sourceType:: article author:: David Bentley Hart sourcePublication:: First Things ref:: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2010/11/anarcho-monarchism noteTitle:: Anarcho-Monarchism; David Bentley Hart. (article)
Luc mentioned the term anarchomonarchism in response to a chat about Murder Island [[2022-12-30]]❌ on Signal [[dalten-quartus-signal-chat-murder-island-and-philosphy]]❌. I googled it and this was something I found and read on kindle via instpaper.
Anarcho-Monarchism; David Bentley Hart. (article)
Highlight(yellow) - Anarcho-Monarchism | David Bentley Hart | First Things > Location 90
A s for Tolkien’s anarchism, I think it obvious he meant it in the classical sense: not the total absence of law and governance, but the absence of a political archetes—that is, of the leadership principle as such. In Tolkien’s case, it might be better to speak of a “radical subsidiarism,” in which authority and responsibility for the public weal are so devolved to the local and communal that every significant public decision becomes a matter of common interest and common consent. Of course, such a social vision could be dismissed as mere agrarian and village primitivism; but that would not have bothered Tolkien, what with his proto-ecologist view of modernity.
Highlight(yellow) - Anarcho-Monarchism | David Bentley Hart | First Things > Location 97
There are those whose political visions hover tantalizingly near on the horizon, like inviting mirages, and who are as likely as not to get the whole caravan killed by trying to lead it off to one or another of those nonexistent oases. And then there are those whose political dreams are only cooling clouds, easing the journey with the meager shade of a gently ironic critique, but always hanging high up in the air, forever out of reach.
Highlight(yellow) - Anarcho-Monarchism | David Bentley Hart | First Things > Location 104
In such a culture, one can be grateful of the liberties one enjoys, and use one’s franchise to advance the work of trustworthier politicians (and perhaps there are more of those than I have granted to this point), and pursue the discrete moral causes in which one believes. But it is good also to imagine other, better, quite impossible worlds, so that one will be less inclined to mistake the process for the proper end of political life, or to become frantically consumed by what should be only a small part of life, or to fail to see the limits and defects of our systems of government. After all, one of the most crucial freedoms, upon which all other freedoms ultimately depend, is freedom from illusion.