In the Beginning, There was no Polity…
Observation shows us, first, that every polis (or state) is a species of association, and, secondly, that all associations are instituted for the purpose of attaining some good - for all men do all their acts with a view to achieving something which is, in their view, a good. We may therefor hold that all associations aim at some good; and we may also hold that the particular association which is the most sovereign of all, and includes all the rest, will pursue this aim most, and will thus be directed to the most sovereign of all goods. This most sovereign and inclusive association is the polis, as it is called, or the political association.
- Aristotle Politics Book 1 Chapter 1
Dear readers, we’ve come to a good point to sit and reflect upon the founding of a Polis. What a Polity is, how to determine a good place to start one, what that entails, and how to commit yourself to doing so.
The first of the series, Founding a Polity, details the argument I first laid out for our project. Namely; that rather than trying to start a Polity around non-existent frameworks, and going through the process of creating them whole cloth with people we know, but haven’t lived within a community before by definition (and thus, like friends first moving in together, can sometimes destroy a friendship by the proximity they’re unaccustomed to and unable to handle with no framework or escape) - a structure is already in place. In addition, there are already social norms, customs, habits, hierarchies, etc.
Now, it is extremely likely that the people there do not think like a polity. That they do not act like a polity. That they have no mind of doing so, and need a gentle hand to push and guide them towards what Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas would argue are their natural ends. That would be generational thinking of the common good of themselves, their offspring, and ancestors. Having an us/them relationship so as to become a distinct people, develop distinct culture, habits, customs, laws, an us/them attitude, etc. Instilling those outlooks, that mindset, that natural view of the world; that is what the whole project is about. Convincing others that their natural inclinations towards the common good of themselves, those that they love, and interact with daily within a religious setting are more important than those that they don’t.
By doing so, they will not only accumulate more material resources, yes, but they will become more than they currently are in their atomized state, spiritually, morally, and emotionally. They will gain the strength to overcome trials of adversity that life brings within our current situation already - a fractured social system, dysfunctional economy, a lack of edifying cultural entertainment, a lack of support from systems outside of oneself, etc. These tight knit Polities, bound by religion, marriage, ethnicity, and culture; could come to face the fall of Empire in much the way the people did in the fall of the USSR - alliances with those around for trade/labor/protection, working within the community without exchange of money, being a force for organization locally, being a wellspring of saved knowledge/skill, and being a spiritual bastion for the conversion and salvation of souls.
The Ethnic Element
Because it is the completion of associations existing by nature, every polis exists by nature, having itself the same quality as the earlier associations from which it grew. It is the end or consummation to which those associations move, and the ‘nature’ of things consists in their end or consummation; for what each thing is when its growth is completed we call the nature of that thing, whether it be a man or a horse or a family. Again the end, or final cause, is the best. Now self-sufficiency is the end, and so the best.
- Aristotle Politics Book I Chapter 2
Yet, at this point in the project and our history of the US, they will not have one of the core attributes that makes up a Polity - a unified ethnicity. Instead, by changing the mindset and viewpoints of those who attend the Church you have selected to pursue the common good together, to found a Polity, you will also, by happenstance, be founding a new Ethnicity. Now, this is an important part at this time, for there is no us/them relationship with people and when we start, various disparate peoples will be attending the Church that you are beginning the Polis within. Yet that has to change - human beings are meant to belong to a folk, tied by blood, marriage, tribe, village, and eventually city. So, if an an us/them mentality is able to be established, marriages within families attending that Church will eventually become intermixed and, given enough generations, there will be a distinct Ethnicity. This ethnicity would have its own attributes, habits, characteristics, culture, traditions, relationship with the Faith, etc.
This is the area, more than any other, that I have had either the most whole hearted agreement, or disagreement, upon. So let me elaborate some more at length.
While, yes, those coming to America did originally have some ethnicities, and settled with their brethren; the vast majority of them saw their own ethnicities broken up within the first or second generation by subsequent colonists from different areas. They further broke this up through travel, westward expansion or travel between states, breeding/marriage with other natives/slaves/Spanish/French/other colonies, and on down the line. This occurred at times naturally, without any goading on the governments part.
However, that is not to say the government did not goad such break ups. From it’s start, the government did not like enclaves of foreigners setting up. Benjamin Franklin specifically was against the German settlements of his time. Multiple times counties were broken up if foreign enclaves established themselves; the most well noted was use of eminent domain to destroy Catholic neighborhoods as well as importing black labor while the neighborhood they didn’t do that to had men fighting in WWII so to prevent them from gaining influence in congress.
White, also, was a term made up by Enlightenment Freemasons to justify slavery in the colonies. It is a broad descriptor of the skin color of what had been previously been called races, nations, and ethnicities - the words were interchangeable. Those terms - race, ethnicity, and nation - are older terms, more geographical, smaller in designation historically, and more applicable to the Polis. White, however, is a skin color of many of those ethnicities, and was further re-defined by the United States government to exclude Catholic nations.
