Tag: aristocracy

Walter Lippmann, whose anti-democratic skepticism changed the course of American politics in the twentieth century.

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Part 4 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 3 here, Chapter 4 Part 2 here)

Politically, democracy means the sovereignty, not of the average man — who is a rather narrow, short-sighted, muddle-headed creature — but of a matured public opinion, a very different thing . . . In the forming of this opinion the sage has a million times the weight of the field hand. With modern facilities for mind influencing mind, democracy, at its best, substitutes the direction of the recognized moral and intellectual élite for the rule of the strong, the rich, or the privileged. — Edward Alsworth Ross, Changing America (1912) (more…)

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Frank Herbert’s six Dune novels fall into three pairs. Dune (1965) and Dune Messiah (1969) chart the rise and fall of Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides, a man who becomes a superman and the God Emperor of the known universe. Children of Dune (1976) and God Emperor of Dune (1981) narrate the rise and fall of Paul’s son, Leto II, a superman who transforms himself into a monster and rules for 3,500 years. Heretics of Dune (1984)[1] and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)[2] are set 1,500 years after God Emperor and focus on the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood’s struggle with their evil twin, a sisterhood that calls itself the Honored Matres. (more…)

Louis de Bonald

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Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald, is one of the great French counter-Revolutionary conservative thinkers. For an overview of his life, see “Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald,” here at Counter-Currents.

F. Roger Devlin has written several pieces assessing Bonald’s contribution to the North American New Right: (more…)

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Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) was one of the giants of Japanese letters as well as an outspoken Right-wing nationalist. Mishima shocked the world on November 25, 1970, when he and members of his private militia, the Tatenokai or Shield Society, took hostage the commander of the Japan Self-Defense Force’s Ichigaya Camp. Mishima then delivered a speech to the assembled soldiers and press, exhorting the Japanese to turn away from American-imposed consumerism back to their traditional aristocratic culture, which prized honor above life and comfort. (more…)

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When I was in college, the campus offered a film series called Twice-Told Tales. You would view a film followed by its remake three days later. Films like Dangerous Female (1931), starring the well-known actor Ricardo Cortez. Whatever happened to Ricardo Cortez? For that matter, Dangerous Female? The remake did rather better: The Maltese Falcon (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart. We sure know him. (more…)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Damned Soul, 1619.

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One of my internet friends (you know who you are) recently posted a picture of Ted Kaczynski along with text claiming that “you can’t pay reparations if you don’t have any money.” Well, that’s technically true. You can’t pay buttfuck nothing if you don’t have any money, but the curious nature of money means that people will often own negative money, which is to say owe money. So, the theme for today shall be how things can always get worse, and that there’s such a thing as worse than nothing. (more…)

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David Lean (1908–1991) directed sixteen movies, fully half of them classics, including three of the greatest films ever made: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and, greatest of them all, Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Lawrence of Arabia is repeatedly ranked as one of the finest films of all time, and when one compares it to such overpraised items as Citizen Kane and Casablanca, a strong case can be made for putting it at the very top of the list. (more…)

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Of peasant ancestry on his father’s side and boasting aristocratic (boyar) maternal roots, the Romanian poet, prose writer, and editorialist Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) had not put his modest inherited wealth to waste. Educated in the German language since childhood, Eminescu was culturally — if not always geopolitically — an enthusiastic Germanophile. (more…)

Danses de Jadis (Dances in Times Past), George Barbier, 1921

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This is an old and very cruel god . . .
We will endure;
We will try not to wince . . .
If indeed it is for your sakes,
If we perish or moan in torture,
Or stagger under sordid burdens
That you may live —
Then we can endure . . .
Without utter bitterness.
But, O thou old and very cruel god,
Take, if thou canst, this bitter cup from us. [1] (more…)

Frank Herbert

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Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) is one of the masterpieces of science fiction, far eclipsing its five sequels in readership and reputation. But I wish to argue that the third and fourth Dune books, Children of Dune (1976) and God Emperor of Dune (1981), are equally audacious works of the imagination. [1] Both volumes tend to be underrated, partly due to the long shadow of Dune, partly because the sheer scope of Herbert’s vision boggles the mind, (more…)

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E. Digby Baltzell
The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America
New York: Random House, 1964

The WASPs can never get any love. Their power once evoked equal amounts of admiration and resentment in American society. Now they’re just a relic and a punching bag for every other group’s ethnic grievances. (more…)

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It was fifty years ago today that Yukio Mishima, one of Japan’s most celebrated men of letters and an ardent man of the Right, committed suicide at the age of forty-five. What happened, and what did it mean?

On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four followers wearing the uniforms of his private militia group the Shield Society (Tatenokai) visited the Ichigaya Barracks of the Japan Self-Defense Force (the Jieitai). (more…)