Dating is often a tortuous endeavor for men and women. Tortured, here, not always meaning broken, crazy damaged people blowing up relationships and leaving a trail of trauma, regret, and anger in their wake. Those people exist. But tortured here means the sense that a man or woman, despite best intentions, personal self-esteem levels, well-adjusted or maladjusted, seems to have a habit of the relationship they desire constantly eluding them. A few long-term relationships fail, for various nuanced and general reasons: fear of commitment, always picking ill-suited matches, hanging on too long, abrogating responsibility in their choices, or refusal to deal with fears of being alone. Tied to that, a lot of short-term situations that appear to start off great to the love-starved guy or gal, only to implode, leaving one or both wondering, “How did I ever get into a thing with this person?” Or choosing flings for fun but repressing the fact that they’re wanting to hook up with new people, telling themselves they’re doing this to not settle, and that repression having the habit of stoking internal and external disorder. In other words, dating can be fraught with confusion, fear of never finding that great match, chaos, anxiety, the consequences of repressing accountability, self-doubt, and regret.

I’m going to speak from my dating experience, which derives largely from the urban dating scene in Denver, Colorado. I’ll speak from personal experience and observation. Denver, like any area, packs men and women following their own ingrained patterns of behavior, following a consistent set of choices leading to a consistent set of outcomes, which keeps them in a cycle of enduring tortured romantic relationships.

I endured a cycle of tortured relationships. I used to undervalue myself. Not in a self-defeating manner, but in the manner of being oblivious to the value I brought to the table. I swung pendulums between dating the bad girl to then “hitting the reset button” to then dating the prig. I was choosy, but had a bad habit of ignoring the girls pursuing me and going after women offering a challenge. I didn’t want to “fix” her—you can’t, nor can you save her—rather, it was women who offered a kind of challenge, whether it be their emotional disposition or an endless amount of hurdles. That all fed an internal scoreboard of me competing against self-created and always moving goalposts. It all made for a faulty vetting process. I’d pick a poor match, not a slight mismatch, but an outright poor match. A relationship with a poorly matched person has the habit of manifesting the features of self-doubt that keep us stuck to those poor matches. For me, if she was ice cold, or unbearably overwhelming, or outright behaved poorly, I would castigate myself for not being the Ubermensch Alpha male months ago, and take my not being the Ubermensch months ago as the root cause to explain her behavior in the moment. Fortunately, when I found myself venting to the steering wheel of my car or buying Stop Walking on Eggshells and reading it in secret, I knew I had to end it.

I had had enough of the cycle by early 2020. I broke the cycle through self-analysis, getting wisdom from a rare pro-masculine psychologist (I know how lucky I am to find one like him), and deep personal realizations. It caused a late personal blooming in June of 2020. I went on to vet and enjoy great matches and found the best match with the woman who became my wife (shockingly, I came close to meeting her a number of times going back to late December of 2004, and so many times throughout the years, and in such a fashion, that it makes me wonder about the Invisible String Theory, as irrational as that may be). I, like many, endured a cycle not wanting to endure that cycle, and am grateful I freed myself from it.

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The cycle is hard to generalize, yet a common flavor prevails, regardless of how nuanced and different the ingredients are comprising that flavor. Many in the urban dating scene, after a failed relationship, after a string of flings which failed to yield, yet again, the satisfaction promised, now claim to have changed and are eager for the fresh start only to find themselves right back in the spot they swore they wouldn’t be in any longer.

Finding themselves in this place again, well-intended people say it’s time for a “reset.” They might beat themselves up a little, maybe ruminate if they’re broken or somehow something—the past, trauma, not being the Ubermensch—got them into this place of frustration again. Yet, they decide not to play victim, “refuse to settle this time,” and tell themselves that they’re deserving of something great. They “hit reset” and jump right back into the same cycle, eagerly and willingly making the same pattern of choices as before, and then wrangling to repress those choices as they get the same outcomes as before.

A common first part of the pattern—imbued with dispositional and psychological intricacies particular to a person—is the “reset.” The motivated want to figure out their love life this time. They may read The Love Languages, Way of the Superior Man, Attached, The Four Agreements, or other popular bumf. Whatever it is, they turn to some expert or school of promises to find the secret.1

They journal a list of meaningless wants:

• Is a good person

• Loves to travel

• Likes adventures

• Is spontaneous

• Is healthy

That’s general to both sexes.

Women tend to list:

• Gets along with his mom (it’s telling that “gets along with his father” is never listed)

• Is successful

• Anticipates her needs (aka, mind reading)

• Owns power tools (or some other token symbol of pop masculinity)

• Isn’t intimidated by her career

• Has a job (the shallower go with, makes 6+ figures, has abs, and is 6’2”+)

• Listens/communicates/can talk about anything, even the hard stuff

The last point always misses that she herself struggles or outright refuses to open up and articulate her past relationships and hookups with radical honesty. Instead, many women hope any inquiry of her past never gets past deflections of, “It was so long ago; I was a different person then”—which camouflages and acts as a palliative for the repression haunting her subconscious. Ask a woman who claims she wants someone she can talk about anything with, even the hard stuff, how many men she’s slept with. One in ten will give it to you straight without pretensions. The nine out of ten will get offended, lie, reflexively counter with feminist bromides, offer rationalizations disguised under being a different person then, or deflect by presenting a self-image of how she wishes to perceive herself. I have some sympathy for the nine out of ten. Because nine out of ten men manifest various insecurities when learning about a girl’s past. They’ll project their sexual insecurities or hold her past over her head to hide his feeling inferior to the men she had sex with previously. Still, regardless of her claims of being changed, she in each of those past moments chose willingly and eagerly to hook up or get into a relationship with a guy.

Men make a list as if they’re looking for a buddy:

• Likes sports

• Drinks beer

• Drama free

• Isn’t a gold-digger

The last point is almost always uttered by men well outside the top one percent of wealth or wealthier. It’s more or less a red flag when it’s uttered. It’s usually uttered by insecure men, the kind of guy who buys into manosphere ideologies of women being agency-less beings but having an innate Machiavellian nature seeking to screw men over. These men are petrified of being cheated on, so much so it’s a complex. And they’ve absolutized a woman’s body count into a moral law to such a degree that they seek their mirror: someone as self-loathing and as insecure as themselves.

Each sex, armed with that list of clichés, dogma, and therapy culture claptrap, believes this time they’ve changed. That they’re a different person now. They’ve done “the work.” They’ve “elevated to a new level” and are ready.

Days or a short few weeks after the last failed romance, they’re back in the dating market, oblivious that they’re using the same superficialities to vet people and adhering to the same dating patterns and making the same choices as before—a pattern of romantic decision making likely no different than they used when they were teenagers.

But this time is different!

They told themselves it’s different this time.

They did the work!

They journaled that they’re deserving and will not settle for average. They’ve studied some game or romance advice and told themselves that they’re better armed to win someone over. Despite dating apps being a massive source of chaotic and dispirited dating for them before, they’re right back on the apps: Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, Coffee Meets Bagel, and Raya. They’re out on the social scene (almost always revolving around drinking). And they’re “saying yes to life” and signing up for activities they wouldn’t otherwise do, like men signing up for Sunrise Yoga at Red Rocks and women signing up for kickball at Sloan’s Lake.2

Each sex gets dates. They date around. They may date multiple people at the same time. Here or there someone seemingly “checks all the boxes” on that superficial list. This time, since a person “checks all the boxes,” a romantic vision of the perfect match is hoisted onto that person, and the hoister tells themselves it’s love or at least maybe heading that way, all while ignoring gut feelings, overlooking red flags, missing that the person is a mismatch at a basic level (one wants kids, the other doesn’t), and the hoister, once again, ends up confused and conflicted when the person who had checked all the boxes turns out to be an awful match, a total knob, a chore to be with, or whatever else. The next time, this person takes a “new approach” and decides to just go with the flow, see where things head, and like before, ends up in a situationship with a mismatch, both people never quite communicating with each other directly about intentions. For both scenarios the relationship ends with each having distaste for the other.

After a few times of this repeated outcome, the fashionable thing for women is an obligatory post on social media telling the world what she’s no longer accepting in her life, that she’s a different person, and she’s finally ready for the next stage. On top of that post, in a more intimate setting, whether journaling to herself or telling a close friend, she’ll proffer fashionable therapy tropes like her past, trauma, or the guy not being what she thought as a reason for her last outcome. Then she may sprinkle in therapy culture claptrap: blame the parents, blame what men did to her, blame the patriarchy, blame religion, and blame the men in her city. She blames anything other than herself for an outcome that is a result of the choices she eagerly, excitedly, willingly, and knowingly made.

The public post women deliver—written by a spectrum of women from the unhealthy and undateable to the healthy and dateable but metaphysically drifting for some reason—reveals insight into a pattern of choices leading to consistent outcomes. The post is self-aggrandizement, not always out of narcissism, but for want of a palliative. To cut through it all, it’s an act of repression. And repression has a way of fueling the crazier parts of our irrationality and keeping us in the same cycles, for both men and women. The woman does not admit she is in the same pattern. She does not take accountability for her choices because her choices determine her outcome. She feels she’s being rational and not irrational.

