A New Nobility

Thoughts on the cultivation of a higher type of man.

In this present age of bad theater, so brimming with all things superficial and spiritually dead, an age of massively increasing breadth coming at the cost of minimal depth, in some sense we can't help but find ourselves in the equivalent of a parched wasteland. One in which so much of life has lost - or perhaps more accurately, has been robbed of - its lustre. An age in which one might seek high and low for genuine nourishment, of that deepest and most sustaining sort - of body, of mind, but most especially of soul and spirit - in vain. An age in which nearly all things have been cheapened, commodified, sapped of spirit.. in which all seems to be some utilitarian means for profit, or petty power gain.

An age that’s been practically at open war with the exceptional, seeking to level every mountain in some hopelessly doomed-to-fail attempt to fill in every valley.. an age in which true greatness isn't just rarely seen or experienced, but becomes even difficult to fully conceive of, or fully conceptualize.

The scheming and spiritually corrupted hidden hands with the foremost shaping power behind the scenes everywhere seem to be aiming to mold mankind into a lowly herd animal - and to help this process along, artfully provide countless incentives and rewards to those most willing to undergo the incremental change and devolution - and even make use of teams of handlers (agents, publicists, etc.) to help craft scores of pop-culture celebrities to make the path look fun, to those looking on..

and thus, we collectively shrink, and become ever smaller, more impotent, more dependent, more pathetic.

Some may even attempt to argue that it's always been this way.. that this is the unavoidable and inescapable way of the world - that nothing else has been, is now, or will be possible, and that to think otherwise is delusional idealism.

This is an insidious lie.. and one plainly obvious to any student of history.

Broadly speaking, we’re now operating at the smallest fraction of our collective potential - and it’s the delusion that results from our failing to grasp this that allows for this state of affairs in the first place.

If we truly care to manifest and cultivate something different, a new archetypal force willing and able to run powerfully counter to this paralyzing and degenerative and stultifying sickness of the modern age, I’d suggest the first step in this process is to paint a clear contrast - between the worst of what is, and the best of what could be - and this is what I hope to begin to do, in this piece.

This one is special to me.. and it's largely directed toward unique and exceptional ears. I don't need to say any more than this:

It'll naturally resonate with those it was intended to most resonate with.

In some sense, it might be said that the majority of my life has been a search for ‘Arya’ - that profoundly captivating and intriguing ancient label that applied both to a racial and cultural group of people, but simultaneously to the very root concept of nobility itself.

Extraordinarily capable men who, despite their tremendous natural gifts, never seemed innately geared towards tyranny, or the wanton abuse or oppression or unjust mistreatment of those around them who may not have received equal blessings. In fact, they seemed aggressively and diametrically opposed to this parasitic and tyrannical nature. Within them seemed to exist the combination of a unique inner power paired with an external philosophical/spiritual/psychological structure to harness and channel it most effectively, without becoming monsters.

Peak-powerful ‘hardware’, formerly blessed with ‘software’ - gifted ‘nature’, coupled with the most wisely structured ‘nurture’ - allowing what was within to bloom to its fullest potential.

This idea of nobility - not just nobility of mind, but nobility of soul - has moved and inspired me more than perhaps any other.. in no small part because I believe it'll ultimately be the cure as to what currently so ails us.

Not just some peripherally helpful development, but one absolutely required to right this ship.. to again manifest right order, where chaos now so freely and obviously reigns, and help both create and highlight the depth and meaning in life, where a crude cheapness and petty superficiality currently exists.

Anyone with eyes wide open likely recognizes the fact that our world appears to be increasingly governed by ignoble parasitic natures, who quietly pilot and puppet a spineless administrative class willing to do their bidding.. an environment increasingly oriented to help foster and produce a very weak, domesticated, unthinking and herdlike man.

It should be obvious as to why this might be the case.. even if one is completely unwilling to entertain the idea of any vast conspiracy at play, it should still be clear as to why this human type might be so preferred over its opposite type by the upstart powers of our fallen age.. small men, wizards of Oz behind a curtain, seeking to maintain a wholly undeserved grip and control and influence, seeking dependent and servile cogs for economic machines.

