1. Courage is a virtue.
1.1. Virtue is real.
1.1.1. Virtue can be cultivated and tested.
1.1.1.1. No skin in the game, no virtue.
1.1.1.1.1. The skin in the game of men is the risk they run of losing their honor, their status, their position, their fatherland, their family, their life, their health, their wealth.
1.1.1.1.1.1. In times of decadence, many of these things have no existence. The skin in the game of men then becomes: to risk not even having a fate.
1.1.1.1.1.1.1. Where there is civilization without patriarchy, there is in reality decadence.
1.1.2. Virtue has nothing to do with scoring status points by signaling conformity with an ideology.
1.1.3. Those who deny the reality of virtue misuse psychological analysis.
1.1.4. There is no virtue without judgment.
1.1.5. Judging virtue is the basis of trust.
1.2. Young men seek to test their courage.
1.2.1. Courage brings honor, which is a kind of status or recognition, which is what young men lack and ardently desire.
1.2.2. Young men have no experience. They must imitate the models of prudence provided by established men.
1.2.2.1. In times of decadence, young men turn towards heroic figures of the past.
1.2.2.1.1. Men have the freedom to choose their spiritual ancestors.
1.3. Established men seek to be remembered.
1.3.1. They provide mentoring, guidance, leadership, positions, resources.
1.4. The enemy can be courageous.
1.4.1. The unjust can be courageous.
1.4.2. There are heroes in good, and heroes in evil.
1.4.2.1. This insight is the true benefit of psychological analysis.
1.5. Cowardice is never a virtue.
1.5.1. Even if cowardice, or any kind of weakness of will, is, in certain circumstances, the thing that prevents or would prevent evil, it is not a virtue.
1.5.2. Cowardice may be part of divine providence, however this isn’t for us to judge.
1.5.3. Tolerance is not a virtue. The opposite belief is a sign of decadence. The moral value of tolerance depends entirely on the situation.
1.6. A man’s virtue is not fully developed if he lacks courage.
2. The origin of courage is thymos.
2.1. Thymos is similar to yang, spirit, heart. It is a vital force.
2.1.1. Thymos overrides fear.
2.1.2. Thymos is both instinctive and spiritual, but not intellectual or rational. It is not itself a virtue, however there is no courage without thymos, thus no complete virtue without thymos.
2.2. The highest manifestation of thymos is the will to dominate and be victorious in contests, physical or intellectual.
2.2.1. Competition and thymos are inseparable.
2.2.1.1. Entrepreneurship is rooted in thymos.
2.2.2. To seek or desire revenge is also a manifestation of thymos, whether in the form of anger or of resentment.
2.2.3. Intellectual exploration is, to some extent, also fueled by thymotic competition.
2.2.4. Pride and shame are part of thymos. Humans are social beings.
2.2.4.1. Duty is internalized pride and shame, requires courage, thus requires thymos.
2.2.5. Testosterone and endorphines are hormonal signatures of the thymotic push.
2.2.6. Thymos does not calculate.
2.2.7. Thymos can be misled.
2.2.7.1. Thymos either obeys the contemplative intellect, or noesis, or it exposes itself to hybris.
2.2.7.1.1. Rage is also part of thymos.
2.2.7.2. The primary group function of noesis is to determine a concept of the group’s identity. Identity determines who belongs and who doesn’t belong to the group. Identity is inseparable from religion.
2.2.8. Men who lack thymos suffer from a grave imbalance of the soul.
2.2.8.1. Such men easily fall prey to ideologies of self-hatred and existential guilt, that restore a measure of thymos only to turn it against itself.
2.2.8.1.1. This explains the pride of those who commit themselves to auto-genocide.
2.2.8.1.1.1. Progressivists cannot help but seek their precursors in history. They do not realize what they are doing when they do that, just like they don’t realize that their belief in progress is, in fact, a religious belief.
2.2.8.1.2. By contrast, there is immense nobility in suffering humiliation, if the seed of thymos is conserved unbroken and passed on to a people’s future generations.
2.2.8.1.2.1. The identity of a people can survive the loss of political sovereignty, and in time recover it. But sovereignty is a meaningless illusion without identity.
2.2.8.1.2.1. When the opportunity presents itself to fight back, it is virtuous to rise in anger and to remove tyranny by force.
2.2.8.1.3. The false religion of progressivism must be destroyed, before it destroys us.
2.2.8.1.3.1. Replacism is progressivism’s death wish.
2.2.9. Thymos without identity is thymos without a purpose.
2.2.8.2. Urban civilization comes from thymos and intellect, but tends to weaken and break thymos.
2.2.8.2.1. In every generation, a civilization faces the choice of its own continuation or ruin.
2.2.8.2.1.1. A proof of this is the need to say, discuss, write down such things.
2.2.8.2.2. It is only the technological cocoon of urban civilization that makes progressivist degeneracy possible.
3. Courage produces strength.
3.1. Strength can exist without courage, but the cultivation of strength requires courage.
3.1.1. The cultivation of strength is the business not just of the individual, but of the entire line he descends from and perpetuates.
