Men Must Be Educated In The Classics If They Wish To Regain Masculine Fortitude

Quintus recently sent me a review copy of his translation of Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline and War of Jugurtha. Both chronicles take place during a turbulent period in Rome’s history. It was an epoch when the glories of overseas imperialism caused new social strains at home. The republican constitution, long the bedrock of Roman society, was collapsing under the avarice and jealousy of a senatorial elite consumed by the new wealth and luxury it had reaped.

Sallust was harshly critical of this process and the nobility. He blamed them for the fracturing of the republic and its descent into civil wars, and this is reflective in both the Conspiracy of Catiline and War of Jugurtha.

Several of the speeches, from Memmius and Marius in particular, ring so contemporary that one would be forgiven for thinking that they are living people railing against the Washington swamp. When attacking the Roman elite and its willful misconduct of the war against Jugurtha, Marius says thus:

My friends, compare me – a “new man” – with those arrogant nobles. What they are used to hearing or reading, I have either seen first-hand or have done myself. What they have gathered from books I have learned myself while serving as a soldier. Consider now whether you believe actions are worth more than words. They sneer at my common origins, and I at their uselessness. Before me lies my own fate; before them lies their disgrace. I believe there exists one universal nature for all men, and that the bravest has the best pedigree. And if the fathers of Albinus and Bestia could be asked whether they would prefer to have begotten me or them, what do you think their answer would be if they truly wanted the best offspring?

If by right they look down on me, let them also look down on their own ancestors whose nobility was based, like mine, on masculine virtue. They resent my occupying the office of consul: then let them resent my hard work, my integrity, and the dangers I have risked! For it is though these things that I have achieved my office. Men truly corrupted by arrogance live like this; it is as if they think nothing of your honors. But they seek these honors just the same, as if they lived their lives honorably. Delusional are the people who expect that these two completely different things are equal: the delights of idleness and the rewards of virtue. And when they deliver speeches in the senate or to you, they mostly deliver orations praising their ancestors. They think themselves more courageous by recalling these famous exploits. But it is just the opposite. The more distinguished their ancestors’ lives are, the more pathetic is their own indolence.

Gaius Marius

If there’s a more biting polemic that can describe our time, I’m not sure where it can be found.

Quintus worked hard on his translation to make Sallust’s language burn as brightly in English as it did in the ancient Latin in which he composed. And good as Sallust’s polemics are to read, greater still are his exhortations to virtue in men. As he says at the very start:

All men who seek to be better than the animals ought to exert themselves with the greatest efforts, lest they pass their lives in silence as if they were beasts of burden, which Nature has conditioned to be prostrate and subservient to their stomachs. All our powers are situated in our minds and bodies; we make use of the mind more for control, and the body for service. One of these we hold in common with the gods, and the other with the wild beasts. For me it seems more proper to seek glory through one’s natural character than through the efforts of naked force and, since this life that we delight in is so short, to fashion a legacy for ourselves that is as lasting as possible. For glory derived from riches and appearances is transitory and brittle, but masculine virtue is pure and eternal.

These are the words that sum up why Quintus has worked so hard to translate Sallust and Cicero, and why the Classics are so important to reclaim.

The Classics vs. Moderns

Ruins

Ancient historians, such as Sallust, Livy, and Plutarch, sought to inculcate their readers with lessons on fortitude and virtue. This is a stark contrast from today’s educational regime, which seeks largely to cram students with as many facts as possible (most of which they’ll forget anyway), and then teach them to hate themselves or to view themselves as victims on the side.

For the ancient historians, the inculcation of good character was just as important as understanding the facts. This may certainly have skewed their coverage, but even Thucydides, the most thoroughly modern of the ancient historians, stated at the start of his great history that the events of which he was writing were unprecedented, and that his work was “not designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever.”

Thucydides’ account is full of character lessons provided in the cases of Pericles and the notorious and destructive arrogance of Alcibiades, who championed the ill-advised Sicilian expedition that crushed the power of Athens. The Peloponnesian War was so notable and so big in the mind of Thucydides, that he thought it crucial for the education of all future generations of men.

These sorts of lessons are too detached from modern education. As Quintus writes at the start of his translation of Sallust, the Classics had previously been given a central place in education, but that has declined precipitously since the middle of the 20th century, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since then, we have witnessed such phenomena as the mandated gender-bending of children and the invited invasion of Europe.

