The Evolution of MCC
The Mission and Plan
The plan:
Restate MCC’s mission
Discuss real world steps to its physical realization
I. MCC’s Mission
Montana Classical College has a mission that makes it distinct: it promotes noble deeds, the understanding of nature, and the defense of the nation-state.
What are these three things—nobility, nature, and nationalism—and how do they fit together? Stated concisely (and in full awareness that much more could be said about them):
Nobility
A noble action is a beautiful one; its beauty or resplendency is proportionate to the difficulty or self-sacrifice demanded by the action. To be noble is to be free; it is to have contempt for mere life. When others say “That is too difficult / dangerous, so I cannot do it,” the noble human being sees a choice: rather than live as a slave, he can defy what others claim are necessities (like danger).
Nature
Nature is the matter of which something is made and the form or shape that sets fixed limits to how much change or growth a thing can undergo. It is a term of distinction; understanding the nature of a thing is to understand its essential capabilities and limitations that distinguish it from other things. E.g., a man has a nature different from a woman, and so he cannot change from a man into a woman.
Nationalism
The core of this is fighting for the world to remain in distinct parts and not to allow nations to be absorbed into a blob-like technocratic slum filled world state. People who promote globalism almost never think in terms of natural / unnatural. And, while they feel as if they are animated by a noble goal in uniting the human family, they ultimately hope to extinguish the possibility or need for noble heroic action. Thus, men of the mind and men of action are brought together against globalism.
MCC students are people who feel like foreigners in their own country. Some say that America is a nation of immigrants; Jeremy Carl proposes, to the contrary, that we are a nation of settlers. A settler is someone who creates a society out of nothing. To be a settler today means re-making society. MCC students have to be willing to take risks; they have to be the courageous human beings on the new frontier who look back on a beautiful American culture that was, but who know that they must shoulder the burden of re-settling, re-building, and re-conquering the United States.
II. MCC’s Evolution
Honesty is important. In a number of ways, MCC has overpromised but undelivered. It is true that it would have been difficult for me to have delivered more in light of my present job, but I didn’t have to overpromise. For that I apologize. I stand by the goods that have been delivered!—but, in apologizing, I have in mind, the length between posts when it isn’t the summer and there still being a number sessions to finish on the Nationalism vs. Globalism class, and the Iliad class. I take those two classes to constitute the essence of MCC; Homer imparts to us an understanding of nature, and a desire to do the noble deeds required to secure our freedom from those who would make the world one. These classes will be finished, though not as soon as I would like.
HOWEVER: Here is my plan to free myself to become a settler in a new frontier.
Substack is an excellent website that I will continue to use; however, I don’t think that it is the right place to host courses. It is better for podcasts and essays (and other things). Over the next two months I will start to transfer the courses over to Teachable (I’m sure that anyone who knows about MCC knows about Michael Millerman’s excellent school. He uses Teachable and I think it is better for housing courses.)
This site will turn into more of an essay / interview space. The essays will be related to articulating the vision of the school and to applying wisdom from great thinkers to contemporary difficulties. To that end, I have set up of a slate of interviews with people that I genuinely admire that will begin recording in August.
I will continue in my current normie job for one more year (Fall of 2023-Spring 2024) and then spend a year devoted to the MCC project.
MCC begins as an online school on Teachable. I am in conversation with a couple of outstanding teachers who are interested in putting together courses which I am very excited about. In person meetings are much more powerful and build stronger connections and networks; but we have to start somewhere. The online school is a scalable part of the school that can produce income for the school and for those who create its courses for years to come.
When the online school is sufficiently set in motion, summer in person programming is something we are really excited about hosting. Unusual talks / mini courses will be combined with hiking in the majestic Montana mountains. Summer (and Winter / Spring break) programming will turn into a gap semester / year for young people and captains of industry looking for a year of repose.
Over time, as people come to see that our Summer and gap sessions are second to none, they will begin spread the word that this kind of experience really ought to be the place where young people spend their formative college years.
The year that I spend out of normal work and on this project will also be spent looking for the right physical location in Montana.
We are going to win.