Patronage appropriately conceived stands opposite of bureaucratic sponsoring. Patronage will become important for a type of educational system that does not reduce itself to self-affirming bureaucratic rubrics but which entails loyalty/faithfulness to person and virtue as an end. One thinks, for instance , of Leibniz or Wesley who lived on an Oxford stipend for years. It is possible but requires personal interactions of the clients with the patrons, who now stand far apart except in the Sharks Tank.
I agree. I placed a lot of emphasis on privatizing and localizing patronage for that very reason. At the same time, we can never exactly mirror the past and I think it would be a mistake to wholly dispense with the state apparatus in that regard.
'There are two ways to understand ‘elite’ as a concept- objective and comparative.'
Well put and elucidated! This is elegant shorthand to explain the difference between the understanding of 'elite' separating Xanaania, his progenitors and his imitators--the slight right of managerialism but in truth spiritual leftists themselves--from their opponents on the real right.
You make a good point about distribution of 'stuff' in the Iliad, Beowulf and elsewhere but barbarous voluntarist IE elites were elite mainly because of their prowess in war, the means by which they won land and plunder. Success in battle was the sine qua non of becoming a ring-giver.
I never got from the poem thst Beowulf got corrupted. By the end he’s the king and he kills the dragon in his old age, dying in the process. That movie they made had a different take though.
Absolutely a banger. Oliver Cromwell came to mind and I'm begging, good sir, for a comparison of Thomas Wolfe and Cromwell from Henry the 8th until Oliver and correlate the difference between the Virginia colony and Mayflower crowd and how we were here first( I descend from VA colony folks and even the ones that intermarried with the native tribes) the libshits idiots in my DAR group are infuriating and my aunt is right cleaning headstones and marching in parades and being teachers is bullshit ever since they went woke. The Mayflower libshits and atheist social climbers are revolting and the antithesis of what our organization started for. I can't stand the liberal Karen's and can join daughters of the Confederacy and think I will now just to piss off those retard liberal bitches.
I'm over the Karen's and RINO Karen's in DAR and their hazing bc they are jealous little haters. So ridiculous. Now I understand why my aunt was like you don't want to hang out with such blatant idiots who are akin to mules in horses harnesses
The regime scribelings always struck me as boring, mediocre, fat insolent nobodies strutting about in plastic battle armour, waving styrofoam swords. My favourite writers are more like Fremen or men of Salusa Secundus, perhaps a Duke or wise Mentat will transform some into Sardaukar. Imagine you, Librarian, or Morgoth, with the reach of some of these flabby company men, these Poloniuses (Polonii?)
I’ll get wherever God wants me to go. I’m extremely grateful for all the support I’ve received and I that people find my work edifying. I haven’t stopped growing yet.
My concern is the example set by Bush the younger, who practiced patronage on a grand scale. Look what that did to the Republican party: it turned them into such a bunch of ineffectual grifters that it set the stage for Trump to steamroll them eight years later.
Rather than make that mistake, Trump and his people should apply the lesson of the parable of the talents. Rather than simply shower largesse, he should grant agency, or in plainer terms dole out power, and demand results.
Money is simply what we use to quantify value, and from a Christian perspective value is derived from service to our neighbors and our Lord.
Therefore it should be made clear that disbursement of funds is explicitly for the purpose of enabling service, and a return on investment is expected.
An example of this in action could be to pay people to monitor and audit federal programs locally, to expose illegal racial discrimination and to root out leftist state-sponsored religions, such as gender ideology and intersectionality.
Merely taking the federal boot off the necks of wealthy conservatives is enough for them.
Good article, I like the references to the Iliad. If I may ask good sir which character is your favourite in the original tale? I quite like Hektor, and used to play at defending Troy alongside him as a boy (when I wasn't playing at being one of Charlemagne's knights).
I always found Greater Ajax to be fascinating. Of course, he really comes into his own more in the Sophocles play, the warrior representing the simple code of heroes losing out to the wily and urbane Odysseus, leading to his tragic death.