Men have their version.

For the mob of immature, insecure, or men of lower value—or a combination of all three—their pacification methods look like this. If it’s a longer-term relationship, the crazier the breakup, the more insecure the man: he publicly proclaims this breakup has truly taught him how to love and what love is and that his now ex-girlfriend gave him a gift to be a better man. Some write a clichéd post of how they’re ready to take charge of what’s next in life. The Peter Pan types, ubiquitous in Denver, will try to make themselves look like a hip and chill badass in hopes of making his newly minted ex see what she’s missing out on. For the shorter-term fling, the cad will likely not post something but will tell his friends that she was a crazy drama queen, brag of sexual acts she did to him, and then try to get as many dates as possible on a dating app. Also widespread among this mob, they will just stop talking to the girl. They’re scared of conflict, too cowardly to take responsibility and end it like a man. At best and common in Denver, the genera-bro texts saying they’re not ready to commit right now because they’re “heads down” at work and life is crazy, and it wouldn’t be fair to her or himself to date, given how crazy life is right now and she’s a great gal who deserves a guy’s full attention… followed up with ploys for future hook-ups.3

Whereas the more high-value men tend to ruminate and get overtly self-critical, thinking they need to overhaul some aspect of their character, get too internal, and miss that it was simply a mismatch.

After this period of “doing the work,” both sexes re-enter the dating market (women tend to re-enter the dating market instantly whether it’s after a breakup from a long-term relationship or after a fling with someone has ended). They date around, or even date multiple people at the same time. And for some guys and gals, either out of a pattern of behavior, a sense of pleasure (guilty or not), following more urban dating styles, or a combination of some or all, the term dating here is more or less a euphemism for either sleeping with multiple people at the same time or sleeping with new people in quick succession.

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For women, in this urban instance, the word “dating,” or the New Age jargon phrase like “Empowered Dating,” attempts a linguistic rationalization to make it sound like their dating life is not just about sex. They believe, and know from experience, if dating or hook-up prospects knew they were sleeping with multiple people at the same time, or if not at the same time, new guys in quick succession, it makes it harder to obtain their goal of monogamy or may scare off desired prospects, regardless if that prospect, to her, is a potential long-term relationship or potential for a hook-up. She also wishes to uphold the image she created for herself that she’s a sophisticated dater. And for this group of women, many told themselves they were going to stop hooking up with guys as they look for a relationship and get serious, only to hook up with different guys in quick succession while looking for a guy who “ticks all the boxes” like before. The patterns repeat, the choices and outcomes are the same as before, and from the outside, we see her cycle, we see her consistent dating pattern. Internally, women, like the character in Hunger, tell themselves this time is different, they believe they’re being rational, and once again, irrationality glues them to a pattern they claim to have done work to free themselves. Less talked about, but known to those partaking in this style of urban dating, is that it’s fairly common knowledge that casual hook-ups are less sexually satisfying and instill regret and guilt later. And it’s common knowledge that dating apps are for hooking up; they’re just a few shades off from OnlyFans. Most women in this cycle know that, yet tell themselves they’re doing something differently, and go right back to their patterns willingly and eagerly.

Playing the field is full of spiritual pitfalls but it isn’t always the worst thing. A river of distilled water yields no fish. Courtship is part of the human experience and entails colorful parts of the human experience. Even the devoutly religious can play the field without getting sexual, if they wish to remain celibate before marriage. Speaking pragmatically, it is what it is that some men and women wish to have fun, and that can entail sex. Yet one spiritual pitfall is when a sexually charged dating life is intellectualized and rationalized into something that it’s not. Calling it anything other than what it is builds mental and emotional binds. It will bear heavier consequences of guilt and make heavier the impulse to tell self-lies and deflections to hide the truth from a potential match. Which of course is a recipe for guilt. Another issue, when it relates to vetting for monogamy, vetting for that great match, the titillation, the fun, the sexual validation, the thrill of a new partner distracts from what’s needed—the needed pragmatic discernment of values. The fun also works terribly as a band-aid for the guilt and feeling unfulfilled. As Louise Perry and Mary Harrington poignantly detail in each of their books, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution and Feminism Against Progress, the sexual intimacy that makes the earth shake is rarely found in this style of dating. That style of dating more often than not dulls the pleasure and the disconnect foments frustration.

Yet repressing the truth of what one is doing builds the bind, it stokes the irrationality. No one wants to admit to themselves or the other what they’re doing. And to attract desirable prospects they feel they need to sell the right kind of image, which makes them forego vetting values and instead focus on winning in the sexual marketplace. That has the habit of attracting a match doing the same thing.

Thus the commitment talk on dates, whether on an early date or, and often, well after having sex, is Kamala Harris–like babble. It blends ambiguous proclamations of commitment “if the right person comes along” mixed with ambiguous proclamations of wanting to enjoy life—aka not wanting to commit but wanting to have no-strings-attached sex.

While that Kamala Harris babble occurs between them, if one or both is dating around, each will dance around the fact that they’re dating around with more Harris-like babble. The deeper bind isn’t dating around, it’s personally repressing the reality that they’re currently sleeping with other people, talking to new people on the dating apps, and setting up new dates, sleeping with old dates, and, possibly unbeknownst to them currently, will hook up with someone on that upcoming trip with friends. Yet here they are, in front of each other, dangling to the other that they’re “open” to commitment. Said another way, each serves the other a heap of bullshit with the hopes it betters their chances of getting laid with someone they find hot. With such focus on selling the right image, both parties absolve their capacity to observe the values of the other and to see if those values complement their values. Thus keeping the main goal of finding a great match to build a great relationship with elusive.

If either person is dating in that particular manner, actively dating a few people or actively sexual with new people in fast succession, it’s admirable, yet unfortunately rare, where on a first date, or inside three dates at least, they tell the other they’re dating multiple people and, if they are, having sex with those people. Or if not multiple people, is open to or is having sex with someone else, or at the very least actively going on dates with others or is open to going on dates with new people and that sex is on the table. In other words, radical honesty (this honesty is best served from someone with conversational tact, conscientiousness, emotional IQ, and confidence). For instance, if the girl or guy can answer “how was that trip?” with the truth that they slept with someone. But this honesty is seen as irrational. The person fearing rejection, men fearing the loss of sexual opportunity, women fearing the promiscuous label, will never tell the other they slept with someone on that trip they went on with their friends. It’s also deemed irrational for bringing up God and politics on the first date. It’s called irrational because, to most people, if we’re honest, as mentioned above, they’re worried that if they bring these topics up early it reduces the chance of having sex with the other person.

In the end, as is part of the human condition, the fear of rejection is too great for most. They choose to deflect, hide, or avoid the topic. They call it irrational to be that open because they believe it would sap their game. They miss how the lack of authenticity, to themselves and to the other, hitches them to the patterns they proclaimed to have escaped. This rationalized “rational approach” minimizes chances of finding what they truly want while maximizing chances of staying in that tortured cycle.

It’s not that this style of dating can’t yield a good result, but it makes yielding a good result difficult. All of those patterns create an internal chaos. Women complain of guys making it all about sex despite indulging in a sexually charged lifestyle. Unserious men complain of women wanting to commit despite themselves dangling commitment as a way to hook up. An innate truth for all of us, when we’re bound up with self-lies, contradictions, palliatives—aka repression—we remain blind to our cycle, doing the exact same things we’ve been doing for years and years, yet fully believe that we’re rational and that others are irrational. At the end of Hunger we’re not sure what’s going to happen to the main character. The only thing we know is that he’ll never escape his irrationality.

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Why America

Why not America?

A secret reason might be personal.

I was a history major in college. I love history. I’m a history nerd, As long time subscribers can probably tell, I read a fair amount of history. Back in college, I got in a bit of hot water for taking too many history classes. I had to scramble to find a minor, had missed some core classes I was supposed to take, which all made for a scrambled last quarter of college. But in that mess, I had to pick either American History or European History as my focus. I had equal credits and needed to choose one over the other. I’m of Irish descent, and had recently gotten back from Ireland when the history department told me this. Reflexively, I picked European. I wanted to write on Ireland, feeling it unrepresented in my studies. I picked, for a thesis paper, Ireland’s Troubles Represented In American Media Compared To English Media. A yawn fest. A bore fest. I was passionate in my history classes. I excelled at the exams and thought them fun. Yes, a bit weird, I know. I even liked writing papers. But I hated my thesis. I dragged through it. I knew a week going into it I should have switched. Yet I forged on, wrote a bore fest, and wished I picked American history.

It’s not that I dislike European history, I love it in fact. But my long love affair with history began via field trips as a kid to historical sites. For my birthday, I’d ask if we could do a Freedom Trail tour, yet again. My cousins in Virginia groaned when I visited because I’d want to go to Mt. Vernon, again. Without too much of a ramble, I’ve always loved American history. Each time my wife and I drive from Denver to Omaha, I wonder about that abandoned barn on the side of I-80. At rest areas, if a historical marker exists, I read it, and wonder.

