The Spirit of a Gentleman

Few figures are more fundamental to and more poorly understood in the modern West than the gentleman. For most, the word evokes cartoonish images of superficial courtesies from one sex to the other—a young man taking off his hat indoors or holding the door for a lady. For the left, it has become a hopelessly retrograde concept. Since it is premised on the superiority of the gentle over the coarse and of the civilized over the barbarous, it must simply be a tool of oppression by men over women and by the rich over the poor.