Dear Mr. Thiel,

 

Let me thank you for your prompt reply to my original inquiry. I cannot overstate how glad I am to hear of your interest in our enterprise.

You requested the enclosure of my ten-year vision for the revitalization of the American male. What follows is the fulfillment of that request.

As you know, we are at war. Our enemies‘ bloodlust will be satisfied with nothing short of the total destruction of Nature itself. One of the primary theatres of this conflict has been the assault on manliness. The objective of this assault has been to dissociate biological maleness from any pre-existing essence or purpose. Due to widespread weakness and complacency, we have suffered many losses on this battlefield already. Look no further than the current state of the average adolescent male: obese, directionless, addicted to masturbation, one foot in the metaverse via gaming or social media. There is no greater indictment of the current state of our civilization that this sorry figure. Consequently, there is no more apt starting point from which to stimulate a reinvigoration of Western culture than the minds and bodies of young men.

Let me begin from where we want to end up, and work backwards. The American male population must become, as it was within living memory, a standing army of extremely fit, skilled and knowledgeable men, prepared to die in defense of their country. (Let me be specific about what I mean by “their country”: I mean the exact land and people from which any given individual citizen comes. I do not mean some nebulous idea, some flag, or some document. The ubiquitous lie that “America is an idea”, is actually bizarrely true, because what we mean by America is something intangible in its ephemerality, because its definition depends on the background of the soldier who defends it. It varies depending on the postage stamp whence that soldier comes. America is an idea: the idea of a square mile and the people who dwell therein.

What kind of educational ordeal would the average American male have to undergo in order to meet the above description? How can his slovenliness be transformed into sharpness? These are the questions that our program answers.

From the first day a boy arrives at our campus at the age of twelve, to when he leaves at 18, he is sent to live with the herds in the mountains. His diet is founded on the milk from the herds that he tends to in concert with his fellows (we have herds of both cows and sheep for dairy); the eggs from the ducks that are rotated through a cascade of fertigation ponds in the upland forest; honey harvested from the bees hived on the forest edges;, and whatever he can forage (instructors are versed in the local flora and fungi to prevent accidental intoxication). He lives under a canvas tent on the edge of the forest with his classmates. He has absolutely no access to any form of digital technology while he is on campus.

Our pedagogical approach is based on the understanding that in order to re-kindle an understanding among young men of their own masculinity, they must be immersed in nature. Our enemies have mastered the art of childhood indoctrination, and their process always begins with the dissociation of the child from the natural world. Learning takes place indoors, they imply, especially on the computer. This is as cynical as it is insidiously intended: it ultimately leads to the belief that the various man-made realities he finds there — the internet, pornography, the soon-to-be metaverse etc. — are more real than the wind and the soil and the waters. This false understanding then comes to occupy the individual’s consciousness. Immersed in these man-made alternate realities, the young man thinks to himself, “I can be whoever and whatever I want to be. I am unlimited by the impositions of my biology and the manner of my upbringing.” In the real world, the acceptance of these limits is the prerequisite of their transcendence. Immersion in nature forces our students to come to terms with who they are, where they come from and what they are capable of on any given day. In short, it is real, not make-believe, and therein lies its didactic power.

What does the student’s day to day life entail? Our life here is anchored by the realities of farming. We are running a dairy, which represents the foundation of the diet of everyone who lives here. The students milk and move the animals twice daily. They are milked by hand in our mobile parlors, which move along with the herds. Any excess production is entrusted to the local churches for distribution to the needy. Because we have many hands per animal, this is relatively light work. We also care for our ducks and our bees. We do not garden or practice any other form of agriculture than what I have described; although there are many mature fruit trees scattered throughout, in the sunny spots where pasture meets forest. We decided on dairy from the outset because we felt it covered the maximum span of our dietary needs with the least input from offsite sources. Our cows and sheep only eat grass and the hay we make here (and we try to keep hay consumption to a minimum by winter grazing). We know from years’ experience that the diet provided by the aforementioned sources provides more than enough nutrition to sustain our active lifestyle and the robust strength training goals for all students. Since dairy always involves the slaughter of the animals whose birth is required to stimulate lactation, we do also eat meat. Aquaculture in some of our many mountain ponds is another potential protein source; although we have yet to explore it seriously.

In contradistinction to the situation in the American public school system, for us, physical education is not a tertiary, box-ticking exercise. It is the foundation of our entire educational system. After morning milking, all students spend two hours in physical activity directed toward increased strength. Since we have no gym here, we have had to get creative. We especially enjoy weighted hill sprints to failure (using makeshift rucksacks filled with stones). We do pull ups in the larches, and notch handles into large logs of varying sizes for squats, deadlifts, etc. Students enter at different heights and weights, and so the only uniform expectation we can impose upon them is that they are becoming stronger all the time. This we impose without reservation. Furthermore, all students must become proficient in some form of hand-to-hand combat.

Besides physical education, several other classes are required. These include music (when we have enough students, we hope to have an orchestra and choral ensemble). Our hay barn is our practice space, it has excellent acoustics. Horsemanship and riflery are also required. Classes of progressing difficulty in mathematics, the Western literary canon, philosophy and other subjects are offered on an elective basis. Students are encouraged to pursue their interests, but are also required, having chosen this or that elective, to commit to it for a matter of months at a minimum. We utterly reject the notion of the “well-rounded world citizen” that has become so common in higher education circles in recent decades. Over the course of his years here, the average student becomes highly capable in a specific skill or area of knowledge. Our objective, as I hope is clear by now, is the manufacture of warriors, each skilled in specific areas.

In the evenings, the boys take to team field sports — usually soccer since it requires the least gear — and individual study. There are no showers here: baths are taken year-round in the spring-fed pond at the top of the property. The day ends with a bonfire — often the more literary boys will relate stories from the books they have been reading. The baritones sing the ancient hymns. Lights out at 9pm.

Mr. Thiel, we require further funding. We simply cannot keep up with the demand we are experiencing from prospective students. The young men of America are clamoring for the opportunity to embrace their nature without being hampered by the badgerings of ten thousand crusty schoolmarms. Many of our graduates are eager to open campuses in their own areas.

Every boy forced through the spiritual wood chipper than is the modern American socialization-via-public-education process represents a living tragedy. We can define tragedy as squandered potential. Before we even begin to list the practical reasons why the assault on manliness has been such a disaster for society, we must consider the deep injustice of this situation. For the sake not merely of society, which flounders and collapses in the absence of true male strength and leadership, but for that of the souls of the boys who are daily wasted as spiritual cannon-fodder in the War on Nature, we must offer a widespread alternative on a broad scale.

 

Once again I thank you for your consideration.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

William Wheelwright