An Armed Society is a Polite Society, or the Warrior Aristocracy and Moral Codes

Dearest friends,

I cantered on over to the Crimson Crustacean, a chain cafeteria which is common ‘cross this continent, to chow on cooked clawed creatures and cows. Some of you may be saying, Monsieur, that’s not classy. To you, I say, those who put class over cash in the long run find themselves parted of both. Over many centuries, money talks and bullshit walks. Although, if someone had pointed a butter knife in my direction, I would have found myself short cash, class, and clothing.

It’s enough to make someone support a knife ban, isn’t it?

But you’re not here to listen to me talk about what I eat, even if sometimes I eat that wonder of the post-post-post-post-Modern post-scarcity age, the Eleventy Layer Quasispace Chalupa, the pride and joy of Taco Town (may the maior and the magister chililitarum live forever). So then, the main course.

It is often said, especially by old people, that an armed society is a polite society. And this was remarked by that venerable scholar, Thorstein “50 Cent” Veblen, that barbarians tend to be quite well mannered. “The barbarian of the quasi-peaceable stage of industry is more notoriously a more high-bred gentleman, in all that concerns decorum, than any but the very exquisite among the men of a later age, bitch nigga.” And it’s true that even I, of the genteel castes, am a rather rude fellow compared to even the Victorians, my nigga. It is only because the fucking shitty manners of the lower orders are even dogbothering worse that I pass for mannered. And it is true that I am hopelessly confused by cutlery, that I find the notion of restaurant dress codes outrageously outdated (though it was only a few decades ago), and many other things. A quick survey of the early Middle Ages confirms Veblen’s notion that ages of industry and learning and ages of war and politeness are inversely related. And why wouldn’t they be? Besides displaying leisure, politeness serves an important purpose in regulating the tendency of the warlike towards feud and random violence. What keeps people prim and proper is the threat of physical violence. In the World War International Netweb, there is no way to hit a bitch, so everyone’s asshole grows three sizes that day, threatening to consume human decency like a giant yawning goatse.

Hell, it seems like the malpractice of modern mastication alone would drive Miss Manners mad. Motherfucking monkey testicles. Gadzooks. So what does this matter? Politeness is the keeping of behavioral codes. Well, functionally, so is morality for most people. While I find ethical arguments and theology fascinating, most people do not. For most people, morality is a set of things they shouldn’t do because reasons. Even those who get off the Christianity train usually end up on the crypto-Christianity train, where they do all the things that Christians do except they justify it by some vague appeals to a fuzzy universal morality. They’re still essentially keeping the Christian codes. It’s like Western Buddhists. They’re just funny Christians who worship Buddha like he’s Christ. Truly alien moralities are just that, alien.

Here’s some Slate Star Codex. Uno Dos.

Creating conlangs is hard not because creating language is fundamentally hard but because we are bad at top down modelling of processes that are the result of a bunch of tiny modifications over time.

Human brain can’t into catallaxic effects arising from networks. That’s why proles perceive world politics as a vast conspiracy by the Illuminati, because world politics is the emergent order from an incredibly wide and ancient network that makes me, the nobody Monsieur le Baron, a second degree connection to multiple heads of state, and means almost every upper middle class person knows a centimillionaire or billionaire. The vast, byzantine Illuminati plans that span centuries are more the product of investments by people with a certain level of FTO. If normal humans have low FTO, and the conscientious, child-delaying or childfree middle class person has high FTO, then this level of FTO is stratospheric. Comparatively low FTO aristocrats like fatty fat fatty no self-control Lena Dunham live lives like high FTO prole city people, except the latter are convinced they’re exemplars of self-control, and Lena Dunham is a sister-molesting cow who lives by the spur of the moment (this moment is defined as one whole human lifetime). The idea that Lena Dunham isn’t planning for generations down the line is appalling to me. The idea that *anyone* could be investing for generations down the line is deeply alien to the prole. So, world conspiracy. I could go on, but I digress. Another time.

Adhering to ancient traditions when the context is rapidly changing is a recipe for disaster. No point in mastering seal-hunting if there ain’t no more seals. No point in mastering the manners of being a courtier if there ain’t no more royal court. Etc.

So why does politeness decline as we leave the age of warriors? Politeness is the keeping of a bunch of arbitrary behavior codes. In a rapidly changing industrial society, this presents a comparative disadvantage. To the innovative go the spoils. So having good manners, being socially conservative, makes you a weaker in the status battle. Or, as previously discussed, leftism is the language of power, rightism the language of losers. A tradition is not valid outside its context, industrial societies rapidly invalidate contexts.

So what? Monsieur, isn’t this all obvious. My apologies, but I was dropped on my head a lot, so I have to slowly spell things out. Furthermore, the obvious does not go stated often enough. There are too many contrarians and not enough metacontrarians. An armed society is a polite society is a quaint aphorism, and it doesn’t come with a justification because it’s held to be self-evident. So people throw it aside because they don’t have a good rational story for it.

So let’s get to something new. Why is neo-reaction, a predominately middle class movement, so attracted to the idea of the Kshatriya? We’ll throw out a lot of stated reasons right away. The high FTO, caring, responsible ruler, to the extent he exists, is a scholar-aristocrat, not a warrior-aristocrat. Unlike these lowborns, I have the advantage of witnessing military bloodlines myself. A knight, like any other jughead, loves Camaros and lives a reckless lifestyle. Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse to ghostride your bitchin’ Camaro. The reign of warriors is not the reign of Fnargl, it’s the reign of turning your national GDP into lots of Camaros and Dependapotami. So what are some real reasons to support the Kshatriya meme? Well, for one, it allows this band of usurpers and oathbreakers concerned citizens to seize power, since, obviously, a bunch of internet bloggers are the *true* warrior aristocracy we’ve been waiting for, which legitimates their claim to overthrow the existing elite. But, to be quite frank, I don’t think many people are fooled by this.

The second reason is more deep rooted. I’ve said before that the middle class is the keeper of morality. In Victorian times, they were the paragons of respectability. They called it bourgeois norms and respectability. Today, they are the most strident globohomos, the ones that walk their talk. Now, if a clever bourgeois notices something is up with globohomo morality, they are naturally disgusted. They would want a return to a polite society. And who offers the polite society? The armed society.

The warrior aristocracy.

The Kshatriya.

Alles in Butter, not just my lobster tail.

Every dog has its day, even celebrities, though Hollywood types are all sons of bitches. And one day, the Kshatriya will ride atop their steel horses, and there will be much weeping and revving of Camaros.

Next time maybe, I fill in for the Sad One and explain the essential similarities between Ayn Rand and Karl Marx. It’s Economics for Dummies with Monsieur.

Eats to fill the void in his head,
Monsieur le Baron