Monarchism & Traditionalist Conservatism

People are so afraid to consider the idea that some bloodlines might simply be fit to rule, the way some bloodlines are fit to sing or write books.

>The king is good
>He rules for decades
>He dies
>his son is a cuck
>?????
>Anarchy!

>his son is also good
>as is his grandson
>?????

He was talking about a non-hereditary monarchy, you fucker. The opposite of what you're saying.

I confess I'm attracted to that idea too. It's basically a formalization of what Gibbon's Five Good Emperors did. The monarch rules absolutely, but by law he can't pass the office down to his relatives, he has to choose someone not related to him to inherit his position. It seems like it gets you a lot of the benefits of monarchy while removing some of the downsides.

People are not afraid of considering this - they don't consider it. How many times throughout history as the son of a competent ruler turned out weak?

>are fit to sing or write books

But that almost never happens. You usually have a dinasty of failed artists who culminate in a great one: families that have been artistically influential for centuries are simply unheard of, no matter what art medium you're picking.

Hereditariety only means that the power structure is legitimized regardless of who is at the top, since the replacement process is automated.

The problem you'd have is that the king's son may in fact be very fit to rule but is prevented from taking power by some dumbass law.

The best compromise would be for the reigning monarch to assign a successor, be it his own family or someone else and everyone is expected to obey whoever that is. This way it only becomes a hereditary position if that makes the most sense in the context of that particular civilization and its values.

Also in a traditional monarchy, all the reigning aristocracy would be branches of the same families. So, chances are even in electoral monarchy where passing the crown to your son is prevented, power would still likely be passing between cousins.

History has plenty of examples of that not happening. I hate le sjws as much as you do but let's be honest, hereditary monarchies were shit. A few good rulers can't balance out all the violent succession struggles and literal retards and children on the throne.

Oligarchy is where it's at.

But our ultimate concern has to be that the monarch is the one best suited to rule the state at any given point in time. It needs to be a true aristocracy, a rule by "the best."

>Oligarchy is where it's at.

We already live in an oligarchy, and it sucks. Also given how capital work you may say that this oligarchy is mostly based (with very few exceptions) on heredity.

Englithened Oligarchy is where it's at.

Heredity can also reduce infighting over power because whether the ruler is good or bad, there's less risk of chaos in society as competition for rule is severely limited to a smaller group of people who are born in that position regardless of personal merit.

Another plus is that it would prevent plutocracy because whether an heir is wealthy or not has no role in determining whether he has the right to rule. The role of leader is not something anyone can just buy (provided that same society doesn't allow people to buy titles of nobility).

People may cry about meritocracy, but one problem with meritocracy is that the concept of merit can be subjective and in some cases it's easier to try to instill merits in the ruler than it is to try to find the most meritorious person in a given society. Meritocracy usually opens the doors to power to wealthy utilitarian egoists who lack genuine human values (a king may be just and kind, but woefully inefficient, but I'd rather have an inefficient, soft-hearted dunce who generally leaves me alone so he can play with his horses than an efficient tyrant)

I think the notion that the ruler needs to be the "best suited" needs to be thrown out. We live in a fallen world, we're never going to find a perfect ruler. Just choose the guy who's least likely to impose excessive laws and punish you severely for every slight grievance and learn to be a little more self-reliant so he has less need to expand the powers of the central government because his subjects are good at taking care of most of their own problems.

>Heredity can also reduce infighting over power because whether the ruler is good or bad, there's less risk of chaos in society as competition for rule is severely limited to a smaller group of people who are born in that position regardless of personal merit.

That's what I said.

>Another plus is that it would prevent plutocracy because whether an heir is wealthy or not has no role in determining whether he has the right to rule. The role of leader is not something anyone can just buy (provided that same society doesn't allow people to buy titles of nobility).

This is just naive, a poor king with a poor grip on his military departments will just perish in his court. You're imagining an ideal, utopistic monarchy in wich everyone is genuinely interested in the state of the monarchy itself, but we both know that this has happened very rarely thorough history.

'aristocracy' is not monarchy
oligarchy is what youre thinking of btw, aristocrats are just a class of people

Wow, nice to meet you my fellow bread/purple-pilled friend.

Any chance you'd be interested in talking off-site?

Can anyone recommend specific books?

Anything outside of "muh philosopher king"?

