The Meaning of Aristocracy

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THE MEANING OF "ARISTOCRACY"
by Daniel Gurpide

The term ‘aristocracy’ derives from what the ancient Greeks called ‘areté’, the quest for excellence: the act of living up to one’s full potential.

This tragic urge to self-overcoming (transcendence) may be identified as the only way man and his presence in the world may be ennobled. 

The original Indo-European speakers defined themselves as ‘Aryans’. At the geographical extremes of the great migration, we find Arya in Sanskrit and Indo-Iranian, and Aire in the language of the Irish Celts—out of which probably arose Eire: ‘Irish.’ The root *ar- signifies ‘noble.’ 

Since any 'aristocracy', if it wants to survive nowadays, should recover and transfigure the founding myths of Indo-European culture, when it comes to specifying its particular virtues, such features as the following might be listed: an eminently aristocratic conception of the human individual; the importance of honour (‘shame’ rather than ‘sin’); a heroic attitude towards life’s challenges; the exaltation and sacralisation of the world, beauty, the body, strength, and health; the rejection of any ‘worlds beyond’; and the inseparability of morality and aesthetics. 

The highest value for an aristocrat would lie not in a form of ‘justice’ whose purpose is essentially interpreted as flattening the social order in the name of equality, but in all that may allow man to surpass himself. Since to consider the implications of life’s basic framework as unjust would be palpably absurd, such classic antitheses as noble vs. base, courageous vs. cowardly, honourable vs. dishonourable, beautiful vs. deformed, sick vs. healthy . . . come to replace the antitheses based on the concept of sin: good vs. evil, humble vs. vainglorious, submissive vs. proud, weak vs. arrogant, modest vs. boastful.