The reasoning being that our government was formed exclusively upon Enlightenment principles that excluded the principles of prior human existence - the relationships of peasants with authority, with religion, etc - things that were anathema to the empire the Founders saw as the future of the United States. The full embrace of the Enlightenment principles have led us to where we are today; with woke religion and ideology slammed down our throats, no Polity anywhere in sight, and atomized individuals running full tilt after the Libertas, Equalitas, and Fraternitas to pursue those woke sins, rather than a loving human Polity and relationship with their fellow man. Doing the latter requires a rejection of those values, an embrace of the True, Good, and the Beautiful.
While I certainly believe that any Polity, to have the best chance of survival, should have a majority of people with as common background of culture and tradition as possible - to conflate those and skin color with race, and try to pursue skin color at the cost of unity on religion, race and morals in pursuit of the common good seems like a losing strategy, dehumanizing, and immoral.
As such, I will vehemently defend the idea that when you are founding a Polity, you are founding an Ethnicity as well. It is based in genetics, history, the human experience, and morality.
Vetting Possible Polities
In order of time and in date of birth, the body is prior to the soul, and the irrational part of the soul is prior to the rational. This is proved by the fact that all the signs of appetite - such as anger, self-will, and desire - are visible in children from their very birth; while reasoning and thought are faculties which only appear, as a rule, when they grow older. The conclusion which follows is obvious. Children’s bodies should be given attention before their souls; and their appetites should be the next part of them to be regulated. But the regulation of their appetites should be intended for the benefit of their minds - just as the attention given to their bodies should be intended for the benefit of their souls.
- Aristotle Politics Book VII Chapter 15
All of this comes down to the practical - how do we take our first steps? How do we go from theory, to the real? It is wonderful to think of a Polity built around religion, and talk of it, but if you don’t think you have a suitable location near you, what is one to do!?
Well, that’s when you start looking for one. You might ask around to people that you’ve come to know and trust online. Or simply do online sleuthing, to look up suitable locations. If you’re Catholic it’s easier - you can look up Traditional Latin Masses after determining if you want to live in a rural location or an urban one. Anyone else, I couldn’t tell you. You’re smart, I’m sure you can figure out how to research the kind of places you’d want to live.
Call their priests, ask questions. I’d always, always, always say that one must visit the Church in question, multiple times, before making such a life change. And, while one is ultimately trying to deduce the Virtue of a people within that Church, the easiest way to do so is often to see the fruits of their labors.
Their children, and how they behave.
You see, with a multigenerational outlook, we’re starting a complicated dance between religious norms, and how to behave when we’re separating ourselves from a toxic society. It is all too easy to be too lax in the distancing part - letting too much culture of death in, the empire of lies, and having children be tempted away from the beauty, goodness, and truth that the Polity is trying to create. On the flip side, if you have nothing to offer them, don’t have any real culture you’re creating, no future job prospects, no art, no music, and no real dating (oh, the stories I could tell about “courtship” guided by boomer parents instead of a real courtship with socially known rules to a whole polity!). Ask what happens after the children go to college; do they come back? Do they get married and move away? How many people have multi-generational living at the Church?
Well… Those kinds of things obviously show up in children rather quickly. Which means that you have dysfunctional, rebellious children wandering around. Or that it comes out in odd ways with their relationship with the Faith. Or they simply leave when they come of age.
So, get to know the children. See if the children are alright. Ask questions that make people uncomfortable - from the priest down to your hosts or guides - because, guess what? Your children, and their children, will be raised with, marrying, becoming priests or nuns next to, dying and being buried by these people.
Or not, if they’re a bunch of nutter-butters, good only for making people feel good when they’ve had a hard day, but soft and empty of all spiritual nutrition otherwise.
Because, when you go and visit, you will be given the nicest, best foot forward, most congenial host they know. Not out of malice, but simply because that is human nature, and they’re looking to make your visit pleasant. You’re not looking for that though. You’re looking for as much of the stinky, rotten trash as a potential Polity will let you see. Their scars are their own, their stories their own, and you won’t get or see much.
But, you’ll probably be able to figure out how they deal with the youth and how the elderly without family to aid them. How widows are treated in the community. If they have a community graveyard, or one in the works, or thinking of one. How much support is there for young mothers and families? What’s the job situation like, and how well do people work together in the community to get things done?
None of the answers are make or break in and of themselves. They’re simply answers. Think of it as a weighted guide, and that the community has to sink or swim, as well as momentum towards drowning or getting that breath of air. Either they will drown, or they’ll get air, and then make it to shore. Do you want to hitch with them, and be a resource? Do you want to put in the hard work, to put in what you think is needed to make them into a Polity, rather than just a place of worship?
If not, that is fine, don’t hitch your wagon to them
And, one can have the radical idea of starting where you are.
I put this thought after the others, because I think that it should be thought of after considering how much work really needs to go into determination of a Church and whether it is suitable to start for founding a Polity. It would be all too easy, if I lead with this option, simply to say, “well of course I’ll do that! It’s cheaper, easier, and all that seems to be required is changing people’s perspectives!”
