankind naturally follows, and when a great man is present, the many will be inclined to follow his example. What is most necessary for the future Millet is not the accumulation of material wealth, but the accumulation of spiritual wealth. By reading good literature, future leaders learn to see the world properly, and by seeing they are able to act. In acquiring right vision, a strong connection, and identification, with the past is built, a connection that will give the future gentlemen and ladies the tools to weather the harshest trials. We live on Desolation Row because we are ruled by money, and base passion, rather than virtue. Should we leave Desolation Row, it will begin by picking up Homer, and Virgil, Augustine and John Chrysostom, Eliot and Gibran.
Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob broke
When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke
All these people that you mention, yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name
Right now, I can't read too good, don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row
1093b 1-10
“By given-ness, we mean not only the possibility, but the plausibility, to assume that one’s tradition is synonymous with reality. In the Eastern Roman Empire, to give a religious example, Orthodoxy was given, or, in other words, it was justifiable to assume that the teachings of Orthodoxy accurately described reality, and it was equally justifiable to dismiss the heterodox in the same way that one dismisses a man who thinks a rock thrown in the air will not fall back to the ground.” See Part one of chapter one of the “upcoming” book
The practice of unceasing prayer in Orthodoxy.
Kirk, Russel. The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot. Regenry Publishing. Washington D.C. 2019. 96
Kirk, Russel. The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot. Regenry Publishing. Washington D.C. 2019 203
Murdoch, Iris. Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature. Penguin Books. Middlesex, England. 1999. 329
Murdoch, Iris. Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature. 344
Murdoch. 353
Edited by Richard Gamble. The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to be an Educated Human Being. ISI Books. Wilmington, Delaware. 2017 640