Good question. Isn't a gentleman someone who DOESN'T have to get his hands dirty for a living?
Yes, and nowadays, if one can go off of the dress and speech of some of our young converts, the idea of being a gentleman is no longer attached to the idea of being well-born and a member of the cultured warrior aristocracy, fathers and guardians of the
mos maiorum or
dike geronton. Instead, it seems to be more akin to scenes from P. G. Wodehouse novels. It involves lots of pipe-smoking and a fascination for clothing and other accoutrements of urban dandies from the last two centuries. (I should clarify that I am not opposed to linen suits, wool hats, or tobacco, by the way, I just don't think they are all that important in the grand scheme of things.)
As in, the "gentry". More accurately, the "landed gentry" (which implies wealth)?
Well, that's the thing. It does seem to imply wealth, but the thing called a "gentleman" seems to be something ambiguous and different from simply a member of the landed gentry, who had corresponding duties to and a stake in society. It doesn't seem to me that the ideal of the "gentleman" is something very clear.
Are we talking about Victorian ideas of "chivalry," something that long before was democratised and became the property of the middle class ? Or what ? Should farmers and craftsmen be proud of being "gentlemen" Let's say that the overwhelming majority of orthodox Catholic men were widely reocgnised as having the quality of being gentlemanly. What would it look like ? And, even then, so what ? Is there a next step ?
I am not being contentious or hostile. I am simply interested in clarity of thought pursuant to effective action for a sound purpose. It seems that none of these supposedly lofty cultural concepts are examined very seriously before being presented to most of us laymen as something we should care about rather intensely. So, it seems like we should go back one step in the thought process. After all, amateurs discuss tactics while professionals discuss logistics.
(For all of you avowed gentlemen who did not like my post, be assured that I am quite devoted to chivalry -- or, to be more precise, what Saint Louis would have called
prudhomie, the combination of
potestas with
sapientas -- as I understand it. Please do not think that I am, at heart, an enemy to your goals, either, nor am I a stranger to your world.)