In Defence of Aristocracy

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Peregrine Worsthorne. In Defence of Aristocracy

IN DEFENCE. OF ARISTOCRACY. PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE

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Dedication

I love it [aristocracy], like history.

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a man almost always knows his forefathers and respects them; he thinks he already sees his remote descendants and he loves them. He willingly imposes duties on himself towards the former and the latter, and he will frequently sacrifice his own personal gratifications to those who went before and to those who will come after him [my italics].

Tocqueville’s was a down-to-earth utilitarian justification for aristocracy – ‘that it worked’. In France, where aristocracy had been degraded by the French monarchy, aristocracy led to revolution; in England, where the aristocracy had degraded the monarchy, aristocracy led to order and justice. The English aristocracy, he wrote, ‘is perhaps the most liberal that ever existed and no body of men has ever uninterruptedly furnished so many honourable and enlightened individuals for the government of a country’.

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