Tag: tripartition

Frederic Remington, The Bronco Buster, 1895.

6,316 words

Gen. Turgidson: Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race.

“Is ‘Short Time Preference’ Really Such a Problem?” by Eumaios, apart from its own considerable merits, was particularly interesting for me — and I suppose some of my Constant Readers — due to his reduplication of a number of the most characteristic formulations of the midcentury Barbadian mystic Neville. [1]  (more…)

Caspar David Friedrich, Greifswald in Moonlight, 1817.

9,130 words

As men and women of the Right, we are searchers for Truth. We believe that by finding Truth and living by Truth, we might know Beauty, and we might know ourselves. Essence is our mission and with it, survival. And so this essay will try to surface and then sketch three fundamental “lifeways,” (more…)

Horatio Greenough, George Washington, 1840

3,341 words

Valor, fearlessness, fortitude, resourcefulness, and also, not fleeing in war, charity, and the ability to rule, are the natural duties of a Kshatriya. — Bhagavad Gita 18:23

According to a widely-accepted hypothesis of Georges Dumézil, prehistoric Indo-European society was divided into three basic functions: a sacral, a martial, and an economic class. This tripartite ideology survived the Indo-European migrations throughout Europe and Asia and has persisted, with various modifications, into modernity. (more…)

4,492 words

Friedrich Schelling, 1775–1854

Part 6 of 6

1. Schelling’s Influences: The Christian Trinity and Jacob Boehme

I turn, finally, to a different Indo-European tradition, that of German Idealism of the 19th century. I include this material so as to show the perennial character of Indo-European thought. One could argue that the entire history of Western (and Indian) philosophy is a long, unconscious attempt to recollect the wisdom known “directly” by our Indo-European ancestors.  (more…)

1,714 words

Part 5 of 6

1. The Emergence of the Gunas from Brahman

We are obviously dealing with three principles which manifest themselves in different forms. These principles have the status of Platonic ideas: transcendent forms which we may approach through their various expressions in the world. But can we express the three principles in the abstract?  (more…)

Detail from Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany, 1503-1508

2,224 words

Part 3 of 6

Tripartition in Animals

1. Schad’s Three Systems 

So far I have been applying Indo-European tripartition to the human realm, to political and societal order, to individual and group psychology, to physiognomy, to anatomy, and to sexuality. (more…)

The Judgment of Paris by the Master of the Argonaut Panels, c. 1480,

2,802 words

Part 2 of 6

1. The Tripartite Human Soul

To begin, the Indo-Europeans traditionally believed that society must be structured in three parts or “functions” because people themselves exhibit three basic soul-types.  (more…)

Georges Dumézil

1,362 words

Part 1 of 6

Author’s Note:

This essay was originally written almost exactly thirteen years ago. I have withheld it from publication for all these years, because I considered the ideas in it a bit too speculative and daring.  (more…)

Jacques-Louis David, “The Coronation of Napoleon,” 1907, detail

8,635 words

Translated by Jon Graham

Three authors considered as outstanding representatives of “traditionalist thought” turned their attention to the same doctrinal question. (more…)