by William McGimpsey

Happy Easter.

A key tension within contemporary debate on the Right is the apparent opposition between meritocracy and identity, and more broadly between Nietzschean conceptions of vital strength and Traditionalist appeals to inherited order. These are often treated as mutually exclusive philosophies, but this essay argues that they are in fact expressions of a deeper and more fundamental principle: ordo amoris, the right ordering of loves.

Ordo amoris provides a framework in which these values are not opposed but hierarchically integrated: strength is wasted unless rightly directed, and identity dissolves unless the best work to uphold it. Properly understood, it can ground a conception of political order in which strength, moral formation, hierarchy, and belonging are unified rather than fragmented.

Many despair at the state of Western Civilisation, but the resurrection of Christ is the ultimate sign that renewal is possible even after all seems lost.

Introduction

Western Civilisation is in a state of disorder: our politics are increasingly fractious, our families are disintegrating, our birth rates are below replacement level, our religion is in decline, our borders are open, and our people are being replaced. St Augustine believed that disorder in the human psyche (or evil) is the result of misprioritised loves – a man should love God first, then his family, then his community, nation and so on in a set of concentric circles that move outward. Contemporary liberal elites tend to love “the other” more than their own people, or alternatively, abstractions like equality over the concrete needs of those to whom they owe a debt of responsibility and leadership. To put it simply, our leaders, and in fact our entire political culture, value the wrong things in the wrong order – and when governance is attempted on the basis of these misprioritised values, it ends up wrecking society.

This essay describes the importance of two key principles in right-wing thought – excellence and particularism – outlining why they are each necessary for a good society and how they relate to one another using the concept of ordo amoris. In so doing, the essay functions as a first-principles explanation of right-wing values and critique of left-wing approaches that instead emphasise equality and universalism.

Excellence

The ideal of excellence in right-wing thought is about the cultivation, recognition, and elevation of the highest human qualities, which is seen as necessary for individuals and institutions to fulfil their proper roles and promote a flourishing civilisation.

Right-wing thought acknowledges that people are not equal: excellences, whether technical, moral, or role-specific, are distributed unequally amongst individuals and groups. A healthy society is seen as one that recognises these differences and elevates its best. As such, hierarchy, when based on the elevation of excellence, is viewed as legitimate and necessary to human flourishing.

Excellence, power, influence, hierarchy

Power is not equally distributed in any society – there will always be people who have relatively more power and influence than others. Politicians, high-ranking bureaucrats, the wealthy, the business elite, prominent academics, and celebrities, all have relatively more power and influence within society than most ordinary people.

In order for society to function well, it is necessary for the best people to occupy the positions of power and influence. All institutions exist to achieve specific ends, and achieving those ends requires technical competence and moral judgment. The individuals with more of these qualities must be placed in leadership roles in order for the institutions to function effectively. A hierarchy based on excellence is therefore not an arbitrary preference, but a practical necessity: without it, institutions fail to achieve their purposes.

Being willing and able to use power and influence for the benefit of the common good of a society has at least three components:

1. Competence – knowledge and technical ability, or the ability to achieve goals.
2. Moral formation – the inclination to conduct oneself with integrity, pursue the good over the bad, and put the interests of the group before the self.
3. Group loyalty – without loyalty to the correct group, the wrong group or set of interests may be served.

Competence matters because without competence a person will be unable to translate the power and influence they have into achieving goals.

Morality matters in terms of pursuing the right goals. Powerful and influential people have many opportunities to benefit themselves at the expense of the group or otherwise pursue the wrong goals. ‘Immoral’ people are more likely to pursue the wrong goals or benefit themselves over the group, whereas moral people are more willing and able to restrain their selfish impulses and prioritise the good of the group. This implies a critique of the idea of homo economicus and rational self-interest, which forms the basis of much thinking in contemporary liberal society.

Group loyalty matters to ensure the person uses their power and influence to benefit the correct group. The world contains many groups, and it is possible to use positions of power and influence to benefit a group that the position is not intended to benefit. Loyalty to the correct group ensures the actions of those with power are directed to the benefit of the correct groups.

