As I write this, youths are rioting on the streets of Milan and other Italian cities. Plenty of them are foreign imports, but plenty of them are native Italians. The Italian youth are angry because they don’t have the funds to purchase the shiny material items that online influencers parade before them. There is a reason that the first shop to be looted was a store that sells overpriced sneakers.
Ol’ Remus advised to stay away from crowds. He would have undoubtedly been more forceful when advising to stay away from rioting youth. For the youth that are rioting I have nothing to say to them. For the youth that are not inclined to riot I have a few words of advice regarding the importance of excellence.
Every man of history that you have ever admired was a firm believer in the importance of excellence. Excellence means completing a task to the very best of your abilities. The task may only require a few minutes of your time or it may require a lifetime of effort. Either way, excellence as a good in and of itself is the only acceptable outcome for a man of virtue. The goal is to cultivate excellence in every task and habit that you set yourself to, with the aim that through this labor you will become a man of excellence.
A man needs to strive for excellence in each and every one of his pursuits, whether they be tied to employment or even simple hobbies. I used to read a popular F1 journalist whose prose was littered with grammatical errors. While his talent for understanding the sport was impressive, his general toleration of a certain sloppiness in his work merely undermined what he was trying to achieve. He reacted badly to people calling out the many errors in his articles by asserting that we were lucky to get what he wrote in the first place. Needless to say, I no longer read him.
It is crucial not to seek praise for anything excellent that you might produce. A simple acknowledgement of the truth in the words when someone praises you is more than enough. Do not deny your excellence, but do not fish for compliments either. No matter how high the level of excellence achieved, if a man then seeks to parlay that into endless acclaim then the excellence that he had achieved will invariably be sullied. Thus, the opposite of what was desired will instead be the result.
Make excellence as natural to you as breathing. Make it something that you strive for in whatever activity that you find yourself. A pursuit of excellence then leads to eliminating or at least quelling other vices, such as procrastination. When beginning a new job of which you have little experience, identify the man who best embodies excellence at that workplace and seek his assistance with regards to your own journey. Be humble when you approach him, make sure to thank him for his efforts on your behalf, take his criticism to heart, and be generous to him if you surpass his own level of excellence.
The American Tribune has written about the importance of building a gentry so as to enable the flourishing of a piece of the nation. But what sort of men should be part of a gentry? The type of man who pursues excellence in all that he does, of course. For Virginia in the 1700s, the first mark of a man was how well he grew his tobacco leaf.
“Further, they were trained from birth to understand that the excellence of a man can be seen in what quality leaf he grows, as that immediately visible mark of a man was a sign of how he exercised Dominion over his lands, from the soil to his dependents …
”… The first step on this ladder of office was the plantation. As I discussed earlier, the quality of the leaf a man grew was the first mark of his character–he who indulged in rotten theories and produced a poor crop, he who could not master his workforce, he who simply could not well manage his own affairs–was excluded from public office entirely. He would never be invited into the inner circle, for he had failed that first test of a man: using well the resources he had to establish his financial independence on sound footing, and showing he possessed that most prized of all things, a gift for effective leadership.”
The men of today, both young and not so young, might despair at the seeming hopelessness of our situation. That the odds are stacked against us; that the behemoth of woke is irresistible as it slobbers ever onwards devouring all in its path; that no matter what we might attempt to build it will be stolen from us; that our women are hopelessly compromised and unworthy of our efforts; that the elevation of sin and the demonisation of virtue allows only those willing to damn their souls to succeed.
But what better environment for a man of excellence to stand out, to rise to the surface as the scum sinks down around him. Seek excellence in all that you do, cultivate excellence in your life by dressing well, speaking well, showing good manners, being generous to those around you, all without falling into the trap of becoming a snob, instead becoming a man of good character. You make yourself a man of excellence today, so that when tomorrow your nation has urgent need of excellent men then you are ready and able for the call to action.
Christ demands that we are excellent. So show Him that the potential that He gave you will not go to waste. And by fulfilling our potential as men so can we serve God by serving our communities and nations.
You can find Adam Piggott at Substack, and purchase his books here.