I think the idea of monarchy is very interesting even though it seems to go horribly wrong at times

I have a hard time believing in talent because of my personal experiences

I've had people tell me I'm good at drawing, very talented etc all my life, but I know that I'm only good because my parents thought it would be neat to have a child that's good at drawing and actively put it time and money to see to my education in that way and I too worked on my skills from an early age
Same with languages, I've always had an easier time than others and I believe that to be the case because I heard two languages growing up

If a nurse in the hospital accidentally exchanged me with the baby in the crib next to me for some reason I don't think either of those things would be the case

Maybe I'm just a big fag born without any discernible talent though, doomed to be surpassed by people who didn't just start early and put in the work but were also born with the talent on a daily basis

>doomed to be surpassed by people who didn't just start early and put in the work but were also born with the talent on a daily basis

In literature and art music this never happens.

>aristocrats are just a class of people

Not in Plato they're not.

yeah, its a great euphemism for a 'benevolent' form of oligarchy

Hol up Plato

It happens a lot less than media makes out though, hasn't Carlos II taught you anything?

You two are idiots and dunning krugering really hard. Embarassing to watch.

Ask yourself, how many times have great men of their times entered a position of power, and had exhibited noble and trustworthy traits for the better part of their life, only to have their sense of justice erode due to the situation of their newfound power?

have you even read plato

did anyone ask for your opinion?

He's terrible at communicating, but looking at the sentence construction, he probably meant:
1. Genuinely talented people were born with immense gifts
2. They started early
3. They worked for it, as well
4. All of the above are things he doesn't have
5. People who have 1-3 are born on a daily basis
6. Younger or older, they're superior to him

Which are all true on the broad scale.

The art and language "talents" he mentioned are just low hanging fruit that anyone marginally gifted could stand out for, being surrounded by plebs. But they only rank to about a mound or a hill, meanwhile world class talents are mountains, and have heights that the plebs and gifted plebs will never have.

No, not at all

I should have moved the "on a daily basis" to after "surpassed" instead of leaving it at the end of the sentence

If you read my whole post I was trying to say that starting early and working hard might be great but you would still be surpassed by someone who started early, worked hard and was born with talent (if talent is a thing)
Notice the "just started early..." in connection with what I say earlier in the post about myself, being born with talent would be an addition

Anyone read this?

People with truly superior talents do everything you do, only earlier and with more intensity. I read your post, and that you say you started early and worked for it, is inconsequential relative to your superiors' accomplishments. They have things and qualities that you don't. They started earlier, and combined with their level of work, granted them heights that you'll never have. Nothing I said was erroneous on the broad scale, but I suppose you can feebly talk about your subjective experience in your own terms if you feel like it.

"The Prince", by Machiavelli sort of defends the idea of an absolute monarchy...

>golden one book suggestions

Not even once.

I have no doubt that there are people who start earlier and work harder than others do, but that was kind of what I was getting at, that starting early and working hard is kind of all there is

In my mind talent was always defined as a thing you are born with and that would give you an edge over your contemporaries who start just as early and work just as hard as you do

Are you saying that talent essentially doesn't give you additional skill and some sort of genius when engaging with your medium, but instead is a thing that enables you to start earlier and work harder?
That's probably a much better way of seeing it

Yeah he is a total pleb and i've never wanted to read anything he suggests but that one looked kinda interesting.

There were a period when the Roman Empire had it right, when the next emperor was the adopted son of the sitting emperor.

Aurelius the dick went and fucked that up though

We probably have the same views on the subject, but I don't feel like talking about it anymore, since we both make stupidly imprecise posts about it.

If it's not something that can be sustained or trusted over time, it's not right at all, whether it's five or a hundred emperors. If it's not forever, it's not worth a shit.

Adopted son or not, hereditary succession is shown to inevitably stagnate. I'm more interested in an electionary method of appointing kings, as hopeless as it potentially is.

>This is just naive, a poor king with a poor grip on his military departments will just perish in his court.

Of course a king has to be a good king if he expects his grip on power or his family's continued grip on power to last. But when it comes to assuming that initial power to begin with, you can put an end to a lot more potential fighting over the position of leadership if everyone in a society understands that they're living on someone else's private property and that the owner of that private property is free to leave it to whomever he pleases, regardless of whether or not he or his heir owns great personal wealth beyond his landholdings.

In the past, just because you were poor didn't mean you were not a noble. Many merchants were more wealthy than the nobility, that didn't mean the nobility wasn't still entitled to special privileges and respect owing to their public character or lineage.

Wouldn't it be inviable that at one point you elect a king so great that he breaks the rules and places his son on the throne (or influences everyone else to vote for him)

Or that you elect a king that's mediocre enough to get someone else to revolt and become king instead?

