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I really wish we could just do away with all this royal family nonsense. You guys are somehow special because what? Useless social fiction from antiquity.
by nullsense 6y ago
I really wish we could just do away with all this royal family nonsense.
You guys are somehow special because what? Useless social fiction from antiquity.
- iso1631 6y agoKardassians seem to have more adoration
- celticninja 6y agoSo you are suggesting they take over from the royals or from the US president?
- MagnumOpus 6y agoWhile Cardassians are far more popular than the Windsor Royals, they are fictional. Which has advantages, admittedly -- far lower expenditures and a far lower rate of child-rapes among them -- a lot of the British royalists might object to a change of rulers on that basis.
- _Microft 6y ago> Kardassians seem to have more adoration There are two different typos possible here and I am undecided which one is funnier ;)
- pndy 6y agoEach time I'm catching myself reading it as Cardassians
- cblconfederate 6y agoThey earned it tho
- Ygg2 6y agohttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/38/Guldukat.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/38/Guldukat.jpg They got nothing on Gul Dukat.
- Grustaf 6y agoIt's obviously not a social fiction, regardless of what you may think about monarchy in general. They have power because they inherited it from someone that conquered it. Just like people may inherit companies and fortunes.
- bidirectional 6y agoNot at all in the case of Elizabeth II. She holds the throne because parliament gave it to her ancestor, George I, to avoid a Catholic inheriting the throne.
- baybal2 6y agoYes, another tidbit, UK barely avoided getting a German monarch by 2 years. Otherwise they may have ended with a Prussian on the throne
- Grustaf 6y agoWell, George I was born a duke of the Holy Roman Empire and a relative of the queen, so it's not like the picked someone off the streets. Besides, to a modern democrat, what could be more legitimate that receiving something from parliament?
- andrepd 6y agoYes, that is indeed the point.
- samizdis 6y agoI'd suggest that centuries of tradition have value, not least for the older generations of Brits, but especially for the tourist dollars drawn to the pageantry. Yes, it's a bit Disney, but it has a little more class and visitors seem to love it.
- nindalf 6y agoFrance got rid of their monarchy some time ago. They still get plenty of tourism. I can give plenty of other examples where the royal family was let go and tourism continued to flourish. The important thing is that all of the palaces and castles would still exist and become open to the public as museums. If anything, tourism would improve if people could visit Buckingham Palace like they visit the Palace at Versailles.
- zpeti 6y agoYeah, that getting rid of the monarchy thing, that worked out well in France.
- oblio 6y agoIf you're trying to be ironic, you have to keep in mind France is and has been a republic for 160 years. So yeah, getting rid of the monarchy seems to have worked.
- samizdis 6y agoThat's a good point, and well made, but it is still the case that royal-themed souvenirs fly off the shelves and also that overseas visitors flock to any royal/state spectacle when in the UK; mostly, I reckon, for the sheer anachronistic oddity and weirdness. But we probably have no need to get rid of our monarchy, the family seems to be doing that job for us. When that happens, we can see whether tourist revenues go up or down :-)
- evgen 6y agoMaybe if you did a bit of basic research you would learn that the public _can_ visit Buckingham Palace and tour various rooms that were basically mini-museums containing parts of the royal collections. Last time I popped in was soon after watching Tim's Vermeer when I learned that the picture in question had been rotated into the collection on display. It is absolutely amazing to see so many people who obviously have no skin in this particular game crawling out from under their rocks to share their strongly held beliefs about the royal family, as if the rest of us give a toss about your opinion...
- Proven 6y agoIt's good to have a backup plan because democracy has failed miserably - even in the United Kingdom. I wish we could do away with the democratic election and public government nonsense.
- swen-rekcah 6y agoClearly you know NOTHING about Monarchy, their history and traditions. You’re getting it twisted because of this whole “the royal family are racist” baloney
- hobs 6y agoThe reaction to some model complaining on TV is not why MOST people hate the british monarchy. Personally my grandmother's civilian ship was fired on by the british navy because ... well fun!
- swen-rekcah 6y agoBritish Navy incident........hatred of the royal family. Not entirely sure where the connection between the two is. Maybe it’s misplaced anger
- chillacy 6y agoOthers in this thread say that a key purpose of the monarchy is as a unifying symbol, if so then this seems like fair game.