3.2. Strength gives confidence, not courage.
4. Courage implies fear.
4.1. Taking risks in the ignorance of danger is not courage, but foolhardiness.
4.1.1. Realism requires courage.
4.1.2. Manliness is confidence.
4.1.2.1. Confidence is compatible with a low IQ.
4.1.2.2. Confidence can be produced by self-deception.
4.1.2.2.1. Case in point: fake martial artists who think they are real.
4.1.2.3. Confidence can come from acquired, intelligent, experience-based mastery.
4.1.2.4. Confidence can come from hardening yourself.
4.2. It is a kind of spiritual blindness to miss the fear present at the temporal origin of any courageous activity.
4.2.1. The outcome of an initial contest generally only seems certain in retrospect, or for idiots.
4.2.2. Only part of one’s superiority or inferiority in a contest is due to chance. The rest is spiritual.
4.2.2.1. It is because of this non-random, non-accidental component that it is possible to say: “might makes right”.
4.2.2.1.1. To suppose otherwise is tantamount to denying every being its natural right to exist.
4.2.2.1.1.1. Nature justifies a being’s form, God justifies a being’s existence.
4.3. Fear can be rational. This is what the rhetoric of Merkel keeps omitting.
4.3.1. Those who have no thymos are incapable of courage. They confuse ‘lack of fear’ and ‘courage’.
4.3.1.1. They are in fact dying from fear, and project this fear on others.
4.3.1.2. If they could, such cheerleaders would make realism a hate-crime.
4.3.2. Don’t be an islamophobe.
4.3.3. Merkel has no children of her own. She is, in 2016 AD, the purest incarnation of anti-skin-in-the-game on Earth.
5. Those who lead are either the courageous among the smart from the group, or the smart among the courageous from the group. Anything else is tyranny.
5.1. Tommy Robinson is smart among the courageous. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is courageous among the smart.
5.2. No method is perfect.
6. The purpose of the Thymos Book Club is to build a brotherhood of virtuous intellectual men, in Paris and beyond.
1.1. Virtue is real.
1.1.1. Virtue can be cultivated and tested.
1.1.1.1. No skin in the game, no virtue.
1.1.1.1.1. The skin in the game of men is the risk they run of losing their honor, their status, their position, their fatherland, their family, their life, their health, their wealth.
1.1.1.1.1.1. In times of decadence, many of these things have no existence. The skin in the game of men then becomes: to risk not even having a fate.
1.1.1.1.1.1.1. Where there is civilization without patriarchy, there is in reality decadence.
1.1.2. Virtue has nothing to do with scoring status points by signaling conformity with an ideology.
1.1.3. Those who deny the reality of virtue misuse psychological analysis.
1.1.4. There is no virtue without judgment.
1.1.5. Judging virtue is the basis of trust.
1.2. Young men seek to test their courage.
1.2.1. Courage brings honor, which is a kind of status or recognition, which is what young men lack and ardently desire.
1.2.2. Young men have no experience. They must imitate the models of prudence provided by established men.
1.2.2.1. In times of decadence, young men turn towards heroic figures of the past.
1.2.2.1.1. Men have the freedom to choose their spiritual ancestors.
1.3. Established men seek to be remembered.
1.3.1. They provide mentoring, guidance, leadership, positions, resources.
1.4. The enemy can be courageous.
1.4.1. The unjust can be courageous.
1.4.2. There are heroes in good, and heroes in evil.
1.4.2.1. This insight is the true benefit of psychological analysis.
1.5. Cowardice is never a virtue.
1.5.1. Even if cowardice, or any kind of weakness of will, is, in certain circumstances, the thing that prevents or would prevent evil, it is not a virtue.
1.5.2. Cowardice may be part of divine providence, however this isn’t for us to judge.
1.5.3. Tolerance is not a virtue. The opposite belief is a sign of decadence. The moral value of tolerance depends entirely on the situation.
1.6. A man’s virtue is not fully developed if he lacks courage.
2. The origin of courage is thymos.
2.1. Thymos is similar to yang, spirit, heart. It is a vital force.
2.1.1. Thymos overrides fear.
2.1.2. Thymos is both instinctive and spiritual, but not intellectual or rational. It is not itself a virtue, however there is no courage without thymos, thus no complete virtue without thymos.
2.2. The highest manifestation of thymos is the will to dominate and be victorious in contests, physical or intellectual.