>If it's not forever, it's not worth a shit.

No political order lasts forever though. In a situation where we need government but any government, monarchical or otherwise, is doomed to eventually fail because of human nature and the transient character of things on this planet which inevitably die or decay, we must look at what guarantees a certain longevity of the greatest possible amount or balance of order, freedom and stability, not the permanence of it, which won't exist until God decides it's the right time for him to do it

Taking out a bad monarch is a lot easier than taking out a bad oligarchy.

Electing of a king seems fucking stupid though, what, the people are supposed to vote for a king to serve a lifetime? Have fun letting women elect a Trudeau for life.

Nah, absolute monarch is where its at.

>you can put an end to a lot more potential fighting over the position of leadership if everyone in a society understands that they're living on someone else's private property

I'd love to hear your ideas on what place this kind of thinking has in today's society

The very notion of nobility only existed because the idea of a divine mandate was accepted

>you can put an end to a lot more potential fighting over the position of leadership if everyone in a society understands that they're living on someone else's private property
That they'd "understand" is a confusing term. Certain pieces of land might nominally belong to a king, and people who want it might be raised to think in legal terms that it belongs to that king, but "understanding" alone isn't going to stop them from seizing it, if they so wish, and have the means to do so.

>that didn't mean the nobility wasn't still entitled to special privileges
Entitled how? Society has cycles where merchant classes supplant dying nobility because they have more means to exercise influence, one that surpasses old ideals. That non-wealthy nobility sometimes have privilege in certain periods of a society rarely means anything in the face of tangible wealth.

>human nature
I really don't know what this means. What elements of human nature prevents mankind from enabling elites, who can actually make choices that will benefit society and maintain further elites to make good choices, over long periods of time, including generations, over even millenia?

Additionally, I don't think it's impossible to reach the ideals of an eternal form of government, but human nature need not be an essential part of it.

>cuck

go back to /pol/

please come back to this thread

i need you

yeah he's right, just choose the guy who will just do the right thing and be himself

>behold! a gift from the people to the monarch

Then why have a government at all? Though I suppose that's what you're trying to get at

Voltaire and Burke

Violent succession struggles are the natural process by which competent monarchs take power from incompetent ones.

Who cares if a bunch of nobs get their heads cut off?

Killing off the members of a systematically corrupt parliament would be far more protracted and bloody.

Well the Iron Law of Oligarchy would suggest that all governments are oligarchies. What you want is a form of government without even a 'primus inter pares' but that makes for an awkward government.

That's exactly who I was thinking of.

No can do sport. I like it here, and I'm going to settle in and post for a long time. You'll just have to learn to be accommodating of different perspectives and worldviews.

No it fucking isn't. An aristocrat, in the Platonic sense, is someone who has their soul in the proper order, who, according to the formulation in the Republic, has their reason in absolute mastery of their appetite and their spirit.

That's where we get the idea of the philosopher-king. It's not necessarily any dedicated class of people, though Socrates tries to suggest a means by which such a class could be engineered. But ultimately the person could come from any walk of life, so long as they have imbibed education and philosophy enough that their soul is in proper order.

That is an aristocrat in the Platonic sense. The term later became corrupted. But it literally is rule by "the best" in the Republic.

Good idea t.b.h

Hoppe through his argument is basically due to austrian autism.

I fucking defy you to give me a span of 3 monarchs who were all good.
Not just "Not terrible".

there are three forms of government, rule by one, by the few, and by the many. each has a pure and corrupt form. they cycle forever as:
>monarchy -> tyranny -> aristocracy -> oligarchy -> democracy -> anarchy -> monarchy -> ...

what part of the Kyklos did you not understand exactly?

Egypt middle kingdom
Basically the entire Valois dynasty
Many others

That's kinda like the Evola solution. The aristocrats breed the king chooses the heir from their children, while being childless himself.

Play CK2 and you really empathize with monarchies and the succession laws (Agnatic Primogeniture best law).

B U R K E

everyone who recommends burke in conservative threads should be lined up and shot

And why is that

He was a liberal Whig who sympathised with the American revolution.

F O R C I B L Y R E M O V E

Maybe they're talking about Cardinal Burke?

Military junta headed by a chaste military monastic order. Knights Templar take over as roman emperor.

No hereditary lines.Works best with constant warfare as best commanders would rise to the top.
Attrition in war would remove the old and weak leaders and members. No family so can devote entire time to leadership and.

