Pagan ethics, liberalism, and the return of inherited order
There’s a reason so many of us are looking to the ancient world right now. Much of the West seems unable to explain what it stands for, what holds its people together, or what deserves to be passed down. We’re told we’re free to invent ourselves, yet so many of us are craving ancestry, belonging, and a place within a history that began long before us.
That hunger has drawn me toward Greek and Roman literature and the pre-Christian societies of Europe, where questions of honor, kinship, duty, and the preservation of order carried enormous weight. Those societies had their own failures, but they took seriously things our culture often struggles even to discuss: obligations we don’t choose, loyalty to the people we come from, and responsibility for what survives us.
It’s also what drew me to The Ark, whose creator joins me for this episode. I’ve been following his Substack, YouTube channel, and classical literature course, especially his exploration of what recovering a European pagan worldview would actually require. If we want to restore some order amid the chaos, what would that order rest on—and what would it demand of us?
One of his arguments that particularly caught my attention is that nature itself is amoral. Life includes predation, destruction, growth, and striving toward excellence. But recognizing those forces doesn’t tell us which ones should govern our behavior. If something occurs in nature, does that make it worthy of imitation? What gives us grounds to restrain one impulse and cultivate another?
Homer gives these questions human consequences. In The Ark’s reading, Achilles’ treatment of Hector and his eventual return to custom raise the question of what even the strongest warrior owes another person. Polyphemus’ rejection of Zeus’s laws of hospitality presents a related problem: what happens when someone recognizes no obligation beyond his own power?
This is where “might makes right” becomes an inadequate account of pagan morality. Strength matters, but so does what a person does with it. I wanted to press The Ark on what makes custom, hospitality, and reciprocal obligations binding, especially when someone is powerful enough to disregard them. His shift from a more Nietzschean outlook toward traditionalist paganism makes that question particularly interesting.
Ancestral continuity brings another dimension to this discussion. Understanding ourselves as part of a chain connecting ancestors and descendants challenges the idea that our lives belong entirely to us. It asks us to consider what we have inherited, what deserves preservation, and what our choices leave behind. That also opens up his critique of liberalism and the question of how much modern secular morality retains the Christian assumptions it claims to have outgrown.
There’s a (slight) disagreement I wanted to bring into the conversation, too. The Ark has expressed appreciation for paganized Christianity and the heroic Christ of medieval literature. Yet the Gospel teachings place discipleship above kinship (Luke 14:26), demand the renunciation of possessions (Luke 14:33), and instruct followers to turn the other cheek and love their enemies (Matthew 5:39–44). How does that fit with the ancestral obligations and heroic ethics we’re discussing?
If those heroic elements came from older pagan traditions, why use them to rehabilitate Christianity?
The Ark’s answer brought us back to the Arthurian literature that shaped his worldview in college. For him, those stories are a meaningful part of European history, and their Christian elements don’t erase their value or make them something we can simply discard. I can understand that attachment, even if I don’t share it. As I admitted during our conversation, there’s still plenty of “piss and vinegar” in my attitude toward Christianity after leaving the church, and finding appreciation for anything wrapped in it remains difficult for me. Our different experiences help explain why we approach that inheritance differently, even as we share an interest in recovering older traditions.
I close by asking The Ark which criticism of his worldview he finds hardest to answer, and whether wrestling with it has changed his thinking. I wanted to hear where he sees a serious challenge to his own interpretation of the pagan tradition.
Please listen to the FULL episode and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Important links:
Liberalism, Christianity, and The Rise of European Paganism | Full Documentary
Nietzsche’s Pagan Metaphysics
Video version The Last Pagan Philosopher
