Once Blind

Our Night, Defined

To What We Wake

From Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option:

“I am a college-educated American. In all my years of formal schooling, I never read Plato or Aristotle, Homer or Virgil. I knew nothing of Greek and Roman history and barely grasped the meaning of the Middle Ages.

“The fifteen hundred years of Christianity from the end of the New Testament to the Reformation were a blank page, and I knew only the barest facts about Luther's revolution…My understanding of Western history began with the Enlightenment. Everything that came before it was lost behind a misty curtain of forgetting.

Nobody did this on purpose…But nobody felt any obligation to present it to me and my generation in an orderly, coherent fashion. Ideas have consequences - and so does their lack.”

Origin of Our Dispossession

Industrialization

The scientific revolution deconstructed Europe’s transparent feudal system rooted in faith and land and built in its place opaque bureaucracies rooted in technology and wealth. States which centralized power as private oligarchies came to rule the world.
Globalization

Industrialists mobilized civilians in revolution and in war against traditional authorities, promising equity and wealth while centralizing influence on a global scale. Thus, U.S. multiculturalism and Soviet communism opened developing markets in order to integrate all.
Post-Liberalism

U.S. multiculturalism won the Cold War by forcing local peoples to compete for investment by aligning beliefs with the global hegemony. A multi-polar world now seems to be emerging, but behind each state are the same institutions that have since outgrown U.S. control.

Our Problems, Defined

Unaccountable Bureacracies

Public school administrations grew 88% from 2000-19, compared to 8% student growth and 9% teacher growth (link)

Society now reflects the opaque hierarchies of academia as graduates replicate the model that raised them
Aging Infrastructure

Over half of districts admit to the need of multiple building systems; 40% don't have a plan for long-term maintenance (link)

Aging facilities reflect eroding standards in and out of the classroom, demoralizing workers to merely manage the decline
Intellectual Stagnation

About half of students began 2022-23 behind grade level in at least one subject, up from 39% before the pandemic (link)

Mass schooling once trained factory workers; with many careers now obsolete, students learn opinions rather than skils
Population Decline

Idealizing career over family formation by ways of education, over 25 societies will halve in population by 2100 (link)

Schools separate children from families, socializing them to prioritize material success over personal and cultural health

1: Subjective Morality

Death of a unifying moral vision of the Sacred;
Birth of subjective morality and materialism
Protestant revolutions begin centuries of deconstructing Medieval institutions, in search of man’s emancipation from social convention
2: Self-Rule

Death of transparent rule and accountability;
Birth of opaque bureaucracy and lobbying
Universal Suffrage politicizes the citizenry, increasing local reliance on centralizing governments as voters vie for federal support
3: Managerial Revolution

Death of overt class and social obligation;
Birth of managerialism and social engineering
A disunited, distracted, and uneducated public loses control of democratic institutions, run by managers in un-elected positions of power
3: Hedonism

Death of personal discipline and technical skill; Birth of instant gratification as raison d'être
“Liberated” from traditional values and local institutions, citizens are atomized, vulnerable now to hedonistic desires and manipulation
4: De-Industrialization

Death of local industry and ethnic sovereignty;
Birth of debt-based growth and global oligarchy
Unaccountable leaders with no connection to local peoples or traditions are incentivized to pit nations against each other to extract profit
5: De-Population

Death of familial bonds and societal legacy;
Birth of scientific eugenics and mass migration
Restrictions of public expression in art, industry, politics, and religion leads to a decline in fertility and inability to defend local heritage
6: Hyper-Reality

Death of real community and access to nature;
Birth of digital imitation and mass surveillance
As debts rise, populations collapse, and competency declines, digitization curbs public resistance and limits political alternatives
7: Mass Socialization

Death of independent thought and innovation;
Birth of mass culture and controlled opposition
Managerial control uses education, media, and commerce to ensure conformity in thought and provide acceptable outlets for rebellion

Our Solutions

A Life After Night

Cultural [Re]Birth

Ethnopoiesis within Post-Modernity

Holistic education involves not only learning of one’s past through academic courses, nor even a trade through networks of students in a rooted in real-life experience, and thus real-life results as well.

