The Specious Origins of Liberalism: The Genesis of a Delusion
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Our Continent has witnessed the government of monarchs, dictators, aristocrats and even priests; yet only exceptionally has it enjoyed wise and beneficent rulership – Antonio M. Ludovici (Historian)
…the besetting sin of the Liberal philosophers has been that they have always lacked psychological insight, and built their house upon the sand of a mistaken view of humanity in the mass – ibid
To this day, despite all that the New Psychology, general experience, and bitter fruits of Liberal errors have taught us, people of influence whose opinions have weight may still be found who abide by the superstition indispensable to democratic theory that Man is born good – ibid
If ever a generation of men should arise, wiser and more wide awake than the present bunch representing our “Establishment”, what will they think of an Age which was capable of solemnly building their political institutions on a belief in the Divine Right of Majorities – ibid
…the Divine Right or Kings is not quite as imbecile as the Divine Right of Majorities. For it is easy to imagine, and even to discover in world history, alleged “God-appointed” rulers with endowments far surpassing those of their leading subjects, and whose right to prevail was therefore consistent with a lofty code of spiritual values. But the Divine Right of Majorities can have no such justification. It is always nakedly materialistic and destitute of qualitative factors – ibid
Because everywhere in Europe the mob, high and low, has been indoctrinated with the Liberal heresy that heredity plays no part in human breeding, and that therefore special endowments cannot be transmitted from one generation to another. So often and for so many centuries have the masses seen the offspring of once respected rulers turn out to be in all respects inferior to their forebears that, without the need of any instruction from glib Liberal intellectuals, they have in their own ill-informed and superficial way, come to believe that heredity in human pedigrees may be ignored – ibid
…even if it be conceded that both royal and noble rulers often act as the electorate always do, at least they can be caught red-handed and deposed. But, as we have seen, no such treatment of a mob-majority can ever be possible. Their political crimes defy both detection and correction – ibid
The statistics showing the vast numbers of people annually hospitalized in our society, owing either to physical or mental illness, can leave us in no doubt that our present mobs, both high and low, display a formidably high incidence of subnormality and abnormality…Can there be anybody to-day sufficiently romantic and frivolous to suppose that, in these circumstances, the right of mob-majority judgments to prevail, can have any other than a detrimental effect on the way of life of the nation? – ibid
…when given the opportunity to vote, how can an ill-informed, unqualified moo be expected to do otherwise than consult their own interests? What other political criterion have they? The very spread of vandalism and of wanton destructiveness to-day, affecting chiefly public property, alone indicates that, when confronted by political issues, the populace is unlikely to be prompted by any public-spirited impulses; and the faulty psychology which assumed that they would be so prompted, is among the worst of the romantic errors committed by democratic political philosophy – ibid
In the crucial debate on the nature of Man, all Liberals have argued that he is born good and that consequently Popular Government could have only desirable results. Poets like Wordsworth, philosophers like Bentham and Rousseau, and all women, joined in the chorus proclaiming mankind’s inveterate harmlessness and lack of guile – ibid
…in what respect is Democracy essentially inferior to Monarchy or Aristocracy? If all men are naturally inclined to evil, why should Democracy be necessarily more fruitful of evil than Monarchy or Aristocracy? — Merely because — as the average alert reader will already have inferred — whereas it is possible to control and censor Kings and Nobles, and whereas history gives us examples of nations where this has been successfully done, it is and always has been utterly impossible to control the vagaries, shortcomings, errors and actual vices of a whole populace – ibid
With our male and especially our female politicians constantly mistaking a lump in their throats for a thought, we have reached the stage when a modern writer feels able to state categorically, “Modern thought does not look kindly on strong men” – ibid
For it was the Feudal System, so much derided to day, which gathered up all that was best in the ancient world relating to the uses of Power and Property, and created an intricate and decentralized administration consisting of graduated privileges and obligations extending without a gap from the meanest serf to the presiding monarch. Nor did Disraeli exaggerate when, in Sybil, having asked, “What is the fundamental principle of the Feudal System?” he replied, “that tenure of all property shall be the performance of duties.” And it is significant that even in its most decadent form it still seemed to a man like Carlyle superior to the way of life which has superseded it – ibid
…in its early stages, whilst there was still a vigilant and able monarch to prevent abuses, the duties of the chief or lord under the Feudal System were so heavy with responsibility that, not only were men reluctant to undertake them (just as in all modern hierarchies, military, naval, or ecclesiastical, men often decline promotion out of fear of increased demands on their time and energies), but the community that urgently required leadership and authoritative administration, were often not only prepared, but also often constrained, to make substantial sacrifices in order to lure and retain suitable candidates as their local governors – ibid
…the final outcome was an organization of the country in which privilege was always inextricably connected with duty and public service of some kind. Nor was this duty bereft of protective and tone-setting features. The ideal was to bind together all ranks of society by means of mutual obligation and loyalty; and whilst nothing in the nature of absolute, independent or emancipated individual ownership existed, the right of Private Property was nevertheless sufficiently conceded to provide for the proper development of character and sound judgment – ibid
Under unwatchful presiding monarchs, or monarchs who were themselves exploiters rather than protectors of the masses, oppression and tyranny could very soon prevail over the more benevolent and humane features of the system; and where, as in England, this system was run by overlords dealing with a conquered nation, there was of course in the early days a less scrupulous exercise of justice and charity than would probably have been the case if the common people had been of the same nationality as their overlords – ibid
For an ideal of conduct, a program of decent and honorable behavior does not wilt and wither of its own accord. If it fails, its failure is due to human agencies — in this case to the deliberate sins of the aristocrats themselves against their own Order and its good name. And we have but to understand the moral contained in the etymology of our word Danger (See Chapter V ante) in order to appreciate the folly of condemning Aristocracy rather than the aristocrats themselves for the débâcle that overtook their Order and the Way of Life in a nation deprived of aristocratic leadership – ibid