The type of man I'll attempt to begin to speak to here would be the permanent antidote to this parasitic and merchant caste form of thinking and living - and likely, the foremost destroyers of the sickly structure they’ve developed.. and the following represents what I believe this new nobility should - and, if I might be so bold, will ultimately - look like.

Importantly, it's not an impossible thing, or even an especially impressive thing on my part, to be able to recognize this future type.. even despite the fact that so few such men seem to exist just yet. At the very least, not on the public stage. In fact, I can even provide something of the ‘recipe’ or methodology to best understand or grasp this general idea, to help ensure we're on the same page moving forward:

Picture a spectrum, on which you've placed the least respectable and least healthy, high-minded, spiritually and psychologically noble and mature people you've ever known on one extreme end, and the most healthy, high-minded, spiritually and psychologically noble and mature people you've ever known at the other extreme. Now, simply try to envision a type of mankind that might someday be plotted even further down that latter extreme end of the spectrum. Try to picture beings even more powerfully constituted and better oriented than those 'bests' you're able to conjure into mind: what traits and tendencies they might have, how they might speak and think and act, what they might seek, and seek to avoid..

hopefully this helps provide at least some broad level notion of the thought process, here, before I elaborate further. It’s always difficult to envision what doesn’t yet exist, but far from impossible - especially with history as help and guide.

Because our battle is difficult, and so steeply uphill, I've become convinced we’re in need of a collectively developed concrete ideal, to consciously cultivate and seek out, moving forward.. and I hope to convince you as to why this is so absolutely necessary, and all-important.

And as a final note before I begin - it’s true that the distance between where we are now, and this greater ideal I’ll attempt to outline, is significant. I’m under no delusions that any significant number of us might alchemically burn away our dross and morph into the latter overnight. Regardless, there’s value in simply painting the contrast, and creating targets to aim for, on the horizon.

I don’t believe it’s quite as distant or as hard to hit as many might think.

Cultural shifts can happen quickly.. at times even with an exponentially increasing pace, in ideal circumstances - especially when their need and necessity becomes widely recognized, and they develop as backlash against the most extreme cultural/spiritual poisons.

No matter what the future holds, we’ve been so lacking in constructive and positive visions that it can’t hurt to dig deep and engage that collective judgment, discernment, in an increasingly relativistic environment, and confidently state ‘this is good - this is healthy’.

So, here’s my attempt at that.

Ideal Traits and Attributes of a ‘New Nobility’:

To begin, such men would be victors over the most difficult challenge a human being might be faced with: namely, self-mastery, self-overcoming.

They'll be masters of themselves, with an in-depth understanding of their inner nature and being, allowing them to better understand all else from the vantage point of this clear lens, and through this clean ‘window’ through which natural light might freely flow.

They'll have recognized the foremost importance of first getting their own house in order: improving their own physical, mental, spiritual and ideological health, before attempting to influence others - understanding that pointing a good individual in the wrong direction can have immense costs, long term, and ultimately represents a powerfully disordering force in the world.. and thus they’ll seek to fully embrace the Hippocratic oath in the sphere of thought and idea and communication:

'first, do no harm'.

In other words:
Speak rightly - or don't yet speak.

At the same time, they’ll recognize that in such a corrupted and failing world, we can’t merely ‘clean our room’ as our house goes up in flames - that a balance needs to be struck here, and any purely ultra-individualistic mindset would represent suicide of the family, the inevitably disappearance of our race, culture, nations and civilizations. In short, they’ll recognize action is needed, here.

They'll everywhere be the sworn enemies of ignobility, pettiness, smallness, envy and resentment and malevolence, and the most base urges and instincts that stalk and prey upon every weak human nature. They’ll prove able to rise above the temptations of our age, and avoid the profound dissipation of vital energies that most suffer as result of walking the opposite path.

They'll be high energy, high potency human beings, as result:

natural magicians, one might say, capable of understanding how energy flows, and playing a powerful role in stoking and channeling these energies, and preventing their waste or misuse.

