#david myatt

“Decadence is the abandonment of standards and a levelling-down. It is the pursuit of the common in place of the striving to reach a higher level. Decadence is the wallowing in the transient. But perhaps most of all, on the individual level, decadence is lack of real character. Decadence elevates cleverness, ‘education’ and intellectual pretension over and above experience, courage and heroism. Decadence elevates self-indulgence above self-discipline. Decadence denigrates duty, honour and loyalty. Decadence affirms those things which those of weak character espouse - pacifism, peace, equality, 'harmony’, inter-racial 'love’. Decadence is materialistic - it mocks idealism, the numinous, and the profound, and in place of the aesthetic of beauty, it champions the ugly and the banal. Decadence is, fundamentally, a manifestation of what is weak, shallow, pretentious and vain. It is the philosophy, and the aesthetics, of the coward.”

David W Myatt

[Antigone]…‘deals with the relation between mortals and gods. The work is an exploration and explanation of the workings of the cosmos [κόσμος], and the answers given express the distinctive ancient Greek ‘outlook’ or ethos. This ethos is pagan, and its essence may be said to be that there are limits to human behaviour; that some conduct is wise, some conduct is unwise. Unwise conduct invites retribution by the gods: it can and often does result in personal misfortune, in bad luck.’

From the introduction of Antigone, translated by David Myatt.

The goddess, Judgement, favours someone learning from adversity.
But I shall hear of what will be, after it comes into being: Before then, I leave it, otherwise, it is the same as a premature grieving.
Aeschylus: Agamemnon, 250-254

..the culture of ἀρετή is, in essence, the education of discovering and knowing, intellectually and personally, that noble balance between our natural human tendency to commit ὕβρις - to go beyond the respectful, noble, limits of behaviour - and the necessity of learning the hard way, from πάθει μάθος, from direct personal experience. Δίκα is this balance; a balance manifest in us - or which can be manifest in us - through thoughtful reasoning, that is, by a well-balanced, fair, noble, personal judgement.

David Myatt