Leftism and hierarchy

Much of left-wing thought tends to be sceptical of hierarchy, viewing it as justifying power imbalances and oppression and in need of critique. Some leftists view hierarchy as presumptively illegitimate and argue it must be torn down in order to bring equality. If, as the Right tends to believe, hierarchy is natural, and necessary to well-functioning institutions and society, then tearing it down will make society function worse. Many criticisms of DEI take this form – claiming that because DEI prioritises diversity, equity and inclusion over merit, it makes hierarchies function less well toward their aims.

The left-wing relationship to power and hierarchy can also be self-contradictory – on the one hand they oppose hierarchy and support equality, on the other they support inverse hierarchies with the most oppressed on top. Similarly with morality, they oppose traditional morality as bigoted and oppressive, yet create inverse moralities and try to enforce conformity with them through repressive means.

The equality hypothesis

Leftists assert equality as both:

1. A moral imperative – i.e. that greater equality in power, status, wealth and opportunity between individuals and/or groups is a moral good society should pursue; but also
2. A factual claim – i.e. that there are no meaningful differences in ability between people of different races, ethnicities, sexes, sexual orientations or gender identities.

Asserting equality between groups as a factual claim is simply untrue. It has been empirically demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that there are differences in average IQ, impulse control, time preference, hormones, physical strength, and so on that lead to different socio-economic and life outcomes for these different groups.

One of the main reasons the Left asserts equality as a factual claim is to remove from the pool of live explanations the real reason for different group outcomes and leave as the only remaining plausible explanation the existence of some sort of discrimination, unfairness or bias in the system, which of course leftists then argue must be corrected to bring about equality. This is the origin of claims of institutional racism, systemic bias and so forth made by the “woke”.

Claiming people are equal undermines the formation of merit-based hierarchies by fostering a belief that the less capable/moral/loyal are being discriminated against by being excluded from positions of power. These dynamics foster what Nietzsche called ressentiment, which is perhaps the most powerful psychological motive force behind the tearing down of merit-based hierarchies.

It is worth mentioning here that it has become fashionable among centre-right politicians and parties to advocate for “equality of opportunity” in order to appeal to egalitarian sympathies without endorsing Leftism. However, even ensuring equality of opportunity is impossible in practice – it would mean the members of every generation having the same starting point, which necessitates eliminating any advantages accrued because of inherited wealth, genes, educated parents, connections, job opportunities, etc. There is no way of doing this without instituting some form of totalitarian communist society.

A hierarchy based on the ideal of equality (which is already logically absurd) therefore generates unnecessary harms by keeping the best people out of positions of power and making the whole structure less effective at achieving its aims. This in turn generates a moral imperative on behalf of people who know better to work outside that command structure to overturn and replace it – this illustrates that hierarchy is in some form natural, necessary and good and will of necessity reassert itself.

Lastly, in the absence of a formal aristocracy, under market conditions, an aristocracy of wealth emerges instead, which then has outsized influence in society, subjecting it to the subversive influence of money power. In order for society to defend itself from domination by the wealthy, there must be some countervailing hierarchy, ideally based on nobility of character.

Particularism

Particularism is the principle that moral obligation, political loyalty, and sometimes even meaning itself, are rooted in specific, bounded communities rather than distributed equally over all humanity in the abstract.

Right-wing thought tends to recognise that people are shaped by the histories, cultures and even genes of the groups to which they belong; that loyalties and moral duties arise from real human relationships, institutions, and societies; and that while universal moral principles may exist, the right thing to do varies by culture and context. The preservation of particular groups is generally seen a legitimate moral aim.

Particularism, duty, power, boundaries

If excellence answers the question of how power should be allocated (or who should rule), particularism answers the question of over whom the powerful should exercise their power, and whose interests they should serve.

Rulers, or those in positions of power more generally, have defined roles with limited responsibilities. A CEO’s role is not to serve all mankind, but the interest of the corporation he manages, the same goes for all positions of responsibility. Just as a CEO’s role is limited to serving the interests of the corporation he leads, so a political leader such as a President or Prime Minister is responsible for the country that he heads.

The fact that leaders have defined roles and limited responsibilities means it is imperative to clearly define the entity whose interests they are supposed to serve – hence the issue of particularism assumes importance.