A civilization that has lost touch with its past and has no pride in itself or fortitude in its people will embrace all sorts of strange, destructive ideas, a phenomenon with which Sallust himself was all too familiar:

But when the republic grew through labor and the application of justice, and great kings had been subdued in war; when barbarous peoples and mighty nations were brought to heel; and when Carthage, jealous of the Roman Empire, was destroyed root and branch and every land and sea lay open; then, at last, Fortune began to vent her disfavor and all began to become turbulent. Those who had easily borne labors, dangers, insecurity and bitterness now found that leisure and riches – so desirable in some situations – were instead a burden and source of woe. Thus first the love of money grew, and then the love of power as well; these things were essentially the building blocks of all evils. Greed overturned honesty, good faith, and other positive virtues; in their place it nurtured arrogance, cruelty, neglect of religious duty, and the idea that everything could be bought for a price.

Worldly ambition compelled many to become deceitful: to have one sentiment in the heart yet a different one ready on the tongue, to make friends and enemies not on an objective basis, but on an estimation of monetary convenience; and to display a good face rather than a good character. These tendencies grew little by little, occasionally to be punished. Afterwards, when the infection spread like a contagion, the state was transformed, and a government that was among the most just and strong became inhuman and unbearable.

Return of Kings recently featured a post on moral relativism, a foundation of modern leftist thought. It should come as no surprise that as the Classics have declined in education, moral relativism rose. Cicero, whose On Duties was a standard school text and which Quintus also recently translated, anticipated moral relativism in some ways, and has a clever take on it:

When a fissure opened up in the earth after a series of rains, Gyges descended into it. There he found the body of a dead man of huge proportions, with a gold ring on his finger. He removed the ring and put it on his own finger. When he turned the ring towards the palm of his hand, he was seen by no one, while he himself was able to see everything. When he rotated the ring back to its original position, he again was able to be seen by other people.

So, taking advantage of the opportunity created by this magic ring, he seduced the queen of Lydia and, with her as his accomplice, murdered the king of that country. He destroyed all whom he thought might oppose him, and neither was anyone able to see him as he went about these crimes. Thus, with the unexpected help of the ring he rose to become King of Lydia. But if a wise man had such a ring, he would no more think he could commit crimes than if he did not have it. For moral goodness and not secrecy for evil deeds is what good men seek.

Herein lies the power of the magic ring concept and of this little fable: if no one were able to know or suspect when you do something for the sake of riches, power, domination, or sensual pleasure, and if such an action could forever be hidden from gods and men, would you do it?

Introducing this little thought experiment is like torture to them [the doubters]. If they answer that they could indeed commit an evil act with impunity (i.e., to do what is most expedient for them), then they are basically admitting that they have bad characters. But if they deny that they could commit an undetected evil deed, then they are, in effect, conceding that all morally wrong things must without exception be avoided.

Cicero as Consul indicts Catiline in front of the Senate. What he failed to understand was that Catiline was a symptom of a failing system.

With texts like this now out of the schools, it’s little wonder that imagination has replaced reality, that hysteria and censorship has replaced debate, and that the feelings of groups competing in the victim Olympics have replaced the rights and obligations of free citizens in a republic with a common heritage, character, and identity. It is also little wonder that a generation of gender-bending freaks has arisen before our eyes and welcomes their own invasion and overthrow.

I can’t be certain, but I think it was in no small measure that, because I was exposed to the Classics somewhat as a teenager, I avoided the fate of so many others of my generation. It is long since time that these texts and authors are reintroduced as one of the foundations of a young man’s education. Quintus is doing a good job in this, and I recommend translations such as Sallust.

Read Next: Why Men Should Read The Works Of Sallust

154 thoughts on “Men Must Be Educated In The Classics If They Wish To Regain Masculine Fortitude”

  1. I would recommend HBO’s series Rome to you RoK brothers. A very masculine and red pill show , with great characters like Caesar , Mark Antony , Octavian , Brutus , Cicero , Pompey etc Masculinity , loyalty , honour , brotherly friendship are the main themes. Mark Antony , especially , is the ultimate shitlord since antiquity.