Another reason, I want to do America as a background for future topics I have on the horizon:

• World War II (more overview, I have other topics around this as well like the Third Reich, Hitler, Stalin, etc.)

• The Vietnam War, particularly Mark Moyar’s works on it

• The Civil War, particularly Shelby Foote’s, The Civil War

• American Presidents

Maybe it’s a bit of an unscratched itch, but I’d like to dig into America. The American experiment is unlike any other in world history. America has become the dominant world power in a short period of time. The American Spirit is distinct, while Western, it is distinct in what it represents. I want to look into it, and I believe it's worthwhile. And for the 250th anniversary of the greatest country on earth, why not?

A Caveat Before Getting Into It

Other topics, themes, and authors will be discussed. Here’s what I mean. I’m not picking this topic and going to read all of it until finished.

Why?

I have some big books curated. I know I will need some easier reads in between to keep fresh. I also know that you of those who wish to join reading along with any of the bigger books will need some heads up and some time to plan to read any of these books. I want to afford both of us the space and time needed.

Also, I have a few other themes, authors, and topics burning in my reading pocket that I know I want to dive into. I will likely dip into those here or there. Especially after tackling a big book or two. For instance, I’ve recently returned to my spiritual home, my Catholic Faith. I’m intrigued to dig into a few authors, like G.K. Chesterton, or Raymond Ibrahim’s trilogy on the Crusades.

The topic of America will be ongoing, may have some breaks, but we can view it as a kind of semester. We dig in, take a vacation, then return back.

The Map of Curated Books

I only have a few books set in stone, I’m still curating the others, and am pondering and wondering what fiction to include, if I include it.

Here are the certain to be included:

• Democracy in America, Alexander de Tocqueville (I will read Pierre Manent’s book, Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy as a primer).

• A History of the American People, Paul Johnson

• A Patriot’s History of the United States, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, And I’ll read it’s companion The Patriot’s History Reader alongside it which includes the essential American documents detailed.

Democracy in America and A History of the American people are the most famous. Each is written by a non-American, which also drives the pick for the first work chosen for this topic. And each of those is a thick book. Each will take time.

Good Chance of Inclusion:

• Ethnic America, Thomas Sowell

• Dismantling America, Thomas Sowell

• The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, Jon K. Lauck

• National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America, Michael Auslin

The Great American Novel

I’m eyeing fiction for this topic as well. We’ve all heard of the Great American novel. But it’s tough to pick here, because Melville’s Moby Dick is certainly great, but it’s big, and may take months, and is worthwhile of his own deep dive. But here are a few I’m eyeing:

• Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

• The Scarlet Letters, Nathanial Hawthorne

• The Bostonians, Henry James

We shall see here. The Great American Novel in itself could be its own topic.

The First Book…

The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III, Andrew Roberts

Paul Johnson, Alexander de Tocqueville, and Andrew Roberts are all non-Americans. This is at one end coincidence and the other end specific. Coincidence because each is a heavyweight in its own way and I’ve long wanted to read them. Specific at the other because I want a bird’s-eye view of America. And sometimes the best bird’s-eye view comes from outsiders.

The Last King of America could be an odd place to start. But a recent 250th American anniversary themed article by Roberts graced the pages of The Claremont Review of Books. In it, he writes a compelling apologist article about George III. Roberts dissects the slander and myths Thomas Jefferson and others fabricated about King George. I had not really ever come across that angle. It made me insatiably curious. Recently, on a Victor Davis Hanson In His Own Words podcast, Hanson remarked how Roberts dissected the claims in Declaration of Independence regarding the King, and how great this book is. That naturally perked my interest more.

That unscratched itch since college of picking European History over American History, the topic of King George, are a kind of bridge. I know enough to be dangerous of our country’s founding, but sadly little on King George III. And he is the last King of America. Also, I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never read an Andrew Roberts book. He’s a modern master. I’ve read a few of his articles and each has been superb. I’ve heard him on interviews and podcasts, and each time, he resonates.

It’s long overdue to read him.

This is a big book. I want to get going on it fairly soon, but want to give you a heads up. I’d like to get going on it by mid June. I have a family vacation coming up in June, and I hope to either start it right after or right before. That gives about 3 or 4 weeks of heads up.

If you are interested in reading along with me with this book comment below this article. Note you must be a paid member to join in on the discussion.

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A possible reading order, likely to change:

1. The Last King, Andrew Roberts

   1. A small break

2. National Treasure

3. A History of the American People

   1. A break

4. Ethnic America

5. A Patriot’s History

   1. A break

6. Democracy in America

That is subject to change and almost certainly will change.

How The Bookclub Works

The bookclub here is still in its early phases. I’m learning more each time I try it.

First, you do not have to be reading any of the books, it’s preferred, but it’s open to all paying members.

Any member can ask questions in the chat, which will feature a dedicated thread. And any member can join in on the livestreams.

Those reading along, the chat, comments, and videos, so far, get the most engagement. You can offer analysis, musings, questions, and observations. I work to do a weekly check-in for readers. Whether someone is struggling or has observations, I like to stoke those conversations. The more activity from the members the more activity from me.

You do not have to start when I start. All bookclub topics, for now, are always open. For instance, if you wish to read The Prince next month, which was the last topic, you can go ahead and ask me questions, offer musings, and I will engage with it.

I also understand that some books, like all picked for this topic, are big. Go at your own pace. No need to rush, no need to feel like you need to crank. Reading works best when you go through it at your pace. If you decide to start Last King tomorrow, have at it, let me know, and I will start the dedicated thread for it.

The goal is conversation, getting you inspired to engage with the work.

I will also do videos. I’m working toward a weekly video, it may not always be possible with travel or my daughter. The videos recap, add some thoughts, and so forth. I may include some article riffs. Those will be more unedited and raw. They will depend on the writing schedule and writing projects which I will share below.

I will do livestreams, I’d like to do more of these since the last one was a blast, and I believe people got a lot out of it, so I hope. I know I did, I enjoyed it, and when I found out I can bring people onto the video chat, it became a whole lot more fun.

With a topic like America, and it being mainly history, the questions are going to be more of an overview, like, “What is America?” And with this historical focus, what shaped it? What makes it unique?

With the book A Patriot’s History it’s more or less a counter, a correction in my opinion, to Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. I read Zinn’s work. I read it twice. I studied it in college. Then read it once a few years after college. Each time it was no different, fabulist, full of holes, annoyingly full of Zinn’s heavy-handed agenda, and outright wrong in many instances. I’ve yet to read Patriot’s History but many thinker’s I respect admire it, and it is known as a robust counter to Zinn’s sophomoric yet famous work.

And Patriot’s might be the most intense read of this topic.

This topic may take over a year with given breaks and some jumps into other topics. And that’s ok, it has big books, it will naturally take time And we may need time post reading to chew over what we learned.

I will announce again as I get closer. But if you’re interested in either reading along or being a fly on the wall, comment below.

Again, it’s for paid members only.

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Article Style Update

As I’ve waded into the one man review books lane, I’ve sat on something for a bit. I have a few cultural riffs, a few essays, some percolating, some written, and one ready to publish.

Lately, I’ve been reading, then doing a Recommends. I’m playing with my own style of these versus a more traditional review of books style found in Claremont Review of Books or New York Review of Books.

Yet, I’m lacking in an area, but have been stewing over it. That is, the essays, the cultural pieces, the musings, and so on that makes a review of books stand out. I want to write them, but as soon as I finish a book, I begin a Recommends piece, and it gets long.

I need to give time to flesh out and publish the more essay type pieces. With that, I’m going to keep the Recommends, but will not do a piece for every book I read. I will do them for some books absolutely, but not all. I need to throw my hat in the ring for some pieces that will challenge me and possibly resonate or ruffle feathers. So, I will do a recap of books read, a quick blip, instead of a longer recommends. For instance, I will publish an article today or tomorrow that is a piece I’ve been shaping lately. Then I’m going to dig into a piece I wrote awhile ago (which might need a total rewrite, seeing how I wrote it when I was struggling with my sleep before I got a CPAP — it’s rambly, repetitive, and choppy) about The Iliad and masculinity. I cranked few a few books lately, and while I have those other articles in the works, I will do a brief recap of those books since they are worthy of reading.

Like standard review of book publications, I need to and am burning to get into those essays or opinion pieces. They need my focus. Some will outright be inspired by what I’m reading or what I have just read. I also want to do a few pieces on better reading. And to focus on on all that along with the essays and opinion pieces, the Recommends will likely be for exceptional books, or what I’m in the mood for. They will still come, but it got too much to do it with every book, and my site is in want of new colors.

