Konstantin Nikolayevich Leontiev (Константин Николаевич Леонтьев)
1831-1891 · Conservatism · Little-known
Leontiev trained as a physician and served as a consul in the Ottoman Balkans, then took secret tonsure at Optina and died a monk. Every organism, state and culture runs one course: plain beginnings, then flowering complexity, then a blurred sameness, so equality and progress are the third stage dying. He judged history by beauty, then chose Christianity at the cost of the beauty he loved.
Signature
The position Leontiev is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Beauty
- leans Objective
- Government
- Autocracy
Positions on the 13 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (85 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (19 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (20 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (79 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (88 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- strongly leans Vertical (10 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (89 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- strongly leans Illiberalism (10 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (79 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Ignorance
- leans Bliss (81 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Certain (83 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Local (15 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
7 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Leontiev refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Autocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Other
What is the highest good? - End of Things
- Apocalyptic Renewal
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Tradition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Redeemably Corrupted
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?