Tea at Trianon: Renouncing the “High-Value Man”

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Renouncing the “High-Value Man”

From Crisis:

The more I looked into it, the more I stumbled upon platforms and influencers essentially getting to the same thing: high-value men make loads of money and get girls. He’s the player that everyone loves because he’s so darn charming and has financial status.
When I was growing up, this man was the bad boy—the guy who could smoothly talk, had the girls fawning over him as he struggled to remember their names, and yet, somehow, charmed everyone.
Now the player we had hoped matured and put aside childish things is lauded for his bad-boy status; we just call it “high-value.”
Even female speakers have affirmed this disturbing definition. Pearl Davis, who considers herself “traditional,” has stated on multiple occasions that high-value men cheat. According to Pearl, if you want to marry a high-value man, you might expect some infidelity because a.) men “need” sex and b.) it’s readily handed out to these chaps. (Read more.)