Rather than rely even slightly on Locke, we should be studying the thought of one of his chief rivals. Robert Filmer is the direct foil to Locke. In his most important work, Patriarcha, he explained proper political theory -- that which is based on the essence and structure of the family. The household patriarch is the foundation of the national monarch. Both derive their authority and power from their nature -- as heads of people who depend on them for rule.
Locke, by contrast, believed everything should be abstract and contractual. He was the embodiment of the Protestant Reformation, a full-throated Puritan Revolutionary. Read the Russian counsellor to the Tsars, Pobedonostsev, on his views of these religious ideologies.
The framing of Indo-European heritage as both fact and choice is spot-on. Too often reconstructions of ancient cultures stay stuck in academic debates, but treating it as an active "spiritual weapon" for countering modern decay actually takes the work seriously. I've been lookin into comparative linguistics stuff for a while now, and it's wild how much trifunctional social structures still show up in unexpected places today.
But on one point I disagree--the emphasis on Locke. You wrote, 'What emerges from the mists of the past is not just an artefact, but a spiritual weapon. What we need is a mythical foundation, in the Lockean sense of the term, on which to rebuild the European nation. We need a myth capable of unleashing a metaphysical war, a polemos, against the dying principles of the modern era.'
I agree in principle (though probably not in the programmatic working out of that principle...). Yet Locke cannot be the foundation of that renewal. He was rotten, root and branch.
Locke was the antithesis of the type of origin myth to which you refer. He didn't believe in a people's essence, but in humanity's blank slate. He didn't believe in a national lore, but in a social contract. He didn't believe in a social ontology that was inherently heirarchical (kings, nobility, priests, artisans and tradesmen, and peasants), but in the essential equality of mankind. Thus, he was not part of the Old, pre-modern Way, but in the New, Enlightenment Way. If we build on his foundation, we simply return to what is worst about the modern, bureaucratic, managerial, law-bound West.
Rather than rely even slightly on Locke, we should be studying the thought of one of his chief rivals. Robert Filmer is the direct foil to Locke. In his most important work, Patriarcha, he explained proper political theory -- that which is based on the essence and structure of the family. The household patriarch is the foundation of the national monarch. Both derive their authority and power from their nature -- as heads of people who depend on them for rule.
Locke, by contrast, believed everything should be abstract and contractual. He was the embodiment of the Protestant Reformation, a full-throated Puritan Revolutionary. Read the Russian counsellor to the Tsars, Pobedonostsev, on his views of these religious ideologies.
The framing of Indo-European heritage as both fact and choice is spot-on. Too often reconstructions of ancient cultures stay stuck in academic debates, but treating it as an active "spiritual weapon" for countering modern decay actually takes the work seriously. I've been lookin into comparative linguistics stuff for a while now, and it's wild how much trifunctional social structures still show up in unexpected places today.
Very thoughtful.
But on one point I disagree--the emphasis on Locke. You wrote, 'What emerges from the mists of the past is not just an artefact, but a spiritual weapon. What we need is a mythical foundation, in the Lockean sense of the term, on which to rebuild the European nation. We need a myth capable of unleashing a metaphysical war, a polemos, against the dying principles of the modern era.'
I agree in principle (though probably not in the programmatic working out of that principle...). Yet Locke cannot be the foundation of that renewal. He was rotten, root and branch.
Locke was the antithesis of the type of origin myth to which you refer. He didn't believe in a people's essence, but in humanity's blank slate. He didn't believe in a national lore, but in a social contract. He didn't believe in a social ontology that was inherently heirarchical (kings, nobility, priests, artisans and tradesmen, and peasants), but in the essential equality of mankind. Thus, he was not part of the Old, pre-modern Way, but in the New, Enlightenment Way. If we build on his foundation, we simply return to what is worst about the modern, bureaucratic, managerial, law-bound West.