For any of you still reading it, the chat is still open. All bookclub topics are always open. If you want to go back into a previous topic, author, or book, have at it. With any of the books featured in my Recommends you can ask me directly here. Maybe I should start a chat thread on those…

Also this bookclub is still early in its stages. I’m learning from you. I really enjoyed the livestream. I’d like to do a Machiavelli post mortem livestream. I do not have a date set yet, but if it interests you please like or reply to this message, and I’ll find a time.

I’ve been thinking on Machiavelli since finishing it. My first assessment of The Discourses: after Book I it gets redundant and repetitive. But, for the sake of posterity and for the clarity of understanding his theories, it’s good Discourses gets redundant. The redundancy, the repetitive rambles of his theories, his exegesis of Livy, all adds clarity and em…

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The judgement of beauty orders the emotions and the desires of those who make it. It may express their pleasure and their taste: but it is pleasure in what they value and taste for their true ideals.

Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference: beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If they’re people indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive it.

Beauty encompasses a vast set of meanings, definitions, and applications. That Roger Scruton wrote a succinct book on beauty and that he encompasses beauty’s vast set of meanings, definitions, and applications with clarity, wisdom, and does so beautifully, is extraordinary. Beauty: A Very Short Introduction is a philosophical masterpiece. Scruton analyzes, defines, and argues the concepts of beauty—from taste, fashion, and sexual desire to music, judgment, nature, art, architecture, spirituality, film, and the desecration of beauty. It is an enlightening work that at one end provides wisdom and perspective on the various forms of beauty and one’s taste for it, and at the other provides enjoyment in the beauty that surrounds us, whether it is a beautiful smile, the view from a window, or a piece of art.

Background on Scruton

Roger Scruton is a famous conservative intellectual. Though, to the very online, “conservative” is a pejorative for no good reason other than dorkish purity signaling. Still, to avoid casting him into the same pot as Mitt Romney for the reflexive reader, Roger Scruton is a prominent right-wing intellectual. He is a near polymath with the breadth of his thought—from political philosophy to theology to the philosophy of art and, with this book, the philosophy of beauty. While he is an intellectual, he has a gift for making his arguments accessible. He has a way of unlocking depth whether he is excoriating the New Left or simply defining what’s behind our senses when we observe beautiful green stretches of farmland in Nebraska.

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What Is Beauty

Beauty is not subjective. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; that eye comprises taste and that person’s ideals. But beauty is not subjective. The true and the good exist in beauty. Beauty is both physical and metaphysical. Beautiful people exist just as beautiful art exists, and either can emanate impressions. A woman can have a sensual grace about her that adds to her physical beauty, as a man can have intellectual depth that adds to his rugged good looks. A Winslow Homer watercolor can elicit sentiments of the environment, whereas the intense realism and masterful detail of a Flemish painting make the painting alive. We can stand on a beach and watch a sunset, or in a Midwestern field on a late-summer afternoon, and either stirs something in us, just as we are stirred when we face the sublime of large snowcapped mountains. What all that does to us and to others is objective. Absolute judgment of it exists, and judgments can wade into the abstract. But a person’s taste, depth, and disposition move the abstract closer to an absolute truth. A simplistic example: the beauty of Mozart is universal. But when Yoko Ono howled gratingly into the microphone during Chuck Berry and John Lennon’s live performance on television, we know that as ugly.1

We also know a beautiful landscape can be accentuated by buildings or desecrated by formulaic commercial buildings. The latter is perhaps best—and hilariously—shown by the parody account Mason Home Builder:

Beauty is objective. Beauty comes in many forms, as does its opposite, ugliness. Our perception of beauty is taste. We each have personal tastes. Our taste is a result of our disposition and education (education in the broad sense of life experience, intellectual depth, culture, and so forth). Taste wades into the abstract, and disagreements—strong ones—can arise. I will share my strong disagreement with Scruton below. But on the whole our taste, innate and learned, shapes not merely individual preferences but culture.

Implicit in our sense of beauty is the thought of community—of agreement in judgments that makes social life possible and worthwhile.

Healthy, well-adjusted people recognize beauty without needing a PhD from a university to explain it to them. The sublime expanse of the Grand Canyon stops people when they see it; it moves and stirs them. Certain paintings have that effect as well. You yourself may have been to a museum, stopped in front of a piece, and time slipped away as the piece stirred something within you. Our education, our level of curiosity, can add depth to our taste. We may not be an expert in, say, Impressionism, but we can look at a Renoir or a Van Gogh, and the sensuousness the painting captures or the live feeling it depicts sharpens our enjoyment, understanding, and taste. For instance, why do we detect a “sensuousness” in a field and all the emotions, sentiments, and impressions from a particular Renoir? In other words, education helps inject vocabulary to articulate the feeling. This recognition goes beyond art. We recognize beauty in people too. People of depth recognize both the metaphysical and the physical in a person. The metaphysical consists of the qualities, traits, and dispositional factors. The physical can be the distinct features of the person, most obviously attractiveness or sexual desirability, which then wades into The Eros—a person’s sexual expression and the desires from the primal, emotional, and cerebral. This sexual desire can be expressed via a painting or even how you or your date dresses for a night out.

Scruton argues how a culture and its individuals can contribute to the beautiful by building, exemplifying, or working toward a society aimed at the good and the true, and how the beautiful affects people. The beautiful can educate our tastes, provide a moral incentive that weakens our impulse toward vice, and create a form of harmony. For instance, a beautiful park in a city surrounded by tasteful, beautiful, and—perhaps most important—vernacular buildings (meaning it pays heed to the past and the culture rather than rejecting it all, while maintaining a modern sensibility) enhances the pleasantness and usefulness of the space. In architecture, modernists became obsessed with rejecting the vernacular. One sees this in the generic, homogenized glass skyscrapers that reject the vernacular of the city, lifeless strip malls, or homogenized business parks.

Turning to fashion, Scruton details how the way we present ourselves to the world and for specific situations speaks of our ideals and personality. For instance, a man and woman dressing up for an intimate date at an upscale restaurant will choose different styles depending on location. Women have greater capacity for this form of expression. A sexy date in Las Vegas will have a different fashion approach for a woman than a tasting-menu dinner at an inn on the coast of Maine. But how we dress for each expresses ourselves, our ideals, our intentions, and our cultural sensibilities. Our sensibilities, personal and vernacular, we inherit and pass on, yet culture informs these sensibilities. Transgression is now common, along with a lack of development of sensibilities. Going back to our date example, what might work in Las Vegas might be transgressive at the inn in Maine, just as the opposite looks stiff. In other words, dressing performatively modest is attention-seeking, as is dressing overtly transgressive.

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Cultural Relativism: The Moderns Destroying Beauty

More recent art cultivates a posture of transgression, matching the ugliness of the things it portrays with an ugliness of its own. Beauty is downgraded as something too sweet, too escapist and too far from the realities to deserve our undeceived attention. Qualities that previously denoted aesthetic failure are now cited as marks of success; while the pursuit of beauty is often regarded as a retreat from the real task of artistic creation, which is to challenge comforting illusions and show life as it is.

The antithesis of beauty is everywhere, from how we dress to activist paintings, novels, music, and the landscape you see walking down your street. A postmodernist conviction exists: art must be transgressive. Beauty must reject tradition or norms. Anything inherited from the past is a pastiche, and art instead must contain a message, an activist symbol, or denigrate tradition. This belief derives from a modernist theory that traditional art was becoming tired, a pastiche, or Christian propaganda to stifle the masses and the artist.

A famous example of this “art must be transgressive” imperative is Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ.

This transgressiveness, which often gives people an identity, imbued itself into the fiber of modernity. It lowers the bar and the standard. One need look no further than the sloppy dress—athleisure, sweats, pajamas, adult men in comic-book T-shirts—donned in airports. Not that athleisure cannot look good (women often pull it off better than men), but athleisure is often a form of pajamas. We see athleisure pants on overweight men with untamed beards while they wear Marvel Comics T-shirts. Modern songs have become wholly homogenized; fewer words and instruments are used, and the analog experience is denigrated. Even in education, standards are lowered, tech is deified at the cost of teaching young minds to conceptualize an answer—whether it is a math problem or grasping Gulliver’s Travels. Anything not “activist” or a push for testing efficiency is seen as right-wing, dangerous, or outdated.

Functionality, or utilitarianism mixed with materialism, optimization at any cost, and even forms of transhumanism, are hailed as better replacements for the beautiful. Instead of reading as an end in itself, we must treat reading as a means for personal purposes: 10x income, become a better leader, remove your white privilege, and so on. Or all strip malls must feature lifeless, homogenized, functional looks in the name of efficiency. Inevitably, those modern strip malls will be knocked down and rebuilt again, since they lack beauty, lack meaning, and in the end lack long-term functionality.