I would argue that this is not all that is required, because what is required is people who have virtue whose minds can be changed. What is more, is that you likely do not live directly within walking distance of the place you go to Church, and I would argue that one MUST live within walking distance for this project for the best results. The idea is to make it so that your children, wife, and family can use it, it’s resources, and it’s spiritual, emotional, and habitual center in peoples lives to make a Polity.
That has wonderful benefits for your family in being able to picnic there, be able to use any play ground, easily go to any social gatherings, be a core gathering place at your house for outside of Church events, etc. It also allows you to be an example to others of how to structure their lives around this type of foundational living. “Look dear! The Jones don’t have to buy lots of material things to have a nice day, just some sandwiches, a picnic basket, and walking to the Church after Mass! How come we don’t do that!?”
Your actions become the lesson, even if you find yourself a person not able to articulate it well with words. A smile and invitation for people to join you in the real joys of living are all that are necessary.
The other hard part about starting where you are is that people know you. This is both a pro and a con. As Our Lord said, a Prophet is not accepted in his own country. If you change, accept that you’ll get some push back and questioning. Again, this can be good, and lead to fruitful discussions with people you’ve come to care for.
But, if your current Church isn’t one with good Youth, a good priest, or good people, is it one for you?
Submit, So as to Build
If a ruler is just, he seems to profit nothing by it. For since he does not award himself more of what, [considered] unconditionally, is good if it is not proportionate to him, he seems to labour for another’s benefit; that is why justice is said, as we also remarked before, to be another person’s good. Hence some payment [for ruling] should be give; this is honour and privilege, and the people who are unsatisfied by these are the ones who become tyrants.
- Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics Chapter 5.72
Here we come to another sticking point to many modernists. And still, to many that might be reading this. For, you see Dear Reader, not all of us have set aside our Enlightenment values so wonderfully laid out by
in The Dissident Right and it’s Discontents which, when I read it, was almost like I was reading a theory for what I had set out to write about mix of how-to from my own life, with the philosophy and theology behind it.Because, you see, we have vetted the children and families because they’re the easiest to access and gauge honest answers from. However, in the end we must submit to the leader of the Polity - at this stage, as we’re founding it centered on a religious point of worship - the priest. We must determine if he truly is virtuous and loves his flock. If so, then, should the flock actually follow the shepherd, the imperfections will disappear over time.
If not, they will get worse and multiply.
Immodest dress will beget immodest behavior, then sexual licentiousness, cheating, etc.
Proclivity to anger will give rise to quarrelling, divisiveness, prideful behavior, fighting, factions within the Polity, gossips/slander, etc
Yet, a loving leader that is virtuous will not hesitate to manfully insert himself at appropriate times. Let others sort it out when possible; when not, he will do so. It is also something necessary that there be an authority to sort out high level decisions, legitimate disagreements, set the us/them tone for the Polity, etc.
He will know when it is time to gather sheep and save souls.
Or when it is time to hunt wolves, to strike the enemy, and defend the Polity.
Because both are necessary, in their various times.
Yet, you, as an individual of the Polity, are not the one that makes those choices. Your choice is to find a place, vet it’s potential as into a Polity in the future, while submitting now, or to walk away.
The question is - do you want to belong to something greater than yourself? What do you want to leave your ancestors? Is it a home, wealth that you can touch? Is it generational wealth of skills, of clans, of friends and families built over not just years, but generations? The world has always had this before modern America, and America can have it, if it desires to.
Anything you belong to, you submit to. So, if you’ve found that leader, with what you think is a decent set of followers, why not?
Yet, if you have found a place, and do submit, this will take time. It will need to be gentle. What needs to happen, when you think you’ve found a place to start, is to sit back and not be an entryist. Enjoy and come to know the people that you’re going to start this Polity with.
It is easy, upon moving to any locale, to be gung ho. To want to do all the things. Be the center of attention. Yet, the people around you were living their lives before you got there and, if you moved away, would continue to do so. They have their own businesses, their places in a hierarchy, places on boards, etc.
So, while starting a Polity within the Parish or Church structure does mean one must gain respect and status to make changes; of opinion, outlook, practice, culture, etc, one must not expect to do so all at once. You have to get to know people in a slow, deliberate, human way - don’t be a fed boy, have the whiff of fed boy, or propose anything about security or violence. Even if you’re a cop or military man, let people come to you.
Take the time to see what is lacking in the community, that you have to offer. Fill those gaps. Gain trust. Show that you love the community, pour yourself out for it, and gain the leadership positions, or ears of those within them, to change outlooks and perspectives to those of a true Polity - pursuit of the common good for us, not them, building wealth over generations.
For that, at it’s heart, is what the Polity is.
Pursuit of the Good Life, for everyone.
Those that have come before us.
Those that are with us.
And those to carry on our legacy after we’re gone.
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children,
but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.
- Proverbs 13:22
It's hard to get people to change their mindset. Liberalism has rotted peoples mind to the core. They cannot de-attomize themselves.
Im blessed with a wife who understands and shares my vision of tribe and clan, but outisde that it's been a struggle for finding people who can even consider being part of a tribe and having a personal mutual responsibility with anyone. I have one friend who has been able to hear me and accept an insider vs outsider perspective. Everyone else in my life is just impossible to reach.