The Raising Power: A True Bhutanese Aristocracy

Excerpt from Orientations: DART Political Theses

"The essential thing in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but as the significance and highest justification thereof--that it should therefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, for its sake, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is not allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higher existence".

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

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7.1. As an initiatory form of Bhutanese elite shaped in the wilderness of the forced exile, we see our mission as finding, educating and training men who could be initiated into a real warrior aristocracy, the kind of the Hindu kshatriya, to carry out Bismarck's "Revolution from above" - what Joseph de Maistre called "not a counterrevolution, but the opposite of a revolution."

7.2. Our motto is "Tradition, Hierarchy, Order". We seek no other privilege but responsibility to ensure survival of the unique Bhutanese civilization as an integrated nation and organic state.

7.3. Quality before quantity. Our purpose is far from organizing an "all-inclusive" movement, and our struggle does not depend critically on the support of the masses, by their passive nature incapable of great accomplishments.

7.4. Our strength grows from desperation. And our desperation spells "determination". It is the fuel that energizes our struggle. The past is gone forever, and we are the future.

7.5. We have grown furious and determined. We have grown meek and compassionate. We are committed followers of the Path of Dharmapalas and righteous fighters of justice and dharmic restoration. We are saintly warriors of compassion and goodwill. Being well aware of King Jigme's many problems and pains, we are here to give him a good opportunity for resigning honorably from his office that increasingly becomes a burden far beyond his strength to bear. In case he fails to appreciate our kindness and willingly abdicate the crown, we will readily help him to leave for a while that samsaric mess of his own making and re-enter later on as a more happy incarnation.

7.6. Our strength, among other respects, is in keeping in touch with the most fundamental political science. We draw our concepts, plans and inspirations from the studies of elites and their role in every society as well as traditionalist and conservative revolution theories as carried on by the great Eurasian thinkers Rene Guenon, Julius Evola, Carl Schmitt, Oswald Spengler, Gottfried Benn, Ernst Junger, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Friedrich Nietzsche and others.

7.7. A true aristocracy ("aristos" - best, "kratos" - power) is a group whose power is ensured with their excellence. A true aristocracy is necessarily meritocracy. A true traditionalist aristocracy is spiritual, ascetic and altruistic.

7.8. It is obvious to us that nothing can be accomplished without leadership of a true elite. The Dragon Kingdom, stuck at a crossroads between backwater stagnation and modernization along the fundamentally foreign liberal lines, needs a traditionalist elite to rescue it from its apparent involution into Globalization, materialism, "democratic" egalitarianism and its obsession with the banker-sponsored "development" of society and economy - and to restore a regime of order, hierarchy, autarchy and spiritual vitality.

7.9. When that elite is educated and initiated, then - and only then - a true state can be created.

7.10. A traditionalist elite is necessarily a warrior aristocracy. The dharmic warrior is not merely of this world, since he is not merely a being exercising purely material force. He is a man who has united his temporal power with the supernatural and divine, and thereby became transformed in the struggle against those who are merely degenerate opponents, men who stand for and fight on a lower and inferior plane. As Protectors of Dharma, we are not concerned with whatever temporal achievements but continuation of what is Eternal and Traditional. Such an attitude can only result in predictable final victory whatever losses are incurred, whatever setbacks may emerge. This is so because it is a battle between the Infinite and Finite, between Spirit and Matter, between Eternity and Time.

7.11. As dharmic warriors, we must unite our efforts with Higher Powers, for in so doing we will guarantee that our victory will be secured and sanctified. This unification of forces is not going to be an easy affair, for we live in the Dark Age of corruption and decay, but it is the task that must be undertaken as a sacred duty.

7.12. In the Indo-Aryan tradition, we see members of the warrior aristocracy competing victoriously in wisdom with the brahmans, and eventually becoming brahmans, or, just like other brahmans, being "those who tend the sacred flame." This confirms the spiritual character of chivalry and, in a wider sense, the warrior caste in the world of Tradition.