I began reading this with my morning coffee, and kept returning to it throughout the day, only to finish it with dinner. Quite the heavy piece, but I greatly enjoyed its message.
Yes indeed there is much that is worthwhile in the whole. This paragraph sums it up:
"A small fraternity of friends, who trust each other with their lives, can change the world. Navigating media ecosystems, electoral realignments and byzantine bureaucracies. Such small conspiracies have changed the world. Never forget that."
A few minor dissenting points...
"Small states like Hungary, Japan, Australia and Denmark exist as nativist exemplars for the rest of the west."
Australia is *not* a model--trust me.
"You should disregard the “aristocracy” meme. Countries without them (Australia, France), Hobbesian covenants formed from individual subjects, are much more meritocratic and progressive on racial issues than monarchical nations."
Can you explain what you mean by this paragraph? You write as though ‘meritocratic and progressive on racial issues’ is a positive thing.
“A preoccupation with the aesthetics of the British establishment is not just a harmless distraction, it serves to neuters the natural political radicalism which should animate intelligent urban young men who are so badly served by the current constitutional arrangement…
You will never be a Hereditary Peer. You will never take part in a boxing-day foxhunt and you will never marry Sophie Winkleman. The rump of the British establishment that still exists is not only irredeemably corrupt but deliberately exclusive…
Nor should you want to. The most important politicians of the last century were vulgar lower-middle class tories; Thatcher, Tebbit, Powell. Take pride in your heritage. It’s a better way of life, free of pretension. The enormous televisions. The Hot Tubs. The German cars. The career in recruitment. Dining in the Shard. There is such joy to be had from honesty; a courage to embrace the pleasures of materialism which requires a maturity absent from the British upper class. The concept of ‘taste’ is a symptom of failure, a coping mechanism adopted in the mid 20th century to adapt to the financial ruination of the British aristocracy by the post-war Labour government.
Reject it. Reject the Windsorite baubles. Laugh in someone’s face if they declare themselves in possession of a ‘knighthood’ or an OBE. Play Tiktoks out loud in the ‘drawing room’. Buy up period properties and replace the sash windows with PVC triple glazing. There is no future in sentimental reactionary passions. The New Britain will be built on foundations of concrete, not stone."
This goes well beyond provocative irony and into the realm of bloody-minded iconoclasm. A better way of looking at it (I think) is that the present elite is unworthy of its own atrophied and contentless standards of taste for-its-own-sake and that a new, vital and worthy elite should take from them what they have—and then restore and reimbue its content, not degrade it.
Uphold LF thought
This is the best thing you’ve written, at least that I’ve read. Will be coming back to it at least two more times to take it all in. Damn fine work
I began reading this with my morning coffee, and kept returning to it throughout the day, only to finish it with dinner. Quite the heavy piece, but I greatly enjoyed its message.
Yes indeed there is much that is worthwhile in the whole. This paragraph sums it up:
"A small fraternity of friends, who trust each other with their lives, can change the world. Navigating media ecosystems, electoral realignments and byzantine bureaucracies. Such small conspiracies have changed the world. Never forget that."
A few minor dissenting points...
"Small states like Hungary, Japan, Australia and Denmark exist as nativist exemplars for the rest of the west."
Australia is *not* a model--trust me.
"You should disregard the “aristocracy” meme. Countries without them (Australia, France), Hobbesian covenants formed from individual subjects, are much more meritocratic and progressive on racial issues than monarchical nations."
Can you explain what you mean by this paragraph? You write as though ‘meritocratic and progressive on racial issues’ is a positive thing.
“A preoccupation with the aesthetics of the British establishment is not just a harmless distraction, it serves to neuters the natural political radicalism which should animate intelligent urban young men who are so badly served by the current constitutional arrangement…
You will never be a Hereditary Peer. You will never take part in a boxing-day foxhunt and you will never marry Sophie Winkleman. The rump of the British establishment that still exists is not only irredeemably corrupt but deliberately exclusive…
Nor should you want to. The most important politicians of the last century were vulgar lower-middle class tories; Thatcher, Tebbit, Powell. Take pride in your heritage. It’s a better way of life, free of pretension. The enormous televisions. The Hot Tubs. The German cars. The career in recruitment. Dining in the Shard. There is such joy to be had from honesty; a courage to embrace the pleasures of materialism which requires a maturity absent from the British upper class. The concept of ‘taste’ is a symptom of failure, a coping mechanism adopted in the mid 20th century to adapt to the financial ruination of the British aristocracy by the post-war Labour government.
Reject it. Reject the Windsorite baubles. Laugh in someone’s face if they declare themselves in possession of a ‘knighthood’ or an OBE. Play Tiktoks out loud in the ‘drawing room’. Buy up period properties and replace the sash windows with PVC triple glazing. There is no future in sentimental reactionary passions. The New Britain will be built on foundations of concrete, not stone."
This goes well beyond provocative irony and into the realm of bloody-minded iconoclasm. A better way of looking at it (I think) is that the present elite is unworthy of its own atrophied and contentless standards of taste for-its-own-sake and that a new, vital and worthy elite should take from them what they have—and then restore and reimbue its content, not degrade it.
I'm not pretending to have read the whole thing yet, but already I can tell that there is a great deal of truth and substance in this piece.
who or what is sentinel of the grave?