A great example of the rejection of beauty is at the Denver Art Museum’s fourth-floor exhibition. It features modern art that is all activist. From a brown tattered blanket tacked up on the wall (its tatters and color represent America’s racism and oppression of Black and Brown people) to the most egregious of the too-on-the-nose paintings in the Kent Monkman exhibit.2 Monkman takes traditional painting elements to then create all Indigenous people as trans or queer (always men) and as dominating white traditional males who always happen to have erections, seemingly turned on by the queer Indian chief, unable to hide their attraction despite getting shot full of arrows. Which, of course, is a banal play on sexual attraction being a construct and a Freudian trope that the white men decrying gay marriage or decrying men playing women’s sports harbor insatiable sexual desire for the trans Indian chief killing them.

Monkman’s work is pornographic kink and a fetishization of progressive activism. What’s telling: the rare instance a woman makes an appearance in his work, she is often frumpy and homely, whereas the gender-queer Indian is depicted as more sexually appealing. The fourth floor at the Denver Art Museum is an outright rejection of beauty and fully embraces the transgressive.

While art like this exists in a museum, modern media marinates us in it. A television commercial will make a husband a childlike dolt, and a woman married to him finds her sexuality, personal expression, and personal happiness to have found a graveyard from which she yearns to escape. You can go on Instagram, see a picture of a family from the 1950s, and it is inevitable to read sneering comments about the father being a physically abusive alcoholic married to either a dumb woman or a woman stifled in all manners by her husband, and kids who grew up with emotional issues—yet this somehow makes the kids enlightened, especially if they hate their parents.

What does a culture move toward when the transgressive is hailed versus when the beautiful is hailed?

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Counters to Roger Scruton

Beauty is a masterpiece, an important piece of philosophy that would benefit anyone. Scruton is an icon; Roger Scruton would be a nightmare in an HOA. Scruton is a snob. Scruton scoffs at anything lowbrow.

On Kitsch

Roger Scruton excoriates kitsch art as anti-beauty. He says kitsch art seeks to destroy the good and the true. I agree that much of kitsch art is silly, looks garish, and is forgettable. For instance, walk into a boomer’s house and a good chance exists of seeing it cluttered with kitsch. Like the wooden signs with clichéd humor:

You see these signs in the bathroom featuring corny defecation jokes, above with jokes about dishes, and near where alcohol is kept telling us how it’s “five o’clock somewhere.” Yes, it is all largely silly, largely tacky, and largely a pile of clutter. We also see kitsch on T-shirts, often a man wearing some self-castrating shirt about his wife being his boss, and the wife wearing a shirt saying “I’m with stupid” that points at the husband. That, in the theme mentioned above, is all about attacking tradition and buying into the idea of how awful marriage is. I hate this form of kitsch most. It is self-castrating. It neuters personal strengths. It neuters sexual polarity between a man and husband.

Yes, kitsch gets overwhelming, it gets silly, it looks like clutter, and it can be self-defeating.

But Scruton needs to lighten up.

Some kitsch art or elements of it can draw up a special memory, a moment. I do not see how a reminder of that moment somehow pulls society into ugliness when instead it keeps us grounded and honoring something of the past. It may be a coffee mug you got on a trip with your father. Dad might be gone now, but that silly mug brings a moment of special reflection while sipping your morning coffee. Perhaps that silly sign Grandma had over the sink; your daughter always liked it, and it went into her bathroom. As she has gotten older, it perhaps sits somewhere on the wall of her apartment—a reminder of Christmases at Grandma and Grandpa’s. Whatever it is, some kitsch has a place; it can stir a memory. When it wades into clutter or hanging onto the past so much that it becomes vicarious, yes, I understand and agree with Scruton’s position. But that points to an issue the person needs to work through. A little bit of kitsch, something with sensibility, meaning, and done tastefully—like that garden gnome sitting in your garden that perhaps is just like the one your grandpa had in his tomato garden—is not going to bring down the West, nor is it an outright desecration of beauty as Scruton claims.

On the Primal Expression

This counter entails the elements of pop culture, fashion, and music. Scruton, both in Beauty and in other writings, scoffs at elements of each. He sees them as anti-beauty.

How Scruton discusses each element and decries it, he misses aspects of human nature. For pop culture, it is more or less the masses enjoying something simple and of their times. It may be celebrity gossip, music, or something viral. Yes, at times it can be somewhat engineered by legacy media at the cost of other fashions, tastes, and traditions, but on the whole it is the masses enjoying various elements of life. Much of pop culture is not highbrow. Sure, it would be great if more highbrow work were featured, but highbrow does not speak to everyone. Even those who are more highbrow oriented sometimes are drawn to something primal or easy-humored because it offers release or joy. In other words, some people want to blow off steam or have a simple enjoyment. Pop culture has a socializing feature, much like getting together at your local pub. While our modern day has an issue of isolation, pop culture, when you are out and about, still makes it easy for people to connect. At the gym someone can laugh about the latest thing going viral. A group of girlfriends who haven’t seen each other in a while may get together and have a lighthearted discussion about the latest thing. Pop culture can have, in its various features and elements, a sense of spirit about it. Not everyone enjoys it. Current pop music suffers compared with popular music of twenty years ago and earlier. But still, various songs hit, and it has a unique way of pulling people together. A guilty-pleasure movie, song, or book has a lightness to it. It draws out joy, fun, spirit, a time of our life.

Let’s turn to music.

I share Roger Scruton’s disdain for the band Nirvana. While not covered in Beauty, he does write about the band elsewhere. Nirvana ushered in an ennui that spread like wildfire, and much of modern music, especially rock, has never recovered. I personally cannot stand the sound of Nirvana, their songwriting, or their utter nihilism and ennui. And how it became edgy to like them—that edginess felt like a shtick to me, the “woe is life, woe is me, everything sucks” clichés. Some say Nirvana was needed to end cheesy hair metal of the 1980s. Yet, as more and more comes out about that era, it looks more and more like tastes did not change overnight; rather, presidents of radio stations simply scrapped 1980s glam rock in favor of grunge.3 Grunge did not have the lasting impact; it faded before the end of the 1990s as tastes moved on and many of the stars, like Kurt Cobain, died. Regardless, Nirvana signaled an end of rock music being fun and its shift to being largely introspective, emotional, nihilistic, and about personal anguish.

Aside from that, Scruton veers into pearl-clutching, saying music such as the Rolling Stones influences degenerate behavior, that the Rolling Stones are anti-art and beauty, and that their music is grating. It is here, and not just on the Stones (though I do love the Rolling Stones), where Scruton misses, ignores, or rejects the primal element of our human nature. This is a shock since he writes so beautifully on the Eros, which contains the primal features and expressions of our nature.

Consider Mötley Crüe. A band full of debauchery, wild tales, and hedonistic lyrics. Many people decry a band like Mötley Crüe. Many have said listening to Mötley Crüe is akin to worshipping the devil, or that if your child hears it once, they will instantly turn into a degenerate mess. That is pearl-clutching and moralizing. It smells of insecurity to believe that if a woman listens to Mötley Crüe she will suddenly start an OnlyFans and try to rival Bonnie Blue, or that if a man of faith listens to Mötley Crüe he will suddenly find himself a drug-addicted criminal. These puritan claims smell of purity signaling and insecurity, sure, but most of all they deny the human spirit.

Mötley Crüe captures a primal spirit of human nature. Their sound captures the spirit of youth, rebellion, release, ambition, fun, and carnal desire. Absolutely, parts of this spirit can run wild and lead us into dark places, regret, excess, debauchery, and spiritual enervation. But that is on the disposition and education (experience, parenting, school, culture) of the person, and sometimes it is youth itself that provides experience and wisdom to forge our virtues as we mature. Scruton misses that this spirit wants to come out and always has. Erasmus in Praise of Folly mocks the “high brow” and moralizers; he shows that to beget children, to laugh with friends, to grease the wheels of life, and to live a life that adds strength, depth, context, perspective, and wisdom behind our virtue requires that spirit. Great cities would not be built without that spirit. Vetting and dating for a husband or wife comes with that spirit. And the humor that can connect people or help us with self-honesty all come with that spirit.

Vernacular, too, can entail the primal part of our nature, the spirit, the release. And yes, at times the primal can get away from us easily and lead into the crude or pornographic. But the thing is, containing the primal is a challenge, and cultures that try to contain it have a habit of not thriving; they are often oppressive and stagnant. The belief that if someone listens to a song then a person and society are cooked is an insecure form of heteronomous determinism. What does it say of the man if he hears Poison’s “Nothin’ but a Good Time” and goes from a straight-edged churchgoer to a drug-addicted criminal? What does it say of the woman if she hears Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” and that is what leads her to compete against Bonnie Blue as to who can be the wildest gonzo OnlyFans star?

While you can answer it yourself, it wasn’t that a Rolling Stones song put people over the edge. People who go over the edge have innate psychological and dispositional factors motivating them, willingly, over the edge. Yes, these songs can have a kind of influence, but they are not the agency of the person. The person makes the choice and begets the action; they are not a zombie. As said, the primal will come out in some manner, whether it is song, sensuous or sexual dress, or what have you. A more troubling concern today is that our primal expression happens increasingly vicariously. It occurs more and more online and less so in person. This vicariousness Scruton discusses, particularly when he discusses pornography and its turning the Eros into a cheapened experience.