Edmund Burke was a crypto liberal. Anyone who believes in secularism, and enlightenment values are liberals.

In modern times, the best was probably Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.

Liberty or Equality is available in PDF for free here: mises.org/library/liberty-or-equality-challenge-our-time

Hans-Hermann Hoppe is a Anarcho-Capitalist (albeit a culturally conservative one much like Rothbard was) but he has also written on how Monarchy was ultimately better for us than democracy: mises.org/library/aristocracy-monarchy-democracy

>Anyone who believes in secularism, and enlightenment values are liberals.
That is not how the world works

You think in terms of black and white

Not really. Secularism and the enlightenment erodes as any traditional society you wish to maintain. And yes voltaire is a liberal, as liberal is relative to the status quo but if we look at the last 2000 years as one overarching trend we can see that the last 300-400 years represents a liberal bent as compared to the previous 1600 years of more feudal/conservative living. Burke is a conservative in a liberal society which really makes them a soft liberal.

Do you know Jonathan Haidt? Time will tell if he is right, but for now I hold that view

>Jonathan Haidt
Never heard of him. Did quick google search but will have to look at in more depth. Cant say much at the moment. Can you give me a quick rundown on why you like him?

>Military junta headed by a chaste military monastic order. Knights Templar take over as roman emperor.
That already happened. It was pretty shit.

That empire was headed by latin nobles who married and the venetians. Has nothing to do with what I said. A better example would be crusader acre but that still isnt quite right either. All of the crusaders were nobles, the templars themselves didnt lead the crusades they were merely one organization that was part of it.

>Can you give me a quick rundown on why you like him?
I do not like him. He is simply a psychologist who claims that conservatists and liberals have different moral foundations

He is actually confusing for me because I am European, and here in my country we simply divide between left/rigth and progressive/conservative

When I think liberal I do not think left but rather people who are in favour of (more) freedom, and that can be in terms of personal or economic freedom and so on

>When I think liberal I do not think left but rather people who are in favour of (more) freedom, and that can be in terms of personal or economic freedom and so on
Or rather that is how the word liberal is used here

I dont think I would like him truthfully and its only partly because hes from a liberal jewish family.

Liberal was originally more personal freedom which many american conservatives advocate for, which is why I initially said they are merely crypto liberals. Personal freedom is really about allowing the bad members of society, those who harm the welfare of the nation and diminish the faith of that nation, to destroy everything around them.

Suppose for a minute you are a catholic who wants his religion to be the only moral philosophy of their nation. Personal freedom allows for porn to be distributed, cruel loans to be made, degenerate lifestyles to be proclaimed as normal etc. Supposing you dont like these things for argument's sake, how in a post enlightenment society can you remove these corrupting influences? You cant, as personal freedom allows for them to exist and practice their behavior in broad daylight. American conservatives want more morality but allow for personal freedom which undermines their morality position.

Thats poorly worded but its why im increasing skeptical of personal freedom and how a religious collectivist society is more functional. Almost a religious facist state that isnt tied to ethnicity.

So...Republics?

Throw in
"Politics Drawn from Holy Scripture"
by Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet

"Patriarcha: Or the Natural Power of Kings"
by Sir Robert Filmer

"Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions and other Human Institutions"
by Count Joseph de Maistre

"Monarchism in the Age of Enlightenment"
by Hans W. Blom

"On the Pope"
by Count Joseph de Maistre

"Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism and Socialism"
by Juan Donoso Cortes

"Liberty or Equality"
by Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

"Reflections of a Russian Statesman"
by Konstantin Pobedonostsev

"Democracy: The God That Failed"
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

"On Monarchist Statehood"
by Lev Tikhomirov

"The Menace of the Herd"
by Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

"A History of the French Revolution"
by Thomas Carlyle

"Politics"
by Aristotle

"The Analects"
by Confucius

"Human Action"
by Ludwig von Mises

Monarchies almost never exist in a vacuum. The nobles have power and privileges and the Church does, too.
That's why Catholic monarchies were so very stable for so long.
Hell, the surviving Catholic monarchies in Europe have the most free and happiest citizens!

>von Mises

who are these people that consistently shill for catholicism

catholics, probably

I agree, after Vatican II catholicism is just another Protestant sect.

Yeah look how better.off Spain is when compared to Belgium and Denmark.

Hoppe is an Anarchist, but he points out that Monarchy is better than Democracy

see
A large percentage of Monarchists are Trad Catholics

Liechtenstein and Luxemburg are two of the best-off nations in Europe and Spain would be better off if it ditched the Socialist governments