2.2.1. Competition and thymos are inseparable.
2.2.1.1. Entrepreneurship is rooted in thymos.
2.2.2. To seek or desire revenge is also a manifestation of thymos, whether in the form of anger or of resentment.
2.2.3. Intellectual exploration is, to some extent, also fueled by thymotic competition.
2.2.4. Pride and shame are part of thymos. Humans are social beings.
2.2.4.1. Duty is internalized pride and shame, requires courage, thus requires thymos.
2.2.5. Testosterone and endorphines are hormonal signatures of the thymotic push.
2.2.6. Thymos does not calculate.
2.2.7. Thymos can be misled.
2.2.7.1. Thymos either obeys the contemplative intellect, or noesis, or it exposes itself to hybris.
2.2.7.1.1. Rage is also part of thymos.
2.2.7.2. The primary group function of noesis is to determine a concept of the group’s identity. Identity determines who belongs and who doesn’t belong to the group. Identity is inseparable from religion.
2.2.8. Men who lack thymos suffer from a grave imbalance of the soul.
2.2.8.1. Such men easily fall prey to ideologies of self-hatred and existential guilt, that restore a measure of thymos only to turn it against itself.
2.2.8.1.1. This explains the pride of those who commit themselves to auto-genocide.
2.2.8.1.1.1. Progressivists cannot help but seek their precursors in history. They do not realize what they are doing when they do that, just like they don’t realize that their belief in progress is, in fact, a religious belief.
2.2.8.1.2. By contrast, there is immense nobility in suffering humiliation, if the seed of thymos is conserved unbroken and passed on to a people’s future generations.
2.2.8.1.2.1. The identity of a people can survive the loss of political sovereignty, and in time recover it. But sovereignty is a meaningless illusion without identity.
2.2.8.1.2.1. When the opportunity presents itself to fight back, it is virtuous to rise in anger and to remove tyranny by force.
2.2.8.1.3. The false religion of progressivism must be destroyed, before it destroys us.
2.2.8.1.3.1. Replacism is progressivism’s death wish.
2.2.9. Thymos without identity is thymos without a purpose.
2.2.8.2. Urban civilization comes from thymos and intellect, but tends to weaken and break thymos.
2.2.8.2.1. In every generation, a civilization faces the choice of its own continuation or ruin.
2.2.8.2.1.1. A proof of this is the need to say, discuss, write down such things.
2.2.8.2.2. It is only the technological cocoon of urban civilization that makes progressivist degeneracy possible.
3. Courage produces strength.
3.1. Strength can exist without courage, but the cultivation of strength requires courage.
3.1.1. The cultivation of strength is the business not just of the individual, but of the entire line he descends from and perpetuates.
3.2. Strength gives confidence, not courage.
4. Courage implies fear.
4.1. Taking risks in the ignorance of danger is not courage, but foolhardiness.
4.1.1. Realism requires courage.
4.1.2. Manliness is confidence.
4.1.2.1. Confidence is compatible with a low IQ.
4.1.2.2. Confidence can be produced by self-deception.
4.1.2.2.1. Case in point: fake martial artists who think they are real.
4.1.2.3. Confidence can come from acquired, intelligent, experience-based mastery.
4.1.2.4. Confidence can come from hardening yourself.
4.2. It is a kind of spiritual blindness to miss the fear present at the temporal origin of any courageous activity.
4.2.1. The outcome of an initial contest generally only seems certain in retrospect, or for idiots.
4.2.2. Only part of one’s superiority or inferiority in a contest is due to chance. The rest is spiritual.
4.2.2.1. It is because of this non-random, non-accidental component that it is possible to say: “might makes right”.
4.2.2.1.1. To suppose otherwise is tantamount to denying every being its natural right to exist.
4.2.2.1.1.1. Nature justifies a being’s form, God justifies a being’s existence.
4.3. Fear can be rational. This is what the rhetoric of Merkel keeps omitting.
4.3.1. Those who have no thymos are incapable of courage. They confuse ‘lack of fear’ and ‘courage’.
4.3.1.1. They are in fact dying from fear, and project this fear on others.
4.3.1.2. If they could, such cheerleaders would make realism a hate-crime.
4.3.2. Don’t be an islamophobe.
4.3.3. Merkel has no children of her own. She is, in 2016 AD, the purest incarnation of anti-skin-in-the-game on Earth.
5. Those who lead are either the courageous among the smart from the group, or the smart among the courageous from the group. Anything else is tyranny.
5.1. Tommy Robinson is smart among the courageous. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is courageous among the smart.
5.2. No method is perfect.
6. The purpose of the Thymos Book Club is to build a brotherhood of virtuous intellectual men, in Paris and beyond.
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