Why Democracy Needs Aristocracy

By |2022-07-12T14:34:56-05:00July 12th, 2022|Categories: American Founding, Aristocracy, Democracy, Marcia Christoff Reina, Politics, Timeless Essays|

The aristocratic element of democracy is its long-term quality. It has reverence for the past and it plans for the future. This is the necessary instinct democracy needs anew. Seneca, the Roman philosopher, relates the story of the murder of Callisthenes by Alexander the Great, the “everlasting crime” of the Macedonian leader. Seneca wrote: “For [...]

The Failure of Meghan and Harry

By |2021-03-19T11:32:42-05:00March 18th, 2021|Categories: Aristocracy, England, John Horvat, Monarchy|

The role of Harry and Meghan, the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex, was to be the almost fairy-tale models for a world in need of elite leadership. They were called to embody all that is excellent in the British nation so that others might strive to imitate them. But they have utterly failed in [...]

Natural Aristocracy

By |2021-04-26T16:36:08-05:00May 1st, 2018|Categories: American Founding, Aristocracy, Thomas Jefferson|

For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and [...]

Democracy, Aristocracy, and the Fate of America

By |2021-04-27T13:50:02-05:00March 12th, 2018|Categories: Aristocracy, Aristotle, Civil Society, Culture, Dante, Democracy, Great Books, History, Marcia Christoff Reina, Politics|

Only where Democracy and Aristocracy are harmonized and unified culturally can a nation really be healthy and advanced; its history becomes the awe of the world. “Be it known to you that a son is born to me; but I thank the gods not much that they have given me him as that they have [...]

A True Natural Aristocracy

By |2020-06-17T16:26:02-05:00March 8th, 2012|Categories: Aristocracy, Edmund Burke, Quotation|

A true natural aristocracy is not a separate interest in the state, or separable from it. It is an essential integrant part of any large body rightly constituted. It is formed out of a class of legitimate presumptions, which, taken as generalities, must be admitted for actual truths. To be bred in a place of [...]

T.S. Eliot on Aristocracy

By |2016-10-15T18:49:57-05:00January 27th, 2012|Categories: Aristocracy, Conservatism, Quotation, T.S. Eliot|

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES Sir.— The traditional use of the word [aristocracy] implies, I believe, an emphasis upon inheritance: not merely the inheritance of property, however important that may seem to some, but the inheritance, partly through biological trans­mission and partly through environment, of, other less tangible values. In other words, the unit [...]

Go to Top