    1. The First season alone makes for some of the best viewing on Television I’ve ever indulged myself in. The second season… is good as well, but it felt more like four seasons crammed into one.

      1. I agree. The second season was rushed because they ran out of money I think , but still good. The first season is a masterpiece.

        1. and it was a little bit too red pill for the modern audiences. they got to please the agenda you know

        2. I’d really like for an article to be published recommending a few red-pilled TV shows, or at least very masculine ones.

        3. nah, this was 12 or 13 years ago, not so PC back then- it was a money thing, they jammed so much into half a yr in the abbreviated 3 season. Sopranos, Deadwood, 6 Ft Under and Rome, all on at the same time…HBO’s golden era

        4. That and OZ were too brutal for me, but yeah-HBO used to make amazing dramas

        5. Stalker. The Russian movie.
          M. Fritz Lang.
          Don’t trust any form of Hollywood. Not even HBO. High production value does not equal masculinity.
          Masculinity, if anything, is about not needing high values to achieve something, but to be the high value in yourself.
          Breaking Bad. That’s masculinity and possible derailing of masculinity.
          Seven Samurai.
          That’s about masculinity too.
          Yes. All those are slow movies. Not much action.
          Hard to watch.
          If that’s too hard.
          Stick to Michael Bay (except the rock, solid movie) and become a Shy Le Böff.

        6. I’ll check them out, though there was no need for the jab. Movies can be entertaining and insightful. Hollywood did produce some quality movies. And HBO produced some great TV Shows. Maybe you need to chill out.

        7. HBO is just entertainment. And, you say it, it’s just a jab, not a K.O. punch. 😉
          I enjoyed Curb your Enthusiasm too, and still I see it very critical because it transports dangerous ideas under a ‘funny’ coating.
          Stalker is highly philosophical.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic
          “World governments and the UN try to keep tight control over them to prevent leakage of artifacts from the Zones, fearful of unforeseen consequences. A subculture of stalkers – thieves who go into the Zones to steal the artifacts for profit – evolves around the Zones.”
          “Roadside Picnic was refused publication in book form in the Soviet Union for eight years due to government censorship and numerous delays”
          M. is about a child murderer.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_(1931_film)
          “to warn mothers about neglecting children”
          Seven Samurai is about manliness.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Samurai
          “Seven Samurai was among the first films to use the now-common plot element of the recruiting and gathering of heroes into a team to accomplish a specific goal,….Other plot devices such as the reluctant hero, romance between a local woman and the youngest hero, and the nervousness of the common citizenry had appeared in other films before this but were combined in this film.”
          Recommended them for a reason.
          Twelve Angry Men.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men_(1957_film)
          Because I agree to some degree, not all Hollywood is bad.
          I guess it’s about one men, leading eleven men, towards reason.
          And yup, that man, he keeps his chill.

        8. Most of the multi-million dollar set burned down in Italy and they decided not to rebuild it as the show wasn’t attracting enough viewers and generating enough revenue (it was too sophisticated and masculine for the modern plebs).
          HBO decided to cancel it. I have a strong suspicion that the show was also just too masculine and “red pill” for media execs and it went completely against the Cultural Marxist ideology prevalent everywhere these days. Why the hell keep investing in that when you can peddle homosexual superheroes and warrior khaleesis instead?
          The first season is an unprecedented masterpiece. The second season also until Octavian grows up, then it’s still watchable but just not as good.

        9. The older the movies, the more likely it is to be targeted toward a masculine audience in most cases.

        10. Yeah, he’s creative, but left, sometimes by nature, sometimes by intent.

        11. Spartacus is a guilty pleasure. I appreciated it, but you can’t compare it to Rome.
          Rome will still be watched in 20 years as a serie Masterpiece.

        12. Mixed feelings. I’m a big fan of Mythologies.
          It has some pure SJW moments, and nearly pure Red pills moments. Strange mix.
          It’s one one the first serie that makes me thinks ‘Great, but not good’

        13. “Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.”
          ― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

        14. I don’t care about an author’s politics but I do take an issue when they feel the need to preach to me. And Neil Gaiman does have the tendency to do that.
          But really, I just don’t find his works that impressive.