If one were to have a solution to steer us toward higher beauty, it will come down to more and more individuals yearning for higher beauty in culture. Which is a battle. Our education system scoffs at beauty. We are taught to hail anti-beauty, such as “fat is healthy” movements. The decorum of dress has lowered. I argue that lewd dress is not the main problem; one gal showing too much skin calls attention, but that attention distracts us from the more pervasive issue of personal dress: the pajamas and athleisure mentioned above. And for many people, those clothes accentuate their aesthetic defects and accentuate the modern issue of pervasive obesity.

How we address the cultural lowering of the bar is multifaceted and complex, but it will have to come from the bottom up, not from policy or someone’s moralizing vision blathered on X. Still, it is impossible to fully contain the primal, but perhaps we can inspire sensible restraint of it. For our culture not to succumb to its darkest corners, we need the good, the true, and the beautiful to sway us toward a higher ideal.

Why Read It

Beauty is a masterpiece of philosophy. It is a masterpiece of wisdom. Reading it, you will walk away with a better grasp of art, your eye will sharpen, your taste will deepen, and you will have a more meaningful grasp of the beauty of the green fields of Nebraska as you will of the beauty of a Winslow Homer painting, and a better appreciation of the design and architecture of Seaside, Florida. Scruton does have a habit of name-dropping particular philosophers that may require looking up, yet on the whole he is accessible.

I especially recommend this book to people who consider themselves on the right and have heard that the right doesn’t care about art or has lost the culture war, as was claimed by right-wing journalist Christopher Rufo. This book proves that claim to be self-loathing and made from ignorance. Here are some names of famous right-leaning modern creatives from a variety of backgrounds:

• David Mamet

• Nicki Minaj

• Howard Subin

• Sydney Sweeney

• Vince Vaughn

• Jon Voight

• Clint Eastwood

• Clint Black

• Chris Pratt

• Scott Johnston

• Tom Wolfe

• P. D. James

• Mark Helprin

• Mel Gibson

• James Woods

The contributions from the right are significant, Scruton’s book being among them.

Beauty is a work well worth reading. It won’t take long, and you will walk away with a lot.

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The Discourses, in my opinion, past book one gets redundant. I can’t not say it. Yet, while Machiavelli is redundant and contradicts himself, he is consistent. He injects his political theory in all chapters, and hammers his points. The more I read it, the more I get the gist of modern politics.

But I’ve noticed something else as well.

The “do something” cry of constituents, which is often a cry from the Left side of the spectrum, is inherently Machiavellian. An event happens, and then the “do something” wants to overhaul the current system and instill a new government system with new laws, new morals, and severe punishment for those opposing.

A similar impulse exists on the Right. Some call it the New Right, but I find the New Right label sometimes vague and sometimes way too online but more often than …

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“Healthcare is a right!”

“Trans-rights are human rights!”

“Equality is not a privilege, it’s a right!”

Human rights are the harbinger of Western enervation. Not all rights are bad per se, but they’re theoretical; they’re based not on human action but on theoretical action. They are a counter to what makes society, in all its corners, right down to our daily lives, stable, free, and good. Rights counter, fight, and work to supplant Natural Law. What Natural Law is and the forces that counter it comprise the core aim of Pierre Manent’s Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason. While it’s a book on political theory and political philosophy, and one of profound depth and meaning, it’s just as profound and meaningful and just as much a book on human nature, psychology, theology, legal theory, culture, and social analysis. Personally, it’s one of the most profound works I’ve ever read. And Manent was the final yet biggest push for me to return home to my Catholic faith.

Who Is Pierre Manent?

Pierre Manent is a French political philosopher. He’s Catholic, conservative, and describes his thinking as a triangle: politics, religion, and philosophy. Manent is a student of Raymond Aron, who is of the Leo Strauss school, and Manent’s close friend and mentor is Allan Bloom, the author of the famous The Closing of the American Mind. Manent has an exhaustive background and understanding of Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Blaise Pascal, and, I’ll add, a gifted and exhaustive understanding of human nature. His writings in America mostly appear via the University of Notre Dame and The Claremont Review of Books.

While European conservatism, or rather the European Right, has different ingredients than the American Right, they do meet and align in various manners. But Manent’s work transcends the quibbling differences between the European Right and Left versus the American Right and Left. His work considers human nature, which transcends boundaries and is universal.

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Natural Law versus Human Rights

What is Natural Law?

One definition from Natural Law and Human Rights:

Natural law is the law or practical principles that human beings do not make because those principles belong to their nature, but that motivate, illuminate, and guide man-made laws.

To help define:

The very notion of natural law presupposes or implies that we have the ability to judge human conduct according to criteria that are clear, stable, and largely if not universally shared.

And a little further:

Natural law as I propose to view it here offers precisely this advantage: while providing explicit and concrete criteria that make it possible to appreciate the conformity of an institution or of a mode of conduct to the natural law, it leaves the agent as well as the evaluator great latitude for exploring paths of improvement, or rather encourages him to explore such paths of improvement.

Natural law is innate to humans and universal to all humans. Where it goes sideways is through disordered reason or a form of ideological shortcut that promises a personal or cultural utopia that is, in reality, the result of misguided passion. For instance, tribes sacrificing children. That barbaric act is a form of passion to chase a shortcut to a promised land, such as better crops or heaven on earth, and it’s also wielded as a tool of power or manipulation.

Natural law is innate to us. And the law here doesn’t just mean something like going the speed limit. It’s the law that governs us humans, and it’s intuitive, natural, and we get it. It’s not always some grand moral question either. Yes, we intuitively know slaughtering a family in cold blood is bad, just as we know cheating on a spouse is bad, and just as we know robbing a store is bad. Natural law extends into daily events such as going on a date to a fancy steakhouse. We know to dress up and dress for the occasion, and given the place, environment, or reputation of the restaurant, it all gives cues to the appropriate style decorum to respect. Whereas if a woman shows up in a G-string bikini to this steakhouse, and let’s say it’s in a stodgy blue-blood Yankee part of town in Massachusetts, wearing that is purposely and performatively transgressive. While the G-string might be sexy, it’s the inappropriate place to don it, and wearing it in that manner is to knowingly shock, is to knowingly perform a stunt because the woman wearing it understands wearing a G-string bikini to a fine steakhouse is transgressive for the setting. Whereas variations of the cocktail dress, sensual or modest, are more appropriate. Just as a man showing up wearing a baseball cap inside because he wants to is also a rebuke of natural law, perhaps best revealed in the iconic Sopranos scene of Tony telling a young man to remove his hat at an upscale restaurant:

A key component of natural law, the engine of it, are the three human motives, which are universally shared and innate to human nature: the pleasant, the useful, and the just (noble or honest can also be used here). According to Manent, and Daniel J. Mahoney in the introduction, as well as Aristotle, all human action, all our choices, are tied to, result from, and are all willingly under our direction from these particular motives. Even when we or someone else is “wrong” or making an immoral decision, or is knowingly sinning, we all think, we’re all convinced, that we’re right in the decision and, again, decide and act willingly. That willingness is our agency choosing. The lyrics of a song didn’t make us misbehave, being drunk did not force us to hook up with someone, nor did society make you choose a choice you came to regret—you make your choices willingly, and often eagerly. The pleasant and the useful are the more natural, the more innate, motives. The just, the noble, is often where the theoretical or conceptual exists. Focusing on the pleasant and the useful, returning to our romantic date, we pick the restaurant in a way that kills two birds with one stone. The food is, hopefully, dependably good according to reviews or past experience, and the ambience is pleasant and in line with a romantic atmosphere, all that makes for a pleasant dining experience. The useful is picking this spot because the food is good, the ambience is good, and we know it’s useful to make for a pleasant and romantic environment. We get dressed to look and feel good, to attract the other, to present our values and ideals, both useful and pleasant. It’s one environment, but the natural law is there; each individual intuitively knows it and knows the unwritten rules guiding certain choices. The just, in this scenario, would be picking a place that perhaps openly aligns with held political opinions or ideologies or is for activism or not of activism. Most sane people do not pick a romantic restaurant based on the just, but in some cities, like Denver, progressives have a habit of making a stink about it.

Naturally, we can get carried away, just as we can get carried away with the useful. We can overindulge in pleasure. We can become obsessed with the useful and act as jaded cynics. But we make choices, good or bad, all with the pleasant and the useful in mind. The noble, as stated, is more conceptual, more theoretical. Yet it does have elements we know are sound, are right. The Tony Soprano example is an example of him enforcing the values of decorum. How he went about it is gruff, to some, but in his mind, and to others, he is just in his action since he’s willing to do what others want to happen but don’t act for whatever personal reason—to tell the young man to respect tradition and the environment.

Walking down a bit more, the natural law, and the motives comprising it, are tied to the archic command. As defined by Manent:

Since the human world is a world of action, a practical world, it is naturally or essentially archic. Divided into commanding and obeying—a person either obeys or commands—it is also held together and put into motion by an act that begins and commands.