Good story by Sophocles, always liked it also. I like his simple code, though I also like Odysseus, in the latter’s case he is made to pay for his sins’ with his 10 year trek back home.
Complete dependence on the systems is the problem. Even child care... 🤮
So not American!
Well, this country has done it before.
It seems to me that all we have to do is backtrack to the place where everything was "reasonable", " oversightly" and "manageable".
De- centralize and do it yourslelf seems a solution.
Financial tyranny, oppression ( even medical ) and global insanity is where it's at.
Communities wouldn't do this to themselves, would they?
They wouldn't inject their children with mercury, leave the elders in the lurch, have people live in tents, bankrupt families with medical bills, encarcerate for profit, start wars to make money, sell poisoned food or tax them to death.
People are noble by nature, only a few truly sick psychos defy that rule, they help each other.
The military- industrial complex has turned this world into a mad house.
Greed and comfort.. exploitation of man and land.
It has become unreasonable, unsustainable.
Reason means sanity. Within reason... I cannot believe how blinded, brainwashed, arrogant and ignorant we seem to have become. Well.. some..
All we need to do is get back to "natural" or "organic" and "sustainable" we were made this way. Just like this whole planet.
Yet that would mean taking responsibility, like feeding ourselves instead of running to the supermarket, self- restrain, the "greater good" instead of self- indulgent, gluttony and luxurious excesses. Wasteful and mindless.
Electricity and gasoline are such luxuries..
All around " small and decent" instead of loud, proud, large and in charge.
Go big or go home? Let's try some: stay local and stay reasonable.
There are so many things here I agree with. Ultimately, it feels like the professional managerial class (professors, non profit execs, govt employees) is the first estate.
They benefit from our tax dollars, impose culture and policies, impact politics and feel none of the consequences.
It truly is astounding what we have let happen in the US over the past 50-60 years. It is like pre-Revolutionary France minus the peasants (I say this bc the peasants lived in actual abject poverty).
It’s funny when reading the Iliad that the point about Achilles’ self-evident superiority is almost completely lost on modern women who think he’s just throwing a hissy fit over having his bang-maid taken away. No, he’s entitled to her as his reward, not Agamemnon. It’s what she symbolizes, not what she is or what she does for him.
Most frustrations we have with others are all some manifestation of Achilles’ wrath. Our value is not acknowledged at work, school, sports, or in a relationship, and someone inferior is promoted or preferred. This inevitably leads to a corruption of the system.
Either this truth is too contrary to people’s core beliefs or they are too stupid to understand it. We’d be much further along in this world if we took the time to read the epic and really thought about this.
While you and Brian Klaas obviously deeply disagree about a great many things, at heart I think you and he are making similar arguments in this essay of yours and this essay of his:
Summary of Klaas' essay: for all of Western history until very recently, it was the role of the very wealthy to invest in public goods, like cathedrals. It was in their interests to do so because everyone, rich or poor, was tied to particular geographic locales, and if you're very wealthy in Florence you still want Florence overall to do well, because that's where you live. This is different than today's super-rich, who are not tied to a particular geographic location and can just flit off somewhere else if where they are becomes unlivable. They now invest in personal goods instead, like superyachts.
My major concern about global elites right now, whether they are neoliberal or "conservative" is that they are global, uninvested in any particular place. They need not invest in public goods to maintain status; they can just give goodies to slightly less-elite other global elites. While I would like the conclusion of your essay to be true--that the world is moving to a less-homogenized, multipolar order--I fear that it is not, because multinational mega-corporations increasingly hold the reins of power, not states. And multinational multibillionaires all agree with the fundamental homogenizing values of the globalist project, no matter where they reside or what their ostensible political leanings are.
Patronage appropriately conceived stands opposite of bureaucratic sponsoring. Patronage will become important for a type of educational system that does not reduce itself to self-affirming bureaucratic rubrics but which entails loyalty/faithfulness to person and virtue as an end. One thinks, for instance , of Leibniz or Wesley who lived on an Oxford stipend for years. It is possible but requires personal interactions of the clients with the patrons, who now stand far apart except in the Sharks Tank.