        15. Tarkovsky’s Stalker is truly a masterpiece. It is considered one of the finest films of the last half of the 20th century

        16. This reminds me of the line in CAPS below..
          “Remember to act always as if you were at a symposium. When the food or drink comes around, reach out and take some politely; if it passes you by don’t try pulling it back. And if it has not reached you yet, don’t let your desire run ahead of you, be patient until your turn comes. Adopt a similar attitude with regard to children, wife, wealth and status, and in time, you will be entitled to dine with the gods. GO FURTHER AND DECLINE THESE GOODS EVEN WHEN THEY ARE ON OFFER AND YOU WILL HAVE A SHARE IN THE GODS’ POWER AS WELL AS THEIR COMPANY.”
          -Epictetus

        17. First season was genuinely good. Loved it. After that it slowly goes downhill. This seems to be the trend for most TV shows these days.

        1. guy who play Pullo, guy who played Vorenus…all top notch

        2. Very true. I suppose Cicero was a more attractive character because of the respect I have for his works. Kinda biased I suppose.

    2. I would recommend you to shut down the TV and read the actual classics. Red pill men don’t have nor watch TV of any kind.

      1. Not a book’s fan here. I do what I can to red pill myself with modest means , plebs’ means.

        1. Give it a try. I also have a hard time now reading books, which was not the case 15 years ago, when I did not have internet or smartphone. Modern technology is destroying our attention span.

        2. When I read a book I tend to go outside to a park near my house, sit on a bench and start reading. I don’t even bring my smarphone with me, just a note and a pen to write down words whose meanings I don’t understand for later. Works like a charm. Having no computer or smarphone near me makes it so much easier to concentrate on what I am reading. Plus the scenery and fresh air also does wonders.

        3. Maybe , when I have the time. I still insist you watch this series. It’s a gem in the ocean of TV garbage out there.

        4. Try using the “tangerine technique”. Google it. It helps me focus all my attention on reading. Also, affirmations. Such as, “My concentration is absolute and complete as I read this book for the next ten minutes.” Works well fot me.

        5. I did that today, park and a book. Took my kids. Sat near the structure and swings. Then this perfumed hispanic chub-woman sat, even at the other end of a bench outside the stink was overpowering, so I moved. Sat across the way on a different bench. Then a black lady and her fat mom sat down at the bench beside mine and yelled at an obese girl and boy they brought. Being a single father is a burden. If I take my kids to the library, they get bored soon, but at the park, I get to deal with the unwashed masses. In a fair world it would be good form to ask wonen to politely to go find their husband.

        6. Have you tried the Amazon kindle reading app? It definitely doesn’t replace a paper book but has a built in dictionary and passage markers. You can get a lot of the old classics for free from the Amazon store as they’re so old and out of copyright, (and really, how many books released in the last 30 years have been worth reading?) Great for someone like me who is always traveling.
          I regularly read my Gracian while queuing or whilst on public transport.

        1. I would start by short books and letters from Seneca, a stoic heavily cited in ROK. You could start by “the shortness of life”. make sure you know a little bit of Roman and Greek history first, otherwise you’ll feel too lost. Good reading!

        2. To add to this, I’m almost finished with Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus.. another stoic. Would recommend.

      2. If they didn’t, then they couldn’t complain to each other about how degraded it is. But honestly, I do more reading than anything. I’ve watched only twenty four hours worth of television or less this year.

    3. Thanks for the tip. I’m always looking for quality in the mountain of manure. HBO set the bar very high for the so-called “Golden Age of Television.”

    4. “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
      ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

  2. If you like really large, literary red pills, it’s a good idea to read books that were written and/or published prior to 1900, because almost every red-pill book published after that time has been whitewashed beyond recognition (or burned)…here are four books you might want to add to your “Must Read” list – that is, if you like having your entire worldview permanently altered:
    1) The Banditti of the Plains (by A.S. Mercer, 1894; a sobering look at the Johnson County, Wyoming, Range Wars, and how history is rewritten to suit the guys who run things)
    2) 50 Years in the Church of Rome (by Charles Chiniquy, 1886; an insider’s look at the unfathomably corrupt Roman Catholic Church and their point men, the Jesuits; you can read it online right here: http://whatsaiththescripture.com/Voice/Fifty.Years.Church.Rome.html
    3) Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan (by Morgan Robertson – an 1898 novella that was first published in 1912 – this “fictional” story presages the wreck of the Titanic)
    4) Zetetic Astronomy, Earth Not a Globe! (by Dr. Samuel Rowbotham, 1881 – I dare you to read this one; I triple-dog dare you…you can read it online right here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/index.htm

    1. I’ll be sure to put them on my to-read list, especially the first one.

      1. The first one is really hard to find in its original state – unaltered copies sell for USD 5000 or more. Shipments of the originals were confiscated and burned. The rest of the books are easier to find (like the two you can read for free, for which I provided links).