Or, summarized aptly by Daniel J. Mahoney in his superb introduction (worth a read itself):

In his view (Manent’s), our ever-more-imperial affirmation of human rights needs to be reintegrated into what he calls an “archic” understanding of human and political existence, where law and obligation are inherent in liberty and meaningful human action. Otherwise, we are bound to act thoughtlessly, in an increasingly arbitrary or willful manner.

Rights and the concept of rights fuel the arbitrary and willful manner. The arbitrary and willful manner, argues Manent, was spawned by Niccolò Machiavelli and Martin Luther. Machiavelli, especially, discarded, rejected, and rebuked The Gap. The Gap being that space between what people do and what people should do. Or, you could say, the choices they make versus what they should make. The gap is moral just as much as it is psychological; it’s cultural just as much as it is social. We behave in a manner and we sometimes know what we should do but sometimes fail that should and act in another way, willfully. A simple instance: we know we should drive the speed limit but we often go five or ten miles over it. Manent argues that people who make self-defeating decisions tend to adhere to the theories and lifestyles emanating from that arbitrary and willful influence. Take certain New Age pseudo-philosophies. Most give license to act upon any indulgence and treat this indulgence as a pathway to enlightenment and, conveniently, it also offers pseudo-wisdom to rationalize if regret happens with that indulgence or the person wishes to call it anything other than what it was and cast the accountability onto an “old self” that is somehow no longer you, or onto a “story” or some other outside factor other than their volition and eagerness in their choice they now try to construct pretenses around.

Going further, Manent shows how individual, cultural, and political choices tie to Thomas Hobbes taking Machiavelli’s concept of fear and making it more appetizing via Hobbes’s moralizing cause. An easy example: “abortion is healthcare.” Not only is that an ideological cliché but it’s a doctrine people hand their agency over to in order to show fealty to the cause and to never stray from it. They see abortion as healthcare as a right and any objection to this claim must be rebuked harshly and even removed from culture. This removal, and process of removal, we see on social media, like this man, and the people in the comments, calling for the boycott of a coffee shop in Castle Rock, Colorado for serving coffee to a “Christian Nationalist”:

@patrickgarrett145Oo•de•Lally Coffee in Castle Rock is a coffee shop I have highlighted in the past. Given their decision to endorse a candidate I strongly oppose, I felt it was important for me to express my decision to recind my coverage of them and make it clear they do not align with my values... #colorado #coloradocheck #smallbusiness #liberal #coloradocoffeeshop

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We find adherence and hailing of the moralizing cause in media, from commercials, shows, and movies, all of which depict pregnancy as a kind of disease, family as backwards and always stifling to a woman’s potential and her sexual satisfaction, among other worldview-signaling tropes. These tropes align with “abortion is a right” and are concomitant with fashionable progressive ideologies. This is part of a wonky Command + Obey cycle that Hobbes spawned. At a baseline, all of us either command our action, our choice, or we obey either a command or an action, and from there begin or command an action. A simple example of obey: if you’re not a Catholic and you go to a Catholic church, and you have social tact, out of respect you obey the traditions and parishioners by not acting however you want to act. You don’t get up and throw tomatoes at the priest. You command your action out of an unwritten rule of behavior. Hobbes’s Command and Obey, which has now permeated institutions and much of the behavior of progressive individuals, is wonky because it is unclear what the command element is and who obeys. And the command is often directed at others who express disobedience. For instance, the corporate company that makes a DEI statement or initiative of some sort. They, or the board who approved it, do this action feeling morally sound and intellectually ahead, and they command this onto their business and into the public marketplace. But are they doing it from their own agency, or are they obeying a group or ideology that demands fealty to this cause? On a more personal level, going back to that coffee shop example, that place is about fifteen minutes or so from my house. That person outraged at the shop serving a Christian is not uncommon here in Colorado. The man is upset that this coffee shop does not have purity; he posts his rant; he feels superior. But is he commanding from his principles or is he obeying an ideology, or is it a mix of both?

Where Hobbes is dangerous, and what Manent exposes, and what we see today with our bureaucracy, is the goal is to remove government. Not in the libertarian manner, but to remove the agency of the individual. The bureaucracy and government should exist according to Hobbes, but not from individual agency; rather, it should exist from this amorphous Command & Obey cycle, where we don’t know if the media personality, the politician, or the local coffee patron is commanding or obeying. It’s a headless Leviathan, fully in charge and running a command-obey from an ideology that supplants human action and supplants agency. And rights, human rights, are the fuel and source of this Leviathan to snuff natural law into oblivion.

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Vertical Line of Action vs Horizontal Plane of Action

Pierre Manent destroys the notions of simple heteronomy. Mahoney defines heteronomy in the intro: “Nor is he a partisan of ‘heteronomy,’ where acting human beings take their direction from the will of others.” Those others, philosophically defined, are outside or external forces controlling our choices. Partisans of heteronomy are best exemplified in the doomer generalizations uttered by pearl clutchers. That, for example, if women are wearing thong bikinis at the beach, it will make other women behave poorly. Another example: the blend of therapy-speak and New Age claims of “I was a different person then” when someone talks about past decisions perhaps now regretted or perhaps the person wishing to absolve all accountability for their past choice in lieu of a perceived conception of their current self-image they want for themselves and how they wish others to view them. Partisans of heteronomy always lay the accountability of an action on an external ideology or an external force.

But why do people choose to date from a position of progressive ideology? Why do 14,000 Gen Z American women each month decide to start an OnlyFans?1 What makes someone like Renee Good or Alex Pretti obstruct federal officers looking to remove criminals and aggressively goad the officers to “come at them” yet seem unaware of the lethal consequences? What makes someone choose Rights as their acting ideology and from those Rights make personal and professional decisions?

What affects our action, our choices, are our disposition and education—education here is not solely school but our experiences, culture, parenting, social circles, and so on.

In brief, the agent’s motives are not up to him, as to either their presence or nature; they belong to human beings as such, to human nature; but the way these human motives become his actions is up to him. His disposition with respect to action, his virtues and vices, are up to him.

Manent has it that true action, the innate “thou shall not kill,” to wear something modest and appropriate to church, derives from natural law; it exists on a vertical line of action. This vertical line of action is innate. These are the intuitive choices. From this vertical line of action we make choices. Not all choices are good, even if made along that line. For instance, how well or poorly one handles romantic relationships. A person may choose to indulge in desires with someone else other than their husband or wife. But within that vertical line, we know acting on that impulse, in this scenario, is wrong, may lead to regret, lead us to dark places, and spiritual enervation, yet someone will make the choice of infidelity willingly and eagerly. In other words, if we can’t contain our desires to various degrees our desires can consume us. Zooming out to legal law, most people with good reason know not to infringe on other people’s freedoms. You don’t rob your neighbor’s house, nor do you build an outbuilding on his driveway. That innate knowledge is on the vertical line of action.

The horizontal plane of action granted new pathways of license. We still act and when we act and believe we’re doing the right action. But the aspect of rights—“women’s rights” or “obese rights” or “trans rights” or “gays have a right to be married” or “blacks have a right to reparations” or “healthcare is a right”—in a sense opens up the door to provide a set of rationalizations and easier access to personal justifications. It gives license to a barista who harasses you to use pronouns; it gives easier pathways to a woman who wishes to be among the 14,000 women a month who are eager to sell their sexual expression on OnlyFans. The horizontal plane is a set of rules, a set of complexities that influence or direct action, or it gives an easier pathway to indulge in our desires, and we obey it or command it. Many groups of people blame the Sexual Revolution for our current cultural issues. That it infested individuals with a set of choices. But the Sexual Revolution did not alter human nature nor did it alter our actions. Rather, it gave license to indulge in desire (the pleasant and the useful). It offered labels of sophistication, free-spiritedness, independence, and more. The Sexual Revolution provided theory and justification if one wished to indulge in their innate desires, whether man or woman. Those desires already existed, they’re in no way new, they’re innate. The people with the disposition to indulge, however, were now armed with reasons to indulge and armed with formulaic pretenses if they felt judged. Though we can’t discount how certain concepts, like the Sexual Revolution, or the culture of a city can influence our behavior to certain degrees. This, Manent argues, is the horizontal plane. It’s this additional set of complexities, from the explicit, from external factors, that offer an additional pathway to how we choose. Consider critical legal theory. It works to supplant natural law and make all judicial decisions based on the horizontal plane of action. Critical legal theory postulates that the legal system is set up to favor wealthy white men and oppress all others, and that criminals are either a victim of this system or wrongly oppressed by this system. From this position, people will command and obey the ideology whether it be a judge or whether it be how someone believes they should act around police. And it also gives a person an identity; they portray this identity by showing fealty to the “correct” moral and ideological view.