They'll deal in a new currency, of sorts.. in a world now superficially mastered by the dollar, by the worship (and the worshippers) of moloch and mammon, they’ll seek to cultivate a different lens or prism or framework through which they see the world, to judge themselves and one another. Nobility, honor, loyalty, courage, principled and masculine virtue, creative and ordering power and potency, will be natural components of this new currency - key elements of their yardstick by which they judge, value, and rank.

They'll seek to toss aside all mere badges for public consumption, to nowhere rest on their laurels, and always seek to prove themselves, anew.. both to themselves, and others. Honors and accolades and medals and certificates will only possess some innate value when granted by a deeply respectable source - whereas expensive clothes, or cars, or any of the flamboyant signs and signals of material success will count for nothing, perhaps even be cause for subtle derision, recognizing that even the worst and lowest caliber type can attain mere financial profit in a broken or malformed world. Mere wealth and financial success will be meaningless in their eyes - even an overt net-negative, to the degree it fails to be paired with their own vastly more powerful and potent currency. Instead, they'll seek to speak to the world through their words and actions, the substance and power of their character, personality, and ideas. A peak cultivation of substance over style - and a recognition that a true mastery of this creates a most beautiful and graceful style all its own.

This ‘new nobility’ will seek to manifest and represent kindness wholly without weakness, grace and civility without costly and degenerate tolerance, and recognize that the highest form of justice is when all beings get what they most deserve. They'll learn to ignore or step over those who mistake kindness for weakness - never suffer a self-questioning insecurity as result of viewing the world through the prism and perspective of disoriented men, and yet never take this misunderstanding or misapprehension personally.

They'll fully recognize the injustices and stacked deck against their own people and their own type as a family and group and on a collective level, and though they’ll feel great sympathy as result and feel highly motivated to 'right the ship', they'll be everywhere on guard against embracing any accusatory or excusatory impulse on an individual level, or using it as any dishonest attempted self-justification for any pitfalls or failings or obstacles in their own lives.. recognizing that going to the opposite extreme here and everywhere taking personal responsibility - even to excess - is the path of strengthening, refining, improving, and that whining or excuses serve absolutely no purpose but to degrade, weaken, cheapen us.

(the man who dodges and sidesteps all weights and burdens grows weak, the man who takes on weights and burdens - even when not his own - grows stronger as result)

They'll seek to throw away all crutches.. all excuses, all clever self-justifications that so expertly sneak into our inner worlds to open the door to weakness or cowardice or apathy or degeneracy.

Recognizing that all of us fall into habits of unthinkingly voicing untrue things, or of not being sufficiently cognizant of our phrasing in similar ways, they'll consciously and proactively seek to master the art of speaking clearly.. of recognizing the word as the immense and unprecedented power that it is - thinking before they speak, and everywhere seeking to speak artfully, powerfully, with clarity and purpose.

They’ll recognize that understanding is cultivated via idea and conception, and all idea and conception is shaped and molded through the word.. that as we speak, we collectively sculpt all reality around us - a reality that is largely what we choose to make it, and what’s more, what we're capable of making it.
They'll recognize that their opposition has mastered only the manipulative utilitarian surface-layer power of the word, but not its deeper spiritual power, or its true creative genius.. and that this must be our own goal.

They'll recognize and see themselves as creators.. as the primary (and often even lonely) architects and cultivators of the good, the just, and the orderly.. and that their opposite type is the self-serving parasite, the spreader of chaos, the envious predator.. and that, in some sense, their role as 'healer' - in the most fundamental and substantive sense of the word - is a timeless and invaluable one, and that most effectively combating poison is the most important of all arts. They’ll recognize that ‘healing’ can come with a sword.

They'll recognize, with clarity, that a broken world is equivalent to an unjust world, and that they shouldn't expect recognition or credit from those so utterly lost, or from men still full of such disorienting poisons. As Sir Burton puts it:
'from none but self expect applause'..