        1. A book that talks about how people rewrite history to fit their needs or agendas. Can’t imagine why it was confiscated…

        2. Fixed ’em…check out that last one, “Zetetic Astronomy.” It’s not very long. If you absorb it…wow. Could somebody pass off a mindfuck that big? Yep.

    2. Something I appreciate from older books is the quality and complexity of their language. We lost so much during the last 100 years…

      1. So very true. It probably has something to do with the fact we have been systematically dumbed-down.

      2. You don’t even have to go back before 1900. Ralph Roeder’s Man of the Renaissance (a personal fave) is probably incomprehensible to most modern readers, unless they keep a dictionary near by, and that came out in 1933.

    3. So what’s with the fourth one you triple dog dare us so there must be something special to it

        1. The only problem with the red pill is when the truth stops being the point and “doubting the mainstream” becomes the point.

      1. Okay, now I’m on “epereriment 6″
        Rowbotham proved something. That at the size of the world, each incrament of a mile should have an arc to it, with an 8” top at the middle. For each mile, more curve, i.e. more height of center of longer arc should exist. By this fact, objects at the horizon line should vanish over distances, but with the use of telescopes also placed low to the surface of the ground, you can still see these objects, therefore there is no curve. Even over multiple miles, even where there should be curve.

    4. #2 is almost unquestionably a con job. Not saying you have to be Catholic but like Maria Monk, it seems almost totally certain it isn’t legit.

    5. Saved the list. I’m starting with #4 of course, because that interests me. I got this fever of like 100 a couple months ago and spent all day researching this topic. I find it pragmatic.

    1. Education and civilization were both privileges of a few. Most people have never had either, and would never dare to lose or miss any of them.
      The great accomplishment of modernity was that of using one against the other until both were destroyed. They used the reject of civilization to destroy its intellectuality, in 1789. Then, they used education as a means to dismantle civilization (architecture, poetry, sculpture, family, nation… All our good civilized “constructs”).

  3. I’m always looking for good reading lists for classical education. Recommendations anyone?

    1. Great Books of the Western World circa 1952. It was published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. and comes in a 54-volume set.
      Read that and you skip wasting money going to college.

  4. Here’s a book of more recent vintage, by Wilhelm Reich, which you can read online. Historians have tried their damnedest to erase him and/or marginalize him (Reich’s books were burned publicly in the U.S.). “The Mass Psychology of Fascism”, is available at the link below, which delves into exactly how and why the masses are manipulated using time-tested psychological tactics; it’s a PDF file, so you can save it to your computer and read it later (by the way, the site below, http://whale.to, has some really interesting red-pill articles on it):
    http://whale.to/b/reich.pdf

  5. One very serious advice.
    I know, they do comedy / humor, but it requires at least a good eye and some brains.
    The British can do that! Terry Pratchett was a master in that regard.
    Think one moment about Monthy Python’s Philosophers Football.
    I like rome, don’t get me wrong. But Latin has some serious limitations.
    Greek is great.
    So I would limit the classic somehow, or at least take some elements with more grains of salt than others.
    The Roman classic period for example.
    I love Seneca or Tacitus, him especially because he showed my people great respect, in nasty words, but still, you can read it between the lines, when not open in his writings.
    Poor Varus. Long live Armenius!
    But Latin is tricky.
    Even a simple expression like “Carpe Diem” is so often understood wrong.
    And most important, don’t get your education from HBO shows.
    Sorry. That does not work.

      1. Jewish thirst for power is such, than even when one of them, (((Trump family & friends))), challenges their power just a little bit, they go into such a frenzy mode that unveils their absolute control, making goyim kill them all.

        1. I’m pretty sure they already have our indentities in some database. If history doesn’t change its course , we shall be prosecuted within 10 years for the “racism” we’ve spewed here.