Difference of Sexes and Generational Closeness

Manent shows how the concept of rights is ephemeral, that rights are wholly indeterminate, because the idea of rights is an idea that presupposes that the right existed sometime before it was “taken away.” Such as the recent demand for trans rights. Somehow trans rights were taken away, the claim goes, and by instilling them back, we get back to our natural nature. This is a Rousseauean concept. Most mistake Rousseau as wishing us to return to live in nature and be one with the animals. But Rousseau envisioned a kind of blank slate, that the natural law and inequalities that happened in human history somehow suppressed our natural state and our rights. Yet his rights, the concepts Machiavelli and Hobbes and Marx and the current progressive posture all push for, promise a utopia, a state theorized as our correct and natural state, but, again, it’s based on ideas that presuppose what existed. As in, they never existed. They’re whimsical; they’re a theoretical action; they’re made up. A way we see this playing out is in what I found to be both beautiful and potent, what Manent says about the sexes and generations:

One of the most essential laws is that which, as it were, holds together the difference of the sexes with the difference of generations. The other sex is the strange proximity which is furthest away; the other generation is the strange distance of what is nearest. No human being can by himself regulate this distance of this proximity. To try to do so is to enter into a vertigo, a loss of the self from which there is no return.

That passage sums up so much truth—personal, cultural, and political. Manent sees traditional marriage, one that can beget children, between man and woman, as best representing natural law and upholding the true and good in society. And that gay marriage laughs in the face of natural law because it cannot beget children. Manent reveals a truth: men and women are different. That the natural proximity to the opposite sex we have yet the disparity between the two sexes is a beautiful yet powerful postulation. A man’s nature, his psychology, his biology, is vastly different from a woman’s nature, her psychology, and her biology. One man’s disposition will differ from another man’s, despite some shared nature and biology, but each man has a far greater disparity from the differing dispositions of two women. This is what makes the world special. Yet the world of human rights tries to change this disparity; it tries to erase the differences between men and women, and does it by making men into awful, simplistic, and privileged beings. Whereas we’re much closer to the generations bygone, our parents, our grandparents; we’re close to them, despite them living in different cultural and social fashions than us, and our grandparents are further away, yet we inherit elements from them, a common sense to evolve wisely and smartly. The current progressive posture takes the torch of Hobbes and Machiavelli and works to denigrate past generations and erase the natural differences between the sexes.

Manent, however, is not a doomer. He believes that a way back to practical reason is possible. He believes it to be in the more traditional elements of Catholic sensibilities; he believes it is found in the more traditional sensibilities, not radical revolution. He makes a sound case toward a recovery of practical reason. And what drives this case is his poignant point: natural law is eternal law; it is innate to humans. It is around, despite the doomerism. Constitutional originalism is one such sign that natural law exists. That Trump forcefully works to address the nonsense of transgenderism, particularly men in women’s sports, is another sign that natural law exists. That the young men coming into faith prefer the traditional, prefer the Catholic church over the slick, fashionable Martin Luther descendants we see today with big-box churches. That schools like the Barney Initiative with its classical curriculums are a sign of the natural law. It will take time, but there are forces working against the damages created by Machiavelli and Hobbes in our modern world.

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Manent Pushed Me Back to my Catholic Faith

I’m a cradle Catholic. I rejected my Catholic faith and went hard atheist after a priest hit me up for $500,000 to get my dad into heaven, and my grandmother, who was a devout Catholic, the priest at her main church in Boston turned out to be among the worst child abusers when the sexual abuse scandal became known. I read all the New Atheists, particularly Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. I also read a fair amount of A. C. Grayling. But the more I read them, and admittedly I was an insufferable atheist for a bit, perhaps most insufferable when I was reading Ayn Rand along with the atheists, I came to find that they couldn’t prove anything. I found it all clever, yet smug, and felt it ignored much. My return to faith did not involve the common “I was a deviant and am now found” permeating social media. But when I got deep into Stoicism around 2017, I began looking at my spirituality. Then I approached Christianity cerebrally, which is how I tend to approach things. When I was reading Edward Gibbon, of all people, I relented and admitted that Jesus is my savior. But I refused the Catholic church. I tried the big-box churches and was appalled. I came to a great church in Colorado, BRAVE Church. BRAVE is led by pastor Dr. Jeff Schwarzentraub, who has a PhD in theology, and is rigorous and a talented pastor. His rigor and depth, however, had a way of opening my eyes to my Catholic faith. When I read Erasmus in the late spring of 2025, Erasmus demolished Martin Luther for me. I started going to the lovely St. John’s Cathedral in Boise, Idaho, and I knew Catholicism was my spiritual home. Still, I hemmed and hawed. David Mamet pushed me closer in the summer of 2025, but Manent gave the final push to my spiritual home. I believe Catholicism to be true, and Manent hammered that into my heart.

Why Read It Who Would Like It

It’s heady. It demands time. It demands reflection. But it is worth it. The introduction by Daniel J. Mahoney is worth it alone. This book, when Manent writes it you will see it and not be able to unsee it. He may not convert you to Catholicism, but you will look at politics, art, people, and yourself with far greater enhancement. He clarifies so much of the world. It’s a powerful work. It’s not a long book, about 140 pages give or take with the introduction, but one requiring diligence.

If you want to understand modern politics and the self, this is the book to read. From human interactions to how an institution sets up rules, it’s all in Natural Law. It’s readable, but passages will take some time to grapple with, as Mahoney states in the introduction. Manent is French, and this book was translated into English. French translates beautifully into English and maintains the French style. The French style of prose ruminates, tumbles, and winds like a stream. To grasp his arguments, you will likely need to spend time with a paragraph, reread it, and be willing to return to a few passages. This isn’t a lack of clarity; rather, it’s how Manent’s ruminating and articulating an argument, and he does it well. It will click if you’re willing to engage with it.

Conservative writer Michael Brendan Dougherty calls it a must-read for conservatives and to understand conservatism—he’s right. If you’re right-leaning in any way, shape, or form, it should be required reading to understand your viewpoints.

If you have any interest in human nature and human psychology, I’d say it’s a must-read. How Manent extrapolates human behavior is otherworldly. He will provide a depth to your perception of self, perception of others, and even perception—enjoyment, taste, understanding—of characters in movies, stories, and songs.

It’s a powerful book. Read it.

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I did a check-in on the chat and didn’t hear anything. The chat does not send a mass message like an article, and the message probably went into the empty airwaves.

With that, I’m curious where readers of The Discourses are at, what are you noticing, questions, analyses, insights, and observations.

Possibly this week, here or on video, likely on here after I finish editing an article, I’ll drop a kind of bullet point list of observations. A key feature of Machiavelli I’ve noticed is how repetitive he is with his themes. He has a consistency of putting his theory into every chapter. Discourses certainly expands his political theory laid out in The Prince, yet consistent themes are hammered over and over.

Given how political the work is, a question I’ve been wrangling with, is how Machiavellian became to be a comm…

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But if you’re joining me in The Discourses I’ve started it.

A note to those of you still reading The Prince or wanting to read it, I will still cover it. Likely I’m going to make a video on one of the chapters this week, I believe chapter 15. And The Discourses expands the concepts introduced in The Prince, so much of what’s discussed from The Discourses will apply.

The Discourses is a sizable book. It will take some time to go through. Do not worry about reading speed or falling behind. Chew what bites you can, enjoy what bites you can, and any analysis, observations, understandings, struggles, or questions, feel free to mention in the chat or in the comments.

Also, last week’s livestream was stellar. You can watch th…

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Livestream

This week, Friday, April 3rd, I’m going to do a Livestream right here on Substack.

If you can join me live, I would love to have you on. It looks like I can now host live via my desktop, I hope it’s a smooth experience. Come on, ask some questions, share some observations, or anything Machiavelli you got go right ahead.

If you can or cannot make it — questions or observations you’d like answered or addressed, go ahead and share those either by commenting here below or sharing it in the chat thread.

Schedule

Right now, I’m on Chapter 15. I’m changing my reading schedule a bit this week to get an hour on certain mornings. So I might make easy work of the rest of The Prince. If you’re planning to join me on the Discourses, let’s plan Monday, April 6th as the start. But I will still be…

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With Machiavelli, it was the modern experience — he speaks of hs lunga esperienza delle cose moderne in his Dedicatory Letter to The Prince (written in 1513) — that found its own expression. In Machiavelli modernity found an interpretation of itself that determined the orientation of the European mind, and hence European political history, from that moment on.

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As I said in the video, he and Pierre Manent arrive at the same conclusions, and often through the same pathways, despite Manent and Grafton holding different worldviews. To me, with vetted thinkers like this, that same conclusion offers weight to both, and means we should take what they say with gravity and it’s a worthwhile compass to help us grasp, understand, and enjoy The Prince.

Here are some passages I believe relevant to the introduction, and passages that will help us tackle this iconic work.

From: Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Human Reason, Pierre Manent

These are curated from the introduction by Daniel J. Mahoney:

It wads the classics and the Christians who defended “reflective choice” and “free will,” the preconditions of all meaningful action. By contrast, Machiavelli, writing at the dawn of modernity, substituted a theoretical perspective on action that eclipsed the agent’s poin…

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