Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn was an Austrian Catholic nobleman and socio-political theorist.
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Describing himself as an "extreme conservative arch-liberal" or "liberal of the extreme right", Kuehnelt-Leddihn often argued that majority rule in democracies is a threat to individual liberties, and declared himself a monarchist and an enemy of all forms of totalitarianism. Described as "A Walking Book of Knowledge", Kuehnelt-Leddihn had an encyclopedic knowledge of the humanities and was a polyglot, able to speak eight languages and read seventeen others. His early books The Menace of the Herd and Liberty or Equality were influential within the American conservative movement. His best-known writings appeared in National Review, where he was a columnist for 35 years.
Liberty or Equality by Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
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According to his friend William F. Buckley, Dr. Kuehnelt-Leddihn was “the world’s most fascinating man,” and he has left a most fascinating legacy.
Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (born July 31, 1909 in Tobelbad (now Haselsdorf-Tobelbad), Austria-Hungary; died May 26, 1999, in Lans, Tyrol, Austria). Married to Countess Christiane Goess (Ph. D.) and lived in a mountain small village Lans near Innsbruck the capital of the Austrian Province of Tyrol.
Parish church in Lans, Tyrol. Fot. Wojciech Gatz.
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At the age of 16, he became the Vienna correspondent of The Spectator. From then on, he wrote for the rest of his life. He studied civil and canon law at the University of Vienna at the age of eighteen. From there, he went to the University of Budapest, from which he received an M.A. in economics and his doctorate in political science. Moving back to Vienna, he took up studies in theology. In 1935, Kuehnelt-Leddihn travelled to England to become a schoolmaster at Beaumont College, a Jesuit public school. Subsequently he moved to the United States, where he taught at Georgetown University (1937–38), Saint Peter's College, New Jersey (head of the History and Sociology Department, 1938–43), Fordham University (Japanese, 1942–43), and Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia (1943–47).
After publishing books like Jesuiten, Spießer und Bolschewiken in 1933 (published in German by Pustet, Salzburg) and The Menace of the Herd in 1943, in which he criticised the National Socialists as well as the Socialists directly or between the lines, he could not return to Nazi-occupied Austria.
After the Second World War, he resettled in Lans in Tyrol where he lived until his death. However, he was an avid traveler: he had visited the USSR in 1930–31, and eventually traveled to every state in the United States.
His chief intellectual project centered on defending the theoretical foundations of liberty in the modern world, especially in response to the distortions in the idea of liberty precipitated by the French Revolution. In his words, “My studies in political theory and practice have been largely directed toward finding ways to strengthen the great Western tradition of human freedom, now under attack from so many sides.” He was supporter of the Otto von Habsburg Pan-European movement . He said that always „Right is right and Left is wrong”. Kuehnelt-Leddihn proclaimed himself to be a monarchist, but he certainly did not believe retaining or restoring monarchy would solve all our problems.
Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
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Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote for a variety of publications, including Chronicles, the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, and Catholic World. He also worked with the Acton Institute, which declared him after his death "a great friend and supporter," and was an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. For much of his life, Kuehnelt was also a painter; he illustrated some of his own books. Erik Kuehnelt- Leddihn died on the 26th of May 1999 in Lans near Innsbruck, Tyrol.
Some selected Quotations by Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
"For the average person, all problems date to the world war ii for the more informed to world war i, for the genuine historian, to the french revolution".
“If there is no personal God,everything is permissible, and if God exists,everything is possible.”
"...In democracies there will always be resentment and contempt for the “highbrow” and the illiterate, the intellectual and the “peasant.”
“Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be nuns and monks, but the standard reply is 'prisoners'.”
“Modern man is a hard driven nomad without any stability, not (as the Bible has it) a wanderer or a pilgrim, but a refugee-an escapist. Instead of meditation and reflection there is only speed, fear and “distraction.”
“Equality doesn’t exist in nature and therefore can be established only by force. He who wants geographic equality has to dynamite mountains and fill up the valleys. To get a hedge of even height one has to apply pruning shears. To achieve equal scholastic levels in a school one would have to pressure certain students into extra hard work while holding back others.”