I agree. I placed a lot of emphasis on privatizing and localizing patronage for that very reason. At the same time, we can never exactly mirror the past and I think it would be a mistake to wholly dispense with the state apparatus in that regard.
We should never emulate the left in corruption and evil. We must seek the good. Thanks for your article!!
'There are two ways to understand ‘elite’ as a concept- objective and comparative.'
Well put and elucidated! This is elegant shorthand to explain the difference between the understanding of 'elite' separating Xanaania, his progenitors and his imitators--the slight right of managerialism but in truth spiritual leftists themselves--from their opponents on the real right.
You make a good point about distribution of 'stuff' in the Iliad, Beowulf and elsewhere but barbarous voluntarist IE elites were elite mainly because of their prowess in war, the means by which they won land and plunder. Success in battle was the sine qua non of becoming a ring-giver.
Beowulf was a rebel and took over and yet became corrupted.
I never got from the poem thst Beowulf got corrupted. By the end he’s the king and he kills the dragon in his old age, dying in the process. That movie they made had a different take though.
The movie was ehh it was good but I felt like he was was not only wanting to protect his people but wanted that treasure too and he got bit.
Absolutely a banger. Oliver Cromwell came to mind and I'm begging, good sir, for a comparison of Thomas Wolfe and Cromwell from Henry the 8th until Oliver and correlate the difference between the Virginia colony and Mayflower crowd and how we were here first( I descend from VA colony folks and even the ones that intermarried with the native tribes) the libshits idiots in my DAR group are infuriating and my aunt is right cleaning headstones and marching in parades and being teachers is bullshit ever since they went woke. The Mayflower libshits and atheist social climbers are revolting and the antithesis of what our organization started for. I can't stand the liberal Karen's and can join daughters of the Confederacy and think I will now just to piss off those retard liberal bitches.
DoC do great work.
I'm over the Karen's and RINO Karen's in DAR and their hazing bc they are jealous little haters. So ridiculous. Now I understand why my aunt was like you don't want to hang out with such blatant idiots who are akin to mules in horses harnesses
The regime scribelings always struck me as boring, mediocre, fat insolent nobodies strutting about in plastic battle armour, waving styrofoam swords. My favourite writers are more like Fremen or men of Salusa Secundus, perhaps a Duke or wise Mentat will transform some into Sardaukar. Imagine you, Librarian, or Morgoth, with the reach of some of these flabby company men, these Poloniuses (Polonii?)
I’ll get wherever God wants me to go. I’m extremely grateful for all the support I’ve received and I that people find my work edifying. I haven’t stopped growing yet.
My concern is the example set by Bush the younger, who practiced patronage on a grand scale. Look what that did to the Republican party: it turned them into such a bunch of ineffectual grifters that it set the stage for Trump to steamroll them eight years later.
Rather than make that mistake, Trump and his people should apply the lesson of the parable of the talents. Rather than simply shower largesse, he should grant agency, or in plainer terms dole out power, and demand results.
Money is simply what we use to quantify value, and from a Christian perspective value is derived from service to our neighbors and our Lord.
Therefore it should be made clear that disbursement of funds is explicitly for the purpose of enabling service, and a return on investment is expected.
An example of this in action could be to pay people to monitor and audit federal programs locally, to expose illegal racial discrimination and to root out leftist state-sponsored religions, such as gender ideology and intersectionality.
Merely taking the federal boot off the necks of wealthy conservatives is enough for them.
I agree, and I note again that I emphasize the importance of privatizing and localizing patronage networks.
Good article, I like the references to the Iliad. If I may ask good sir which character is your favourite in the original tale? I quite like Hektor, and used to play at defending Troy alongside him as a boy (when I wasn't playing at being one of Charlemagne's knights).
I always found Greater Ajax to be fascinating. Of course, he really comes into his own more in the Sophocles play, the warrior representing the simple code of heroes losing out to the wily and urbane Odysseus, leading to his tragic death.
Good story by Sophocles, always liked it also. I like his simple code, though I also like Odysseus, in the latter’s case he is made to pay for his sins’ with his 10 year trek back home.
