Not too long ago, there were two sorts of Dartmouth students: those who don’t know who Thomas Hobbes is, and those who think Hobbes’ ideas represent the nadir of white, male malfeasance. Though those two groups still predominate, recently there has emerged a third group, the Monsters of Malmsebury.

To put it another way, there are three types of students (or people in general): George Washingtons, Thomas Jeffersons, and Alexander Hamiltons. The George Washingtons don’t have any real beliefs, the Thomas Jeffersons are bright-eyed idealists and lobbyists for the weak, and the Alexander Hamiltons love Big Business, efficiency, and a powerful Executive.

The Monsters of Malmsebury view themselves as the spiritual successors of Hamilton. They’re neoliberal capitalists and subscribe to a worldview based on the writings of Thomas Hobbes and Friederich Nietzsche. Like Hobbes, they believe that it is a dog-eat-dog world and that the “body” of the State (“the Leviathan”) is made up of citizens. Like Nietzsche, they believe in self-improvement and a dichotomy of humans, i.e. that most people are followers, but there are a few leader-types who deserve special privileges.

Malmseburianism is for people who see through the shallowness of the Jefferson weltanschauung. Many have become disillusioned with “Jeffersonianism” when they have taken a moment to reflect and ask, “Where is the Utopia you promised us?” Taking a look at history, we can see that Wilson failed, Carter failed, the utopia experiments in nineteenth-century America and Europe failed. The greatest utopian experiment of all time, Russian Communism, failed. Jefferson and his heirs have failed because the rules they were playing by were not the rules of nature: they were like men who, refusing to accept the law of gravity, tried to walk across the Grand Canyon. Men such as Hamilton would love to be able to walk against the Grand Canyon, but realize that such a feat is impossible.

The problem with Jefferson was that he was an out-of-touch academic. When he wasn’t schtupping one of his slaves, he was in his library reading Rousseau and Plutarch. This simultaneous isolation from the real world and immersion in the fanciful led this landed gentleman, much like Don Quixote before him, to go a bit mad. The idyllic parallel reality of Jefferson’s imagination was inhabited by heroic and noble human beings. And, yes, I would agree that in a world populated solely by paragons of human beneficence like Cincinnatus and Solon, trade would be evil, factories would be big smoky messes, and everybody would indeed be fit to rule. In the real world, when I google “horse fucking” I get 25,000 hits.

Hamilton and his heirs—the Monsters of Malmsebury, included—try as best as they can to play by Nature’s perennial rule: natural selection.

This has numerous implications. The notion that we are living in a state of nature affects one’s decision-making. One is less likely to get screwed if one expects to get screwed. Suppose, while you are walking down Broadway, a fatigue-wearing, rum-smelling, ashen-faced hobo asks for $200 to buy textbooks. The Jeffersonian, so thrilled that this downcast man has decided to improve himself, would give the man not just the desired $200, but all of the cash in the wallet, the credit cards, the wallet itself, and his address, so that the homeless man will have a place to stay. The Hamiltonian and the Malmesburian would call the cops.

Jeffersonianism is the bastard child of the New Testament and Rousseau. A Jeffersonian has discarded the belief in God or Jesus Christ (or s/he believes in the “historical Jesus”) but accepts Jesus’ tenets: turn the other cheek, Good Samaritan, human rights, and all that jazz. That seems all well and good until you remember the words of Thomas Carlyle: “All unarmed prophets are doomed to fail.” Gandhi was shot, Savonarola was burned at the stake, and Jesus was crucified. (It is true that while Jesus was killed, Christianity flourished, but Constantine, Charlemagne, Richard the Lionhearted, and the like were definitely not unarmed).

Jeffersonianism is the cult of victimhood. Its values are backwards. Instead of pointing to a bum and saying “Don’t be like him,” it apologizes for his weakness of will. It looks upon great men as oppressors, instead of what they are—great men.

One of the great crusades of the Jeffersonian has been state-sponsored welfare. Welfare was a good idea when it was implemented. The reasoning went, these poor people have no way of helping themselves, so let’s help them. Nowadays,though, people have a great deal more control over their own destinies. It is not unusual for poor boys to become rich men.

But it is important to make a distinction between investing in human capital and nursing scum and indolence. Giving scholarships and grants, etc. is investing in human capital. It facilitates efficient use of human resources and, as such, is a great boon to society. But anybody who has ever been on the show Cops does not deserve to be invested in, to be on welfare. Welfare is only valuable as an investment: society gives a little money now and makes more later.

At Dartmouth, there are students who worked hard to get here and students who worked less hard to get here. The students who worked hard to get here, I’m sure, will have some idea to whom I’m alluding… Those students who worked hard to get here worked hard because they think that working hard leads to success. They believe in meritocracy, in making sacrifices to get ahead.

After someone achieves success through hard work, s/he recognizes the value of hard work. Hard work leads to success: if you don’t succeed, it’s your fault.

Now, this might not necessarily be true in all cases. But it is true in most cases. And if everyone believed it, society would be better off.: the tightrope walker who thinks he won’t have a net will practice more and put on a better show for the audience. Finally, more and more Dartmouth students—students who realize how empowering this philosophy is for them—are coming to this realization.

Finally, the Malmseburian is sick of waste. Sick of inefficient college admissions (“Let’s take one kid with an 1150 from Compton and reject five with 1600s from Connecticut!”), sick of state-sponsored drug habits, and sick of aid to the Third World. But it is not just that aid to the Third World is inefficient (the money buys the ruling junta Rolls-Royces), it is utterly undesirable to empower others. Power is a zero-sum game. When someone gains power, we lose power. As an Americans we should be ecstatic that we enjoy hegemony, but instead, there are many of us—many here at Dartmouth—who are embarrassed of the fact.

There are three common misconceptions about this philosophy: 1) the Monsters of Malmsebury are Libertarians, 2) Monsters of Malmsebury are Republicans, and 3) they hate poor people.

1) Malmseburians are not capital-L Libertarians, i.e. they are not associated with the U.S. Libertarian party. So far as they are lowercase-l libertarians, they do not want the laws designed for the common folk to restrict their liberties.

2) Monsters of Malmsebury are not necessarily Republicans. The majority are disillusioned with Sun-belt and Neo-Conservatism. Many find the bible-beating of the Sun-belt Conservatives, e.g. a belief in intelligent design, unattractive, as well as partisanship of Neo-conservative pundits and the narrow-mindedness of their mandarins.

3) Malmseburians do not hate poor people. In fact, in the mind of a Malmseburian, the greatest person is the person that rises from obscurity into greatness. Andrew Carnegie did it, Ross Perot did it, Shakespeare did it, etc, etc. The problem is not with poor people, but with poor people who do not have the will or desire to get out of poverty and, of course, with the middle-and-upper-middle class individuals who believe that the poor have the right to have their drug habits and scores of illegitimate children subsidized by the government.

There is only one philosophy by which the successful live. Not everybody who has practiced it has realized it. Everyone from the patriarch Abram to Abraham Lincoln to LUCA , the ancestor of all life on earth, was a Malmseburian whether he knew it or not.

If you are interested in Malmseburianism feel free to blitz “Monsters of Malmsebury” or join the facebook group. We will be having a meeting in a few weeks.