"Democratism and its allied herd movements, while remaining loyal to the principle of equality and identity, will never hesitate to sacrifice liberty".
"The democratic principle of "one man, one vote," viewed against a background of voting masses numbering several millions, only serves to demonstrate the pitiful helplessness of the inarticulate individual, who functions at the polls as the smallest indivisible arithmetical (and not always algebraic) unit. He acts in total anonymity, secrecy and legal irresponsibility".
"Sometime in the coming century, people will rack their brains pondering how nations with tremendous scientific and intellectual achievements could have given uninstructed and untrained men and women the right to vote equally uninstructed and untrained people into responsible positions".
Sources:
www.kuehnelt-leddihn.at (memorial page by his grandson), www.catholicwritersguild.com, www.goodreads.com, www.acton.org, www.lewrockwell.com, www.likesuccess.com, Wikipedia.
Liberty or Equality by Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (born July 31, 1909 in Tobelbad (now Haselsdorf-Tobelbad), Austria-Hungary; died May 26, 1999, in Lans, Tyrol, Austria). Married to Countess Christiane Goess (Ph. D.) and lived in a mountain small village Lans near Innsbruck the capital of the Austrian Province of Tyrol.
Parish church in Lans, Tyrol. Fot. Wojciech Gatz.
After publishing books like Jesuiten, Spießer und Bolschewiken in 1933 (published in German by Pustet, Salzburg) and The Menace of the Herd in 1943, in which he criticised the National Socialists as well as the Socialists directly or between the lines, he could not return to Nazi-occupied Austria.
After the Second World War, he resettled in Lans in Tyrol where he lived until his death. However, he was an avid traveler: he had visited the USSR in 1930–31, and eventually traveled to every state in the United States.
His chief intellectual project centered on defending the theoretical foundations of liberty in the modern world, especially in response to the distortions in the idea of liberty precipitated by the French Revolution. In his words, “My studies in political theory and practice have been largely directed toward finding ways to strengthen the great Western tradition of human freedom, now under attack from so many sides.” He was supporter of the Otto von Habsburg Pan-European movement . He said that always „Right is right and Left is wrong”. Kuehnelt-Leddihn proclaimed himself to be a monarchist, but he certainly did not believe retaining or restoring monarchy would solve all our problems.
Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Some selected Quotations by Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
"For the average person, all problems date to the world war ii for the more informed to world war i, for the genuine historian, to the french revolution".
“If there is no personal God,everything is permissible, and if God exists,everything is possible.”
"...In democracies there will always be resentment and contempt for the “highbrow” and the illiterate, the intellectual and the “peasant.”
“Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be nuns and monks, but the standard reply is 'prisoners'.”
“Modern man is a hard driven nomad without any stability, not (as the Bible has it) a wanderer or a pilgrim, but a refugee-an escapist. Instead of meditation and reflection there is only speed, fear and “distraction.”
“Equality doesn’t exist in nature and therefore can be established only by force. He who wants geographic equality has to dynamite mountains and fill up the valleys. To get a hedge of even height one has to apply pruning shears. To achieve equal scholastic levels in a school one would have to pressure certain students into extra hard work while holding back others.”
"Democratism and its allied herd movements, while remaining loyal to the principle of equality and identity, will never hesitate to sacrifice liberty".
"The democratic principle of "one man, one vote," viewed against a background of voting masses numbering several millions, only serves to demonstrate the pitiful helplessness of the inarticulate individual, who functions at the polls as the smallest indivisible arithmetical (and not always algebraic) unit. He acts in total anonymity, secrecy and legal irresponsibility".
"Sometime in the coming century, people will rack their brains pondering how nations with tremendous scientific and intellectual achievements could have given uninstructed and untrained men and women the right to vote equally uninstructed and untrained people into responsible positions".
Sources:
www.kuehnelt-leddihn.at (memorial page by his grandson), www.catholicwritersguild.com, www.goodreads.com, www.acton.org, www.lewrockwell.com, www.likesuccess.com, Wikipedia.