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What We Do

We practice paternal subsidiarity, domestic sustainability, & stewardship of nature by:

— Adhering to the enduring philosophical anthropology of Aristotle & Thomas Aquinas.
— Recovering the everyday customs that embody the timeless purpose of natural society.

Overview of Our Proposal

Want to settle where family life, friendship, responsibility, and local life intertwine?

Naturally flourishing communities arise through the voluntary initiatives of ordinary people. They are sustained not primarily by bureaucratic institutions, but by the everyday customs through which families, neighbors, & local economies have always formed.

We do not wish to build a town from scratch or realize a pre-engineered community. As Millennial and Gen Z laymen, we seek to actualize the potential inherent in our nature by populating a semi-rural town and helping its local life flourish.

The Twofold Function of Guild Meetings

1. Philosophical reflection: Through Socratic symposia, textual seminars, and similar activities, we reflect on the essential cultural practices necessary for the flourishing of natural society.

2. Practical recovery: In a convivial setting of food, drink, and lively company, we entertain sustainable ways to recover the everyday customs that embody the timeless purpose of natural society.

Governance Structure

The Keeper of the Guild
To sustain the Guild's primary function, the Keeper alone accepts, rejects, or revokes membership. He leads or delegates the orchestration of Socratic symposia, textual seminars, and similar activities. He operates to facilitate the philosophical contemplation of timeless ethical and metaphysical principles rather than to direct the domestic lives and prudential judgments of members.

The Freedom & Responsibility of All Members
ATG exercises no executive oversight over the Shire-oriented initiatives of its members. Members are free to pursue—or not pursue—practical undertakings beyond philosophical contemplation. All members share responsibility for sustaining the Guild’s secondary function by at least entertaining ways to incarnate timeless ethical & metaphysical principles within the local economy and culture.

The Guild's Overarching Rule

The Guild does not place the economic and cultural initiatives of its members under the oversight of a governing board. Nor does it require members to employ earned or donated material resources according to a socialist, distributist, capitalist, or any other prescribed economic program.

Following Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, ATG recognizes the household as the most fundamental sphere of authority in natural society. Hence, the Guild's overarching rule is that its limited operations should work to mutually support and uphold the dignity of household headship. The citations that follow encapsulate the logic of this rule.

"For every household is ruled by one head" (Aristotle, Politics, Bk. I, 1255b, 18-19).


"The polity is composed of households" (Bk. I, 1253b, 2).


"A father is a principle of governing, training, teaching, and of all the things that pertain to the perfection of human life" (Thomas Aquinas, ST, II–II, q. 102, art. 1).


"One’s father of the flesh participates in a particularized way in the property father,
which is found in a universal way in God" (Ibid).

Financial Donations & Membership Fees

ATG will never accept financial donations or charge fees.