In order for any group to persevere through time, it must possess an awareness of what it is and what it is not, police its boundaries, and identify and mitigate threats. Boundaries can be geographic, such as a nation’s borders; cultural and moral, as in the cultural and moral norms that define the behaviour or culture of the group; or genetic and biological as in we are of this race or ethnicity rather than that. Failure of a group to identify itself and police its boundaries will result in it changing, dissolving, or merging with other groups, losing its identity, and ceasing to exist.

Today, boundary failure manifests in open borders, cultural dissolution, and demographic replacement – all symptoms of a lost sense of “we”, which undercuts the capacity for coherent self-defence and transmission of civilisation and culture across generations.

Individualism vs collectivism

However, some self-described individualists argue that the problems mentioned above don’t matter, because only individuals have intrinsic value, and that concern for the survival of groups is a form of collectivism that mistakenly attributes value to collective entities.

Firstly, people generally accept that different classes of creature in the animal kingdom have intrinsic worth, and that there is a moral imperative to preserve them if they become endangered. Similar reasoning ought to apply to different human groups as well.

But secondly, the opposition between individualism and collectivism is overstated. Human beings are simultaneously individuals and members of enduring social groups such as families, ethnic groups, nations, and religious communities. Individual identity is shaped by both inherited characteristics and personal agency, rather than being fully self-generated or externally determined.

Thirdly, civilisations are not built merely on individuals, but on intergenerational networks of families, lineages, and institutions that sustain peoples and cultures and transmit norms over time. If we are concerned with public policy at the level of long-term social and civilisational flourishing, then analysis confined to the individual level is insufficient. Such questions necessarily involve the persistence, coherence, and reproduction of the groups through which human life is actually lived.

Group interests

All groups have interests. All interests are better pursued by competent leadership than incompetent leadership. Therefore it is in the interests of all groups to create the best leadership hierarchies they can with the most excellent – i.e. competent, moral and loyal people – at the top.

In practice though groups overlap and compete. As a result, an important problem that has to be solved is conflicts of interest – sometimes the interests of one group runs at cross purposes to another. It is important to ensure that leadership is not systemically conflicted in this way (this is what the controversial issue of dual citizenships is about). The temptation for rulers who are mismatched to those whom they rule is to use their power to reshape the identity of the group (i.e. through immigration, indoctrination through the media and education system, and so on). But this would be to get the order of priority wrong: identity is not a product of power, power is a product of identity.

Identity is prior to power

Much of modern left-wing academic thought considers identity as a product of power. Individuals and groups are said to acquire their identities through historical processes of domination, marginalisation, and resistance. On this view, change the power structure and identity will follow. Power comes first; identity is downstream.

Traditional, conservative, and civilisational thinking reverses this relationship. Identity is prior to power. People are born into families, cultures, languages, religions, and historical communities before they ever encounter formal politics. These identities are not chosen, and they are not easily dissolved. While power can influence or distort identity over time, identity is more often prior to and generative of power structures.

History overflows with examples of ethnic conflict, wars of religion, national competition and post-imperial fragmentation that provide strong support for the view that identity is prior to power. People consistently demonstrate a willingness to endure hardship, violence, and death for the sake of the groups to whom they belong – national, religious, ethnic, or civilisational. States rise and fall on the basis of conflicts between peoples, not merely on administrative competence or legal frameworks.

Put simply: People will often tolerate poverty, repression, and danger before they tolerate the extinction or humiliation of their group.

This matters because if identity is prior to power, then elite attempts to engineer or replace identity through policy are not mere reforms – they are existential threats to the groups involved.

Morality and identity

Questions of morality and identity are linked in that the outward expression of identity is found in the moral and cultural norms that govern or describe a group’s behaviour. But there are some disagreements between traditions and cultures on moral issues – so moral disagreements correspond with different traditional identity groups.

Identity is what makes meaningful moral and political action possible at scale. Without a defined “we,” appeals to duty, loyalty, or the common good become empty rhetoric; people will not risk comfort, wealth, or life for an abstract humanity or a polity they no longer recognize as their own. Shared identity supplies the affective and narrative ground for sacrifice – whether in defence of the homeland, transmission of culture to children, or mutual aid within the community. When identity is weakened or deliberately blurred, hierarchies lose their legitimacy because subjects no longer see rulers as expressions of their own highest aspirations. In this light, defending particular peoples is not narrow parochialism but the precondition for any healthy political order.