        2. I keep a machete under my bed. Just in case I hear a knock on the door in the middle of the night. I’d rather finish myself off than fall in their hands.

        3. Noo we’ll miss you. Did you know machetes are throwable? They’re very throwable.

          You don’t want to be the one in the ER saying “what was I thinking?” It’s a climbing game. Game gets radical when you run over them with one of their own tanks.

        4. Uh, Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is also Jewish.

        5. If only there was some way man. I have no money and with an Albanian pass like mine you can’t leave Europe.

      1. Cut him some slack, genocide takes time, and since he was waging a World War at the same time as exterminating Jews he was rather short on time.

        1. Of course he did, he needed to conquer those Eastern European countries to eradicate their Jews and other undesirables.

        2. he had to attack Poland because there were a German minority living in Poland as citizens but the Polish treated them basically like the Germans later treated the jew, they beat them to death in public and they were just second class citizens. Hitler tried it with dipolomacy, and told them they have to stop to kill the Germans but they did not. He also asked France and England for help but no one reacted. In the end he reacted by a invading Poland but I think back then were little other options?

        3. Ah yes, of course. He also needed to invade Poland because he needed Eastern Europe in the Third Reich. He needed Eastern Europe to further his genocidal goals. All works out, doesn’t it?

  6. “during a turbulent period in Rome’s history”
    When was a stable time in Rome’s history?

    1. Pax Augusta, more specifically the 5 Good Emperors time, roughly the second century CE.

      1. My favorite is ‘Claudius’.
        The old serie ‘”, Claudius, Emperor and God” is good if you can bare the very special way it was filmed.

  7. Wasn’t the ring of gyges from plato’s republic? I remember that story being written verbatim as such.

    1. “They want people just smart enough to do their jobs, but dumb enough to accept what their owners tell them to do.” – George Carlin (paraphrased)

  8. I was educated in the classics as a home schooler, and had a tutor then. I’ve always kept reading. Here’s my suggestion: start learning language (as with a slow reading of Shakespeare) first, then logic (Euclid, Plato’s The Statesman, etc.); these will assure better mental flexibility. Next, study religion; without this, you’ll get turned around in your own world of ideas, becoming nihilistic, and not even remembering the ideas as well because you’ll lack a context to place concepts together. Along with that, learning human nature is essential so you don’t fool yourself, and literature is the best for this, as well as for language development. After that, you should study extra philosophy and history for the sake of ideas and additional virtues to top things off and fill in the gaps.

  9. One of the best opportunities for the emerging right is that the left dominated education system has largely abandoned the study of the classics. Its too white, too western, too masculine for them.
    This leave the field to us to become the gatekeepers.

    1. Yes. That’s what Quintus was about. And it leaves an important sphere open, along with any other educational program that we can set up.

  10. Very interesting, you can learn much from greek and roman philosophers, leaders, authors. I have learned the latin language a bit to be able to translate texts on my own. I like Seneca and Cicero.
    the poet Ovid has written one of the first “Pick Up bibles”, called Ars amatoria, the art of love. Where to find girls, how to get them, how to keep them. You should pretend to brush away the dust from your dates dress, if you visit a chariot race with her.
    He also told women to advice a slave to burst into the room while they have sex and yell “Your husband is coming”, so the other man has to hide under the bed, even though there is no husband on his way. That should make the relationship mor spicy he said 😀

  11. “What they have gathered from books I have learned myself while serving as a soldier.”
    I did 3 foreign tours, one combat. I left the army and went to college after my service was up. I always did read a lot, but my service in the army was more educational, and beneficial, than my diploma.

    1. “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
      ― Mark Twain

  12. I sometimes wish Rome would have survived. Probably we would be more developed today.

      1. Actually it was not even the barbarians who pushed europe into the dark ages but the church. The barbarians adapted to the roman technology but christianity expelled everything that was seen as pagan.
        the problem is this time a second dark age is nothing, humanity can afford this time for we have for example nuclear power plants. We can’t afford to lose the knowlegde about that.