They'll have fully dispensed with that false notion of their powerlessness, or the meaninglessness of their own actions, from the delusional standpoint that only those with formally recognized positions of power or those in official positions or capacities can truly manifest change, recognizing that this is not how the world works. Like rocks in a stream, being slowly eroded by water.. with every second that passes the smallest microscopic particles are being worn/shorn away - it doesn't happen all at once, and then not at all, and then all at once. It is always, eternally and at every single moment, happening.. they’ll recognize that every action contributes to a larger flow, even if unseen or unrecognized by others, and they’ll recognize the power of being conscious of this happening, and playing a conscious role in it, as causal agent.

They'll come to understand just how deeply broken the world is, how this disorientation so deeply effects even the most vigilant and aware, and they’ll attempt to approach those they most love and care about with understanding, accordingly.. not feeling anger and hatred toward a family member that has ignorantly imbibed the poisons of our age, but rather attempting to envision them as they could be, had they not embraced the poison.. then doing whatever they're able to subtly nudge them in these directions.
They'll have learned to not waste and dissipate their energy or morale attempting to win over or in any way reorient those who aren't ready, those still too far away to properly hear their voice - refraining from futile attempts to convince those not yet ready to hear, opting instead to strategically plant seeds of thought, waiting for the right moment to fully engage, thus preserving their strength for more impactful exchanges.. never beating their heads against this brick wall, or any other - becoming masters of energy conservation.


They'll have recognized that we live in a world now teeming with addicts, and addictions: of lost and desperate individuals, seeking escapes, seeking instant gratification, seeking to fill a sprawling void, in the only ways that they know how.. broken people, becoming ever more broken and exploited by parasitic forces who've made an art of effectively ministering to (and further stoking) these addictions.
They'll be capable of recognizing craving as the foremost cause of suffering, the 'house builder' of samsara, or illusion.. the root and foundation of this illusion, that creates the framework and sets the stage for this suffering and pain.. and learn to seek only the 'pearl of great price', only what is best and highest.

They'll understand that the slave and the tyrant are essentially of the same stock, that a very similar unhealthy motivating impulse runs through both, and to never draw close or make common cause with either variation of this type - the world of strong and psychologically and spiritually mature men isn't one of slaves and tyrants, but of magnanimous kings and duty/loyalty bound noble men who serve them as brothers.

They’ll bend the knee only to the Divine, or those brothers and kindred spirits they sense the Divine working through and within.

This new nobility will recognize (and have come to terms with the fact) that they're utterly surrounded by 'bought men' - by individuals who eternally serve the highest bidder, or any force that promises them the greatest short term gain - which presents an obvious downside of being opposed by a massive army of such types across every sphere, and yet the upside recognition that mercenary armies never have anywhere near the morale or strength or spirit of those fighting for much higher and more substantive purposes, and that the opposition force is something of a paper tiger.

They'll have glimpsed the crucial importance of genuine culture, and that mere politics is very much downstream of any healthy culture.. and the importance of the central and all-important role of the storyteller, the bard, the historian, even the entertainer. They’ll grasp the insidiousness threat represented by having these vital roles now played by those that hate us, and will be committed to attempting to change this, committed to creating an environment where the best oriented men shape and mold the developing narrative, not the worst and most degenerate: because shaping the culture and the storyline is simultaneously shaping the people.

They'll be masters of the broader picture, of striving to never miss the forest for the trees, of never getting lost in the peripheral reductionist weeds.. their vantage point will be a fittingly and justifiably lofty one, and they'll learn to speak, think, and live, accordingly.. not incapable of zooming in where most necessary and helpful, but instinctively returning to the more comprehensive perspective.

To the degree that they seek fame or glory or renown, it will be in the ancient and purer sense - meaning, as a gift to their posterity.. creating a name for themselves that, when recounted and recollected, helps not just inspire and fuel, but better orient and guide and direct those who come after.. they'll understand the value in emulating the great men who came before us, in order to become a man worthy of emulation.. and that this is our great gift to all who come after us.

They'll recognize that our goal should be to permanently marry and intertwine 'integrity' to 'fame' (to not allow the one to exist without the other), and to attach the concepts of nobility and goodness with 'success', richness with generosity.. that the ultimate test of the health of a societal structure is the degree to which high caliber men succeed, and all influence and power gradually flows upward toward the best constituted, not downward to the most ambitious and grasping.

