Aristocratic Rule to Epicurean Stoicism, the Collapse of Law and Social Order

The Western Social, Legal and Political Structures Have Collapsed, Next Up: Economic Structures will follow suit

7 min readJul 14, 2018

In the next century, the entire Western World will most likely be a relic of history. Similar ‘predictions’ tend to focus on narrow issues of social conservatism or economics; but the prediction I now make is that the Western world will experience a total ‘self-immolation’ of all its own institutions. The rich-billionaires will become the lawyers and judges of right and wrong; the politicians will run all economic activity; and each of the political candidates will either be a celebrity or an artist.

It is already clear that ‘big business’ control most of law, social order and regulation. It is also already clear that most governments have far-reaching ‘control’ of economic activity. Sadly, there have already been many political candidates and appointments that have come from the stock of celebrities and artists (e.g. Ronald Reagen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Donald Trump, etc).

Aristocratic Law

There is a tendency to read history and the past through the lens of disgust and disdain. An institution of our past such as that of ‘aristocracy’ tends to provoke similar sentiments. Sentiments aside, it is very evident that aristocracy never truly died. It only morphed and emerged into a different beast. Aristocracy, in a nutshell, is the social order that permits ‘rule’ by the wise and/or best. In the past, the best meant men of higher rank by birth, decree or socio-political status. In the present, we have only removed and rejected the notion of ‘the best’ as those born of birth, only to replace them with the following:

Judges and lawyers: the best in judging the written law.
Politicians: the best in a relevant political system.
Corporate CEOs/Billionaire Founders: the best in the relevant market or industry.

These, are our modern aristocrats.

Besides ruling out (mostly anyways) the option of an aristocrat being appointed by virtue of family and/or birth, there are the following significant differences to the classic aristocrat:

Besides (in a few cases) judges and lawyers, the modern ‘aristocrat’ is not strictly required to follow a higher code of ethics. If any such ‘code’ exists, it is usually more loose and much akin to a code of ethics that a normal citizen would be expected to live by. It is, in other words, not higher, but average.
The modern aristocrat is expected to strictly separate his activities in one area (e.g. the law), from those of another area (e.g. business). The classic aristocrat was expected to fulfill at least two of these at once. In many ways, one could not ‘rule’ without showing clear signs of social superiority by succeeding in several of these areas.
All classic aristocrats held the SAME higher code of law, ethics and morality. An aristocratic, for example, who was ‘good’ in business, was expected to hold to an ethical standard about as high as that of a judge. A modern aristocratic, on the other hand, is not only ‘expected’ to be incompetent in another domain, he is expected to be the opposite of the standard of morality when, for example, he is a politician (i.e. usually associated with pathological lieing), or when he is a business leader (i.e. usually associated with pathological infidelity in marriages and abuse of human labour or deceiving customers).
Worst of all, even lawyers, and judges, are increasingly manipulated for immoral or unethical ends: getting off guilty criminals, using regulation to stamp out corporate competitors, and punting laws and legal opinions that are the destruction of their own societies!

Aristocratic law, as we know it, is dead.

It’s a Big Deal!

It is instructive at this point to consider a society in which there are no lawyers, no judges, no political leaders or policemen, and no business leaders. In other words, a society in which there are no aristocrats!

Such, will likely be a society of violent anarchy. Truth be told, even if such a society would not exercise violence, it would still tend toward disorder until a leader or a group of leaders emerge. Aristocracy is the human norm…

Our modern aristocracy is dieing as it has completely lost its ethical compass, its true role in society.

Even as we continue to live under the facade of the rule of aristocrats, aristocracy, as we know it, is completely DEAD.

Our (modern) judges do not rule for justice; as they themselves are unjust.

Our (modern) politicians do not rule to improve the lives of their subjects, they live only for themselves.

Our (modern) business leaders do not rule to advance the lives of their customers, they seek to only ‘rent-seek’ from them.