Good choice there.
The traditional penalty for offshoring is tariffs; and we see how the parasite class is reacting to those.
As usual disagree nearly with all but enjoy reading you making your case.
I always loved the epithet used in Icelandic sagas for a good king or chieftain: “gold-flinger”.
👏👏👏
Subsidizing responsibility never works, does it?
Complete dependence on the systems is the problem. Even child care... 🤮
So not American!
Well, this country has done it before.
It seems to me that all we have to do is backtrack to the place where everything was "reasonable", " oversightly" and "manageable".
De- centralize and do it yourslelf seems a solution.
Financial tyranny, oppression ( even medical ) and global insanity is where it's at.
Communities wouldn't do this to themselves, would they?
They wouldn't inject their children with mercury, leave the elders in the lurch, have people live in tents, bankrupt families with medical bills, encarcerate for profit, start wars to make money, sell poisoned food or tax them to death.
People are noble by nature, only a few truly sick psychos defy that rule, they help each other.
The military- industrial complex has turned this world into a mad house.
Greed and comfort.. exploitation of man and land.
It has become unreasonable, unsustainable.
Reason means sanity. Within reason... I cannot believe how blinded, brainwashed, arrogant and ignorant we seem to have become. Well.. some..
All we need to do is get back to "natural" or "organic" and "sustainable" we were made this way. Just like this whole planet.
Yet that would mean taking responsibility, like feeding ourselves instead of running to the supermarket, self- restrain, the "greater good" instead of self- indulgent, gluttony and luxurious excesses. Wasteful and mindless.
Electricity and gasoline are such luxuries..
All around " small and decent" instead of loud, proud, large and in charge.
Go big or go home? Let's try some: stay local and stay reasonable.
Humble, meek and noble.
The old American values. ;) 🇺🇸
There are so many things here I agree with. Ultimately, it feels like the professional managerial class (professors, non profit execs, govt employees) is the first estate.
They benefit from our tax dollars, impose culture and policies, impact politics and feel none of the consequences.
It truly is astounding what we have let happen in the US over the past 50-60 years. It is like pre-Revolutionary France minus the peasants (I say this bc the peasants lived in actual abject poverty).
Wrote on this topic myself a few days ago.
https://natewinchester.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/meditations-on-leadership/
It’s funny when reading the Iliad that the point about Achilles’ self-evident superiority is almost completely lost on modern women who think he’s just throwing a hissy fit over having his bang-maid taken away. No, he’s entitled to her as his reward, not Agamemnon. It’s what she symbolizes, not what she is or what she does for him.
Most frustrations we have with others are all some manifestation of Achilles’ wrath. Our value is not acknowledged at work, school, sports, or in a relationship, and someone inferior is promoted or preferred. This inevitably leads to a corruption of the system.
Either this truth is too contrary to people’s core beliefs or they are too stupid to understand it. We’d be much further along in this world if we took the time to read the epic and really thought about this.
While you and Brian Klaas obviously deeply disagree about a great many things, at heart I think you and he are making similar arguments in this essay of yours and this essay of his:
https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/from-patrons-to-plutocrats-why-superyachts
Summary of Klaas' essay: for all of Western history until very recently, it was the role of the very wealthy to invest in public goods, like cathedrals. It was in their interests to do so because everyone, rich or poor, was tied to particular geographic locales, and if you're very wealthy in Florence you still want Florence overall to do well, because that's where you live. This is different than today's super-rich, who are not tied to a particular geographic location and can just flit off somewhere else if where they are becomes unlivable. They now invest in personal goods instead, like superyachts.
My major concern about global elites right now, whether they are neoliberal or "conservative" is that they are global, uninvested in any particular place. They need not invest in public goods to maintain status; they can just give goodies to slightly less-elite other global elites. While I would like the conclusion of your essay to be true--that the world is moving to a less-homogenized, multipolar order--I fear that it is not, because multinational mega-corporations increasingly hold the reins of power, not states. And multinational multibillionaires all agree with the fundamental homogenizing values of the globalist project, no matter where they reside or what their ostensible political leanings are.