- hobs 6y agoIn the same way a person in modern Afghanistan might hate the American government for being at a wedding where a drone strike happened; seems pretty straightforward to me :)
- corobo 6y agoThis is an opportunity to educate. When you make comments like this what you're actually doing is locking in someone's opinion by making them defend it against nothing.
- pndy 6y agoYou might want to educate yourself on Europe's monarchy history, the British monarchy - it's a quite interesting topic and definitely not some kind of... fad. Elizabeth II still holds the throne while American presidents come and go.
- nullsense 6y agoSure. But why is this celebrated? Today it's seen as almost quaint and cutesy. The history of it all is anything but. The monarchy originally would have gained power like most other cases in world history where someone raised an army and took it by force. That, while not my favourite thing, is legitimate. After parliament became a thing and the monarchy was no longer running the show, what legitimacy does it have? What's the need to keep it? Who would stop anyone getting rid of it? The monarchy themselves aren't in the position to raise an army and conquer the nation again. What it is today vs. how it originated leave me feeling like there is a big disconnect in how it's viewed. Ask anyone "should we get rid of it?", plenty say no. Ask those same people "should we get rid of parliament then and go back to monastic rule" they will say no. Ok, so you _dont_ like what it used to represent but you like what it represents now? What the heck?
- Thorentis 6y agoI find the idea of a royal family far more inspiring and wholesome than the celebrity culture which has overtaken the West. The vast majority of celebrities get far more air time, live in more obscene luxury, and are more condescending, than the entire royal family put together. One of my biggest worries about Meghan was that celebrity culture would begin seeping into the royal family - and unfortunately it looks like that is what is happening.
- christophilus 6y agoI find both disappointing but unsurprising.
- truthr 6y ago> I find the idea of a royal family far more inspiring and wholesome than the celebrity culture which has overtaken the West. Some of the celebrities are at least self made. Rich assh0les get to live in perpetual luxury just because of birth seems unfortunate. I respect the Kim K more than the queen of England (although I absolutely hate Kim K) because Kim K is self-made, and the queen is there because of birth.
- nullsense 6y agoWholesome and inspiring aye? Does that sentiment extend to Henry VIII? Monarchy is not something to be celebrated.
- bb123 6y agoPersonally I think are (or used to be) a useful cohesive agent for the country. If the alternative is Trump and the Kardashians then the Royal family doesn't seem too bad.
- truthr 6y agoGetting special treatment just because of birth is so bulls#!t. The Royal family should be gotten rid of.
- bobthechef 6y agoThat's a bit of a childish remark. The celebrity stuff exists in every culture and every country, so there's nothing particular to monarchy in this regard. The British monarchy, is, of course, a castrated monarchy in the sense that it has little power, but it still functions as a unifying force for the UK. Some argue that monarchies are generally more tolerant than republics. Monarchy can be argued to be a more natural or default form of government in principle than republicanism because the monarch (the king) is a kind of paternal role. The dynastic component adds continuity, responsibility (you don't want your heir to bear the burden of your bad policies, do you?), and hedges against both short-term thinking (like we see among elected officials) and the dangers of meritocratic ambition ("I EARNED my power!" vs. "I am saddled with this responsibility to serve."). Of course, in practice, republicanism can become more attractive because of royal corruption and abuse of power, but the notion that republicanism is immune to these just because it takes different forms is absurd. Remarks like "useless social fiction from antiquity" come across as uninformed, provincial snobbery motivated by some kind of superficial progressive mythology. There are forms of government that are objectively bad, others that are poorly suited to time and place, but the notion that the best form of government is the democratic republic, everywhere and in all times and places, is silly.
- disambiguation 6y agoall laws and governments are social fictions as for celebrities and "royalty", humans are hard-wired to follow hierarchies and thus be fascinated by those at the top
- nullsense 6y agoFascinated/dominated - take your pick. My whole thing is we used to be _dominated_ by the monarchy without a choice about it. Now that we aren't, what's even the point in being _fascinated_ by it? They're at the top, but of what anymore?