Say Hello To The "Solar Aristocracy"

Introduction. D.H. Lawrence is the writer of famous novels such as Sons and Lovers and Women in Love. In this lifetime he was denounced as a toxic man and his books banned. In this Memo, read about his strange obsession with the Sun, his definition of aristocrat, and more 👇

The difference between aristocrats and everyone else. Lawrence: “Can a man put more life into us, and release in us the fountains of our vitality?” Anyone can provide “food, money, and amusement.” But a true aristocrat “whether by thought or action, MAKES life.”

Who’s a savior? D.H. Lawrence: “Whoever can establish, or initiate a new connection between mankind & the universe, is a savior.” Life tends to degenerate into “repetition, torpor, ennui, lifelessness.” A savior hits refresh on “the human connection with the universe.”

Why Caesar was an aristocrat. Lawrence writes that the 1st century B.C. would’ve been “far less vital” and “less vividly alive” without him. He put people “into a new relation with the universe.” By uniting disjoint geographies, he “man in new relation to ice and sun.”

D.H. Lawrence’s definition of aristocracy is hard to improve: “Being alive constitutes an aristocracy which there is no getting beyond. He who is most alive, intrinsically, is King, whether men admit it or not.” All attention and loyalty go to the one who's burning with life.

Life is a rhythmic thing: “Life rises in circles, in degrees.” Life needs hierarchies to survive at all: “And the lower shall serve the higher, if there is to be any life among men. More life! More vivid life! Not more safe cabbages, or meaningless masses of people.”

In Lawrence’s strange, hypnotic, and powerful short story SUN, Juliet, a sick woman, is recommended sun therapy by her doctor. She starts sun-bathing naked and magical changes happen in her body, psyche, and being. The “cold dark clots of her thoughts” start dissolving.

Why was D.H. Lawrence obsessed with the sun? His father was a coal-miner, spending most of his time in the dark underground. Lawrence didn’t want that fate. He wrote: “The sun is to us what we take from it. And if we are puny, it is because we take punily from the superb sun.”

Lawrence predicts a new Solar Elite: “Enough of the squalor of democratic humanity. Time to recognize the aristocracy of the sun. There will form a new aristocracy, irrespective of nationality, of men who have reached the sun. In the coming era they will rule the world.”

Conclusion. Do you agree or disagree with Lawrence? Tell me in the comments. His definition of a savior as someone who initiates a new relationship between humans and the universe will stay with me.

This is Part 3 of the Aristocracy Trilogy - the first two parts are here!