These tensions – between excellence and particularity, power and identity – point toward the need for a deeper integrating principle.

Ordo Amoris

Any account of political order must answer two fundamental questions: who should rule, and for whose benefit? Historically, right-wing thinkers have addressed these questions through appeal to excellence and particularism. This section addresses how excellence and particularism relate to one another through a deeper principle which integrates them: ordo amoris, or the right ordering of loves.

The concept of ordo amoris, developed by Saint Augustine, holds that a just and rightly ordered soul is one in which loves are properly ranked. At the top stands God, the highest good, who is to be loved for his own sake. Below this are created goods: other people, communities, and material things, which are to be loved in a secondary way. Those closest to us by nature and obligation—family, community, nation—are owed greater love and responsibility than those more distant. This reflects the structure of moral responsibility: while all persons bear God’s image and deserve love, we are not equally situated in relation to every person. Moral duties arise from concrete relationships. We are “more bound” to some than others, not because they are more valuable, but because we stand in closer relations of dependence, obligation, and responsibility to them.

We are called to love things in the right proportion and sequence: God above all, then family, then community, then nation, and so on, in what subsequent thinkers have described as a series of concentric circles. Problems arise when we love things in the wrong order: the self over God, lesser goods over greater ones, or the distant over the proximate. This disorder produces both personal vice and social breakdown.

While Augustine applies this primarily to the moral psychology of individuals, we can extend the same logic to collective life, much as Plato does in the Republic – where he develops an extended analogy between the order of the soul and the order of the polis.

Excellence concerns the capacity to pursue and realise the good, while particularism determines which good is authoritative in a given context by identifying the concrete community to which duties are owed. Without particularism, excellence is misdirected; without excellence, particularism is inert. Ordo amoris resolves this by ranking loves such that agents are both oriented toward the right objects (family, community, nation, in proper proportion) and equipped to serve them well.

Here the apparent tension between vital strength and inherited moral order finds resolution: strength must be directed by rightly ordered loves, or it becomes destructive; tradition must be upheld by excellence, or it atrophies.

A leader’s duty is necessarily ordered toward a determinate community rather than humanity in the abstract. Without the correct object of loyalty, hierarchy loses legitimacy because it is no longer recognised as serving a common good. A shared identity without capable leadership cannot sustain itself; capable leadership without a defined people has no purpose.

Modern egalitarian and universalist ideologies disrupt this alignment. By insisting that all individuals and groups are interchangeable or morally equivalent, they dissolve the boundaries that make a coherent society possible. By rejecting hierarchy, or by severing it from moral and cultural formation, they produce elites who are either unaccountable or unmoored from the people they govern. The result is a double disintegration: leaders without loyalty, and populations without trust.

Reintegrating excellence and particularism requires recovering the insight that love is not flat: it is structured, preferential, and rooted. Political order depends on this structure. A society that cannot say who it is, cannot define its needs, interests, or its common good; and a society that cannot say what it values, cannot produce leaders who know what they are meant to serve.

Conclusion

A focus on excellence and particularism is necessary for any society to flourish. Yet both of these principles are under siege due to the hegemony of left-wing values of equality and universalism in Western societies.

If we are to restore Western Civilisation, the real Right must return and reinstate these principles at the centre of our politics.

Excellence is necessary for any group to function well and achieve its aims; Particularism is necessary to ensure the powerful rule in the interests of the people. The principle of ordo amoris supplies the integrating principle: it ranks duties correctly, orients capable leaders toward their own people, and restores legitimacy to hierarchy by aligning rule with shared identity.

Recovering this classical framework offers the surest path to civilizational renewal. It means rebuilding hierarchies rooted in competence, moral formation, and genuine loyalty; rediscovering bounded communities that know who they are and what they value. Only when societies once again elevate rather than resent their finest, and when rulers serve rather than attempt to remake the people they govern, can ordered flourishing return.

Originally published on Conservative Network.