Epicurean Stoicism

Since the rise of democratic rule, there has been a tendency in the West to think of the world as entirely composed of ‘uncontrollable’ forces. This can possibly be linked to the rise of ‘mob-rule’ either in politics (i.e. one man/woman = one vote democracies), or in business (i.e. the rise of trade-unions and the wild market fluctuations in global trade), or perhaps even in the law (i.e. the rise of ‘competitive’ law schools). It has become apparent that many ‘thinkers’ and ‘doers’ in the Western world do not think that anything can be ‘managed’ or ‘controlled’.

What this has led to, is a certain form of ‘epicurean’ stoicism that drives all human activity in the West. The ‘epicurean’ element exists due to the sense of ‘helplessness’ in our complex modern world. The ‘stoic’ element persists due to the sense of extreme-pragmatism that prevails much of modern economic thought; nothing is certain, except your action, the thinking goes.

Combined with the increasing decline of aristocratic rule, this ‘epicurean stoicism’ is bound to lead to the total destruction of the Western world.

Another way to understand this new ‘philosophy’ is that very few actors in our modern world care about the consequence of their actions: all is good, and evil is better!

It is not just that aristocracy is DEAD, but ANARCHY is alive and well!

Transactional Anarchism

Many remain in denial of the absolute truth: we live in a world of anarchy! There is no one who cares about neighbour; everyone is looking out for their own good and success; and all law has now become lawlessnes.

The current order is that of anarchy!

It is fairly impossible at this stage to ‘reverse history’ and bring back aristocracy. Democracy, mob-rule and crony-capitalism are here to stay.

Rather than seek to ‘bring back’ the past (which had its own serious defects), the practical ‘aristocratic’ proposition I would like to put forward is the following:

We need men and women of high moral standards
They need to build communities in towns, cities and ‘over the web’
They need to give more than they take
They should do good without any expectation of reward or return
They should, at all times, seek to ‘bring’ happiness to their neighbours, through trade, rather than through ‘law’, political rule or business rule
They should seek to be killed rather than to be ‘murderers’ (in the name of ‘so-called’ justice or revenge)
They should seek their independence from all current rule, at all costs. They should never ‘run’ a community of more than two people. They will have ‘customers’ as friends, partners and workers not as subordinates, superiors or long-term partners.

These, are the transactional anarchists.

That Great Intolerance

The great gift of our aristocratic past to the present, is that of intolerance.

Our world has grown ever more insipid and immoral; thanks to the modern gift of tolerance and mediocrity.

What made past great civilizations thrive, was not necessarily the law as the moderner is bound to understand it.

What made them great, was the great intolerance:

a refusal to differentiate between what’s ‘good enough’/beautiful and what’s ‘ethical’
a refusal to differentiate the law and the law-maker / law-enforcer
a refusal to differentiate between an evil deed and an evil person

The current mediocrity is the type that leads to ‘successful’ businessmen who offer terrible and body-destroying beverages and foods; all because what they do is ‘legal’.

The current immorality is the type that seeks to protect murderers at all costs; even at the cost of social safety and cohesion.

The current anarchy is the type that seeks to promote law-breakers into positions of law-making and law enforcement; in spite of the fact that we established those very institutions to remove such people from positions of social influence and authority.

We have refused to accept that human-civilization is completely binary: made of truths and untruths: the beauty and the ugly, the good and the bad, good people and evil people.

To bring back these binary realities, we will need to acknowledge:

that there is much more ‘difference’ than ‘similarity’ to being human
that this ‘difference’ comes in different magnitudes, which is yet another differentiating point
that there is indeed ‘truth’ and ‘untruth’, but that such definitions are not subject to unwieldy ‘notions’ of objectivity and subjectivity but are only defined by and subject to men of great character, of great honour, and of great works of service.

In other words, the law, the free-markets, and political rule / policing are never to be undertaken by men who are slaves of ‘the (current) law’. These are all to be undertaken by men and women, who have Skin in the Game, and have proven their right to rule, through success; not through defined processes.