        1. Knowledge is never lost. It is there right under our noses. Practices and formulas are rediscovered constantly throughout history during periods of mental clarity, but they were never lost forever nor did they fail to exist previous to being recorded and codified by a present day observer. The theory of reletativity has always existed in physical nature. It is a working model in real time that affects the dumbest of animals even who lack the opposable thumbs to write the formulae on a blackboard. Even the simplest of burrowing, grub rutting creatures process what they can of all relative natural phenomenon through obesrvation and developing pattern behaviour in the form of instincts for survival.
          Rome’s demise was causated when they passed the threshold of sustainable size while coming short of meeting certain technological goalposts. Roman men spent disproportionate time and resources placating their shebeasts in lieu of developing the internal combustion engine, the gas ejecta powered mechanisms to rechamber rimfire preprimed projectile cartridges, the laser and the lightbulb.
          Yes Romans had horses but between the Roman mans legs was the real gravitas of the culture, the driving empowered pinion, the engine providing the motive force for the civilization. THE REAL horse of the Romans was the GREAT ROMAN DICK.
          Without the exhaulted MIGHTY DICK, all advancements in civilization are 50%+ taxed and converted into keeping the female’s asses cushioned. A ‘butt pill’ solution. Romans ‘but pilled’ their women and they lost the pattern reflexes to right the keel of the ship when the great backslide began.
          Today, a butt spanking is in store for western women. It will sting a bit and feminists will squeal like piggies, but we cannot allow the improper management of the shebeast to be the death knell of the west. Women are strapping themselves in for the thrill toboggan plunge, but we cannot let the gynoptic mindset take hold. Women aren’t going to ride the west to the bottom like they did with Rome. The dicks are RIISING UP!!

        2. can you imagine having this in a responsible government oder sciense position? I

          That’s even worse than affirmitive action and gender studies

  13. FYI moral absolutism v moral relativism have always been around, always been in conflict, even two thousand years ago.
    The Sophists of ancient Greece were despised by many, including Plato, because Sophists didn’t teach virtu or truth to their students. They only taught the young sons of the urban ruling class how to manipulate the sheeple to achieve their own ends.
    Even their name survives as an object of scorn. Here we are, two thousand years later, our own country people still hostile towards the **sophist**icated.

    1. You are 100% on target with this.
      But, I think there is an urgency today, because sophistry has become the dominant paradigm of the West. In my own life, I see intelligent people become paralyzed by doubt born of the most cynical and nihilistic tendencies– the keen-ness of their minds turned inward against themselves. And they push that self same condition down to onto others as something like a moral imperative.
      When the clarity of virtue in one’s own soul becomes muddy, all too often it becomes something like a compulsion to muddy-up the moral clarity of others. And while an amount of questioning one’s own heart and values is part of a healthy humanistic humility, the absence of affirmative values will make you either into (1)a predator or (2)impotent.

  14. Tristan and Iseult is also a good story, celtic, but timeless. Tristan is the kings best knight and most loyal servant and friend. He has the duty to guard the princess Iseult from her kingdom to her new kingdom because she is the old king’s new wife, to connect their realms and bring peace and welth to their countries.
    Sadly Tristan and Iseult fall in love the moment they see each other. What will happen?

  15. You should look into french author George Dumézil’s work on the structure of ancient Indo-European societies and how they lasted so long due to a balanced tripartite theory. This theory consisted of dividing a society in 3 groups where everyone knew the role they had to play.
    Laboratores – the worker / labourer
    Oratores – the priest / thinker
    Belatores – the warrior / soldier
    Order lost to our modern consumerist societies which is why its such a damn mess and people are confused and messed up.

    1. The tripartite concept is platonic. Freud also adapted it into his id, ego, super ego

      1. You’re right man, Plato alludes to this in the Republic and the different classes within his city. Probably where Dumézil got his inspiration from.
        As for freud, i didn’t know. I’ve always been suspicious about freud’s bourgeois and vague theories of psychoanalysis. I always thought psychoanalysis was very much like contemporary art, a load of vague and ambiguous BS which parades as art to con credulous rich people with too much money and time on their hands. There’s a reason why psychoanalysis and comtemporary art are both very popular among women and homosexuals.
        In the old days when you had worries or issues you would go to the confessional in church and get the load off your chest by spilling your guts out to your priest. Now some crook charges you $300 a session and pretends to heal you with these freudian notions. I don’t buy into.

  16. If the advent of the flush toilet can be traced back to them, read their books.

  17. Modernism is the biggest shadow of death lurking above our society and civilization.

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