The principle of superiority is the recognition that qualitative differences among men are real and that those differences create a natural order of rank. Superiority is measured by proximity to the transcendent, by the degree of form, clarity, and detachment a man has achieved. It is not measured by success within the categories of the age.
The modern world denies the principle in theory while operating by crude versions of it in practice. It denies that any man can be higher in type. At the same time it produces hierarchies of money, of technical skill, of media visibility, and of political power. These hierarchies lack a spiritual foundation and therefore remain unstable and ultimately degrading.
The young man who accepts the principle of superiority must apply it first to himself. He must ask whether a higher quality is actually present in him or whether he is merely asserting a position. The answer is found in the concrete tests of daily life: the capacity to remain clear under pressure, the capacity to refuse the lower when it is easy and advantageous, the capacity to act without needing the approval of the surrounding level.
When the principle is held without self-deception it produces a quiet and exacting standard. The man no longer competes for the ranks the age distributes. He measures himself against a different scale and accepts the isolation that scale often requires. That isolation is the price of remaining superior in a world that has declared superiority itself illegitimate.