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I find it genuinely surprising that such significant art is owned by the royal family and yet wasn't on display for the broader public until now.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I find it genuinely surprising that we still have a royal family.
- martindbp 6y ago
  I wonder if royal houses are a net economic positive due to increased tourism. That would be the only reason to keep them. It's like a really long-lasting, expensive reality show.
  - billyruffian 6y ago
    I think it was Niall Fergusson, perhaps in 'Empire' or maybe 'Civilisation', who argued that the modern purpose of monarchy is to protect the citizenry from its government -- particularly the emergence of extreme forms of government. You might not agree but I found it quite persuasive.
    - ploika 6y ago
      As an Irish person I don't find it persuasive at all. There's pretty much nothing a monarch can do that a non executive president can't, and the UK's monarch didn't protect anyone in Northern Ireland from gerrymandering or the B-Specials.
      - ntwalker 6y ago
        My take on it, personally, is that the primary benefit of a monarch is precisely that they are inherently illegitimate, in a way. This means that every day they have to justify to the people and keep answering the question "Why do we keep these people around?" A president only has to convince (fool?) the people twice, and can always hide behind a "mandate" from the people to justify bad behavior. A monarch has to fight to earn that legitimacy every day. Plus they have the incentive of not screwing their kids' inheritance up. That's the value I see in it anyways, I don't know if there's a more sophisticated articulation of this idea out there.
        tonyedgecombe 6y ago
        So they have to behave so they can continue to lord it over us. In reality it takes a huge amount of propaganda from the British media to keep them in place. If there was anything resembling an objective assesment of them then they would be gone.
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure they would fear an extreme form of government as much as the rest of us.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure tourists would be flocking to Buckingham Palace (Hotel) after we became a republic, just as tourists flock to Versailles.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I find it genuinely surprising that we still have a royal family.

martindbp 6y ago
I wonder if royal houses are a net economic positive due to increased tourism. That would be the only reason to keep them. It's like a really long-lasting, expensive reality show.
- billyruffian 6y ago
  I think it was Niall Fergusson, perhaps in 'Empire' or maybe 'Civilisation', who argued that the modern purpose of monarchy is to protect the citizenry from its government -- particularly the emergence of extreme forms of government. You might not agree but I found it quite persuasive.
  - ploika 6y ago
    As an Irish person I don't find it persuasive at all. There's pretty much nothing a monarch can do that a non executive president can't, and the UK's monarch didn't protect anyone in Northern Ireland from gerrymandering or the B-Specials.
    - ntwalker 6y ago
      My take on it, personally, is that the primary benefit of a monarch is precisely that they are inherently illegitimate, in a way. This means that every day they have to justify to the people and keep answering the question "Why do we keep these people around?" A president only has to convince (fool?) the people twice, and can always hide behind a "mandate" from the people to justify bad behavior. A monarch has to fight to earn that legitimacy every day. Plus they have the incentive of not screwing their kids' inheritance up. That's the value I see in it anyways, I don't know if there's a more sophisticated articulation of this idea out there.
      - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
        So they have to behave so they can continue to lord it over us. In reality it takes a huge amount of propaganda from the British media to keep them in place. If there was anything resembling an objective assesment of them then they would be gone.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure they would fear an extreme form of government as much as the rest of us.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure tourists would be flocking to Buckingham Palace (Hotel) after we became a republic, just as tourists flock to Versailles.