The Kinist Review

In our discussion of the revitalization of service we should not want it thought that we purpose the return of an abject position. This would be a grave misunderstanding. The true service which seeks a way back into the world is what is willing, and what, perhaps not eagerly, but voluntarily, recognizes position, and therein also knows worth, for not every man who is free is free to be fully a man. We can go even further. Freedom is not an absolute value in itself, but binary, with honor being its co-ordinate and correlative, each held within the gravity of the other.  In the world that is worth restoring, there is correlation between worth and position, and between position and birth. And, for some, manhood may only arrive in the form of a self-subjection to what is superior, to the system of value in which both excellence and that which falls short of it are fully possible, and not conditioned by our squeamishness with the reality of capacity itself, and its obvious variability.

This is the meaning of position that underlies right service.  In the world that now exists, as distinct from that which we should wish to exist, such recognition is rare, but it is not entirely absent, since man is still in the world, and the values of the world which was put to death have continued life in the minds of men. Where this recognition is absent, the ersatz world which is born is not long lived, for it is not a viable offspring of life, and its pulse must be maintained by dark ‘science’.  Where failure is impossible, excellence is likewise impossible. The relative dignity and manhood of self-subordination, in the acquiescence to excellence –no, the celebration of it–  takes its vitality from the degrees of excellence in which all participate, and, most wonderfully, where dignity is not a remittance by what is excellent to what is common, but by the system of value in which both are situated, a sure and inviolable station is secured, and though humble, it is as certain as that of what is great, and its certainty establishes both peace, and a kingly dignity that ennobles all who comprehend it, irrespective of birth or accomplishment. The meanest poverty is thereby raised in common esteem.