Introductory Thoughts

For those that belong to the Emperor

 

There is much talk and digital ink spilled over the crisis of modernity the West finds itself in. While particulars differ all agree that a great deal is wrong. I feel the best description lies with a man of the desert who was a few thousand years ahead of the curve when he said.

 

“There will come a time when men will go mad, and they will attack the sane man saying you are mad. You are not like us,” ~St. Anthony the Great

 

There is a feeling of dread of what lies over the horizon and that this terrible end must be thwarted or at least effect a course correction to something manageable. However, we have a terrible time predicting the future. Events which are impossible to predict have a habit of dominating our history. Advances in technology have had impacts that were both grossly overestimated as well as underestimated. A feeling of gloom permeates the culture and its artefacts it produces. But while wondering what is to be done and what will happen we must first accept what has already occurred.

The post-apocalyptic genre exists not to talk of distinct possibilities but to soften the blow of terrible acceptance. What the members and audiences of this dissident moment we’ve found ourselves in must realize is that there is simply no way to prepare for the end as the end is already here. Or at the very least AN end. Our desolation is of a far more subtle nature. Ours is a spiritual wasteland though more and more it reflects in the physical decay of once strong communities. We must accept that we are among ruins and must make do with what we have. This does not seek to imply a consul of despair. We are not the first among ruins. There is a general agreement of action but often times sincere misplaced effort can be worse than doing nothing at all.

A reaction to this has arisen for good or ill, particularly online. Many aim to leverage social media to ‘red pill’ enough “normies” to eventually reach some kind of critical mass. Others simply go to commiserate with fellow pessimists and bewail the eventual dissolution of all they know. The medium is well suited to both approaches as the internet lends itself to a kind of impotent rage that can become strangely addicting. Other efforts of a more corporeal nature have led to mixed results at best.

 

One approach that gained some attention is The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher. Named after the father of monasticism. At the risk of doing his work unjust simplification the Benedict Option speaks of a kind of deliberate withdrawal from the modern western world. Founding intentional Christian communities that would hopefully be small and non-threatening enough to narrowly avoid the boot heel of the modern state or it’s writhing unwashed masses of malcontents. The urge to withdraw in the face of seemingly insurmountable hostility appeals to many and has also drawn criticism which Dreher often acknowledges as perfectly legitimate.

 

However a spiritual descendent of St. Benedict could offer another alternative. A monk within the fledgeling Cistercian order brought forth a new synthesis of seeming opposites. That of the warrior and the ascetic. Though at a deeper level many parallels can be found. Geoffry De Charny’s Book of Chivalry points out these connections well.

 

 

It will indeed be apparent that however much it may be said to those entering the religious orders that when they want to eat they will fast and when they want to fast, they will have to eat, when they want to sleep, they will have to keep vigil, and many other such things, this is all nothing in comparison with the suffering of knighthood.. For whoever might want to consider the hardships, pains, discomforts, fears, perils, broken bones, and wounds which the good knights who uphold the order of knighthood as they should endure and have to endure frequently, there is no religious order in which as much is suffered as has to be endured by these good knights who go in search of deeds of arms in the right way…”~ Geoffry De Charny

 

This notion is repeated by many:

“The first quality of a soldier is constancy in enduring fatigue and hardship. Courage is only the second. Poverty privation and want are the school of the good soldier”~ Napoleon Bonaparte

St. Bernard was instrumental in realizing this synthesis. He helped structure and found the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar. Along with writing “In praised of the New Knighthood” he was also related to founding members and aided in drafting the Latin Rule which governed their way of life. The ideal of the hero echoes throughout history and scattered amongst time and covered by a collective forgetfulness, the forgotten ideal of an elite order of warrior monks can bear a torch within a dark age.

It is important to realize that the manifestation of such an order would not look like the past. Some fall victim to attempting to mimic accidental qualities that belong to a specific temporal context out of romanticism. However, they simply wouldn’t translate to the present if for no other reason being the distinct lack of jousting and chain mail in everyday life. While the circumstances are different, the spirit of such an order has much to offer in a revolt against the modern world and a return to normalcy. Following these threads buried just beneath the surface and rekindling forgotten fires will reveal the image of what the men of the future will become.

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