They'll see clearly how our time of immense crisis, in which the solid ground under our feet begins to crumble and fall away, equally represents a time of immense opportunity, in which we might recreate this solid ground in the image of our ideal - in a vastly higher image. That collapse and any great decentralization of power and influence will initially produce immense chaos, but also clears the stage for new players, and a new game.

They'll seek to become artists, in the highest sense of this word - realizing that a great artist needs to both be a product of their time, as well as to simultaneously soar above it.. he needs to speak the current language, but also speak timelessly. The greatest of artists don’t only shape their creative production, but use their creative productions to help shape their fellow man.

They'll come to understand the fundamental differences between a scheming and duplicitous predator, and a rightful conqueror - and that just because they may occasionally obtain superficially similar prizes as result of their designs, this doesn't make them in any way equivalent beings, equivalent caliber.. and that the former always has feet of clay, and is incapable of creating anything lasting, deeply rooted.

They'll glimpse the reality that all around us, including our own brain and physical body and those of every other individual, is constantly adapting - shuffling and reorienting and re-expressing itself based upon prevailing environment and circumstances.. and that this adaptation is always either net-positive upward movement, or net-negative degeneration - and that we thus have the power to fundamentally improve and strengthen every aspect of ourselves through a conscious recognition of this fact, and subsequently structuring our lives accordingly.

They'll recognize that the healthy and capable and honest man gains from making all things additionally simple, straightforward, clear and direct, while his opposite type gains from making all things complex, byzantine, sprawling and convoluted. That the devil is in the details, and must create these details and technicalities, and hide his true nature in a cloak of sophistry, casuistry, pilpul, and intellectual slight of hand.

(it takes a long sophisticated diatribe to ‘convince’ a man that an ugly thing is beautiful.. truth is effortless, easy, simple)

They'll realize the falsity and impossibility of an irreligious or atheistic mind.. that every man fills this void with something, that the atheist often simply places scientism or ‘intellectuals’ and ‘experts’ on the pedestal off of which he's knocked his god. They'll realize our conception of God, or of the underlying power pervasive throughout the universe, is our foremost orienting force dictating how we view and perceive all else, and that there only exist differences in granularity, here.. the reductionist materialist merely has a cheaper and lesser set of 'gods', causing him to be contradictory and schizophrenic - but he's certainly not dispensed with the conception entirely.

They’ll recognize that ‘evil’ is a contagious virus - that the cliche phrase ‘hurt people hurt people’ is supremely true, that abuse is often a generational cycle, and that - however we may someday choose to deal with the most deeply hurt people in the future, at the very least they must be barred from positions of ultimate power in their current state.

They'll recognize the absolute importance of eventually moving from a state of irreverence, to reverence.. journeying from that healthy impulse to mock and deride and poke holes in all hot air balloons and pretentious self-obsessed fools, then gradually learning that we must find something to emulate and worship, love and revere.. just because so much in our world is useless and embarrassing dross, doesn't mean there isn't an occasional pure diamond in the rough - there is, and we become vastly lesser and smaller in failing to find it.

They'll recognize the true meaning of the all-important phrase, 'live by the sword, die by the sword'.. that this is far from a lesson to never pick up a sword, but rather a warning that the means and methods and reasoning you use to judge or punish another man may justly and rightly be used against you in the future.. judge fairly and accurately, never emotionally and rashly, and be magnanimous where possible - fate and karma are watching, and all things come full circle. Just thinking and just action produce good things in their wake, and invite good things to come back around.

.. and I think I’ll conclude there, for now - fittingly, at the concept of Justice.. which to my eye is the most central and all-important of the orienting virtues. Far above and beyond any simple notions of ‘laws’ or legality, true justice is when all beings get what they deserve.. and this is the most beautiful of goals.

A new nobility, proactively striving to recognize and best define this conception of Justice, and then subsequently cultivate and manifest it throughout the environment around them, would fundamentally alter the world in the best possible ways - to a degree I’m not sure any of us can fully envision, from our present standpoint in the muck and mire.

We have work to do - and exciting progress to make. I hope you’ve found at least a little something of value here..

Hail, friends.. upward and onward.