FAILURE AT THE GATES OF VICTORY

COME HEIL OR HIGH WATER?

by Colin Liddell

Virtue and vice are not, as the Left supposes, determined by a line that divides humanity into "the Blessed" and "the Damned." That is a very Manichean, Judaic, and inherently non-European concept, which has, like some toxic chemical, been present in the moral bloodstream of our civilisation for too long, and with which Western Christianity has long struggled.

No, that simplistic view of good and evil creates a retarded morality that is unable to recognise the organic complexity of reality, and which thus cuts across it with a brutal and unforgiving blade. True virtue is, as Aristotle expounded, a Golden Mean between two unhealthy extremes. Between Cowardice and Rashness, lies the golden virtue of Courage. Between Humility and Vanity, Pride glitters in all its glory...

RACISM AND SEXISM VIEWED AS ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUES

Aristotle: the original shitlord.

by Colin Liddell

For Aristotle there were always two vices for every virtue. This was because of his belief in the “Golden Mean.” For example, the virtue Courage existed between a vice of deficiency (Cowardice) and a vice of excess (Rashness).

To emphasize the metapoint: Aristotle saw all vices as existing on a continuum with all virtues, with no wall between them. This is very different from the Manichean morality that later poisoned the West through Judaic theology.

What happens, however, if we apply this Aristotelian analysis to the major “vices” of the modern day, namely “Racism” and “Sexism”?

DEGENERATE MORALITY

                     

by William Solniger

Anyone who has seriously tried to practise any sort of virtue, however meagre, will know the necessity of making a habit of it – not just “knowing” it theoretically, but engraving it into his very being by constant repetition, so that he becomes what he repeatedly does. Because of this necessity for constant repetition, virtue cannot be left to the “important things” alone, but must permeate the insignificant and trivial ones as well. This is why the Hagakure contains the advice that “small matters should be taken seriously”; and this is perhaps also the reason behind the more arbitrary and petty aspects of religious and traditional codes.

In any case, it is a concept sorely neglected in the present day, as relativism provides the ultimate excuse to force all forms of virtue to bend and flex in the wind of particular circumstances and situations. But someone who cannot practise virtue inflexibly and habitually is very rarely able to practise it at all. Contrary to the belief of almost all of our contemporaries, someone who is accustomed to telling thousands of gentle lies and half-truths in everyday life cannot simply put down his habit of dishonesty to think about “important things” like life, the world, and himself; and this is similar to the truth that, despite much fantasising to the contrary, someone who is accustomed to avoiding confrontation in small matters of honour will rarely be able to draw his courage from its rusty scabbard on an occasion when he really needs it.