Rediscovering the Lost Way

Old Arts for New Days; New Arts for Old Ways

Reject Prometheus

Aurelia’s model, rooted in 21st Century flexibility and inspired by Montessori; seeks student fulfillment through a personalized curriculum of hands-on, project-based experiences meant to demonstrate how to build a healthy life
Embrace Aurelia

The globalized, one-size-fits-all model rooted in 20th Century industry; seeks mass production of laborers through passive, rote instruction in mandatory classes meant to teach students how to work in secular bureaucracies

Aurelia, Defined

Our Name

Aurelia is a derivation of the Latin word meaning “golden,” referring to the belief that a more equitable era will emerge after our Dark Night of materialistic inequality. Thus, its mantra: per noctem, ad auroram; or, “through night, unto dawn.”
Our Symbol

Aurelia takes as its symbol all Western origins: a Catholic Cross, wreathed by Greek laurels, supported by prongs of the Trifunctional Hypothesis, whose three social classes unite to represent the necessity for individuals to sacrifice for society’s future.
Our Vision

Aurelia is inspired by Catholic social teachings, and thus seeks a future tied to land, family, and God through a change in the guiding principle of society, from “do as thou wilt” to salus populi suprema lex; or, “the health of the people is the supreme law”.

Our Guiding Principles

Catholic Mysticism

Esoteric pursuit at the base of the material Church; the walk with Christ towards Union with God, through the rite of one’s Dark Night of the Soul
Re-Territorialization

Act of re-embedding the Self into one’s natural context; to be again a part of the world from which we have so alienated ourselves via Technics
Formalized Influence

Clarification of the natural and social hierarchies in every society; the accountability and unifying ethic born from Noblesse Oblige
Communal Sovereignty

A People’s ability to identify themselves as distinct from all others; the right to protect an unbroken chain of faith, family, art, and war
Holistic Vitality

Intersection of all that makes one human; the physical, spiritual, familial, cultural, and ethnic health born from a living heritage - i.e., thumos
Aesthetic Beauty

Rebirth of standard in every aspect of life; the restoration of skill and poise via education and judgment so to restore a High Culture for all

Our Social Values

Class I: Warrior

Those embodying Aurelia’s Principles of Holistic Vitality and Transparent Influence, who deal with death to protect a society’s health: soldiers and police officers; firefighters and EMTs; doctors, trainers, body guards, and military spies.
Class II: Yeoman

Those embodying Aurelia’s Principles of Re-Territorialization and Communal Sovereignty, who use their hands to build and maintain a society’s home: farmers and miners; carpenters and plumbers; accountants, seamstresses, coders, and engineers.
Class III: Priest

Those embodying Aurelia’s Principles of Catholic Mysticism and Aesthetic Beauty, who explore the unknown to guide a society both culturally and morally: priests and poets; authors and artists; teachers, mystics, painters, and philosophers.

Our Program’s Goals

Objective I: Health

A successful holistic education will manifest as health in heart, mind, body and soul for the student who authentically reaches for that kind of wellness the ancient Greeks referred to as eudaemonia.
Objective II: Home

A successful holistic education will manifest the sense of home, in both the individual and communal sense, for the student who authentically reaches for that which the ancient Greeks called oikos.
Objective III: Heritage

A successful holistic education will manifest as a cultural heritage in art, blood, and soul for the student who authentically reaches for the fulfillment of potential that ancient Greeks named arete.

Our Program’s Benchmarks

Renewal of Local Aesthetic

To fulfill Aurelia’s Third Pillar of Heritage,
Restoration of Local Physique

To fulfill Aurelia’s Second Pillar, Health, the physical exertion, dietary nutrition, and local ecology of local populations must be maintained to ensure
Re-Establishment of Local Custom

To fulfill Aurelia’s First Pillar, Home, regional arts, faiths, dialects, and customs must be renewed and maintained to define the physical and cultural boundaries required for a place to be called Home
Revitalization of Local Industry

To fulfill Aurelia’s First Pillar, Home, local access to food, energy, and gainful employment must be revitalized to provide the autonomy and sense of belonging required for locals to feel at Home
Re-Establishment of Local Obligations

To fulfill Aurelia’s Second Pillar of Health,
Restructuring of Local Education

To fulfill Aurelia’s Third Pillar of Heritage,