Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
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Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
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Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
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Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
#3Quoted post unavailable.
Started yesterday to read Churchill's "The Gathering Storm", where he describes the follies of the victors after the first world war:
"Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the form of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency. Instead a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military and feudal, which might have rallied to a constitutional monarchy and for its sake respected and sustained the new democratic and Parliamentary processes were for the time unhinged."
I will not quote further but in essence he speculates that in a still young Germany, a monarch could have provided the stability that it came to lack, and which in time lead to the fall of its young democracy. A monarch may not be the right answer always, but sometimes it may very well be.
Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
#4Quoted post unavailable.
The royal warrant system in the UK was very successful at promoting national business and culture, and I remember looking into tracking down some of these other european royals to stand up something similar for craftsmanship. The other use is they have convening power, where if they call, people answer, and toward peace and creating value, that's a huge benefit. That convening role has been taken up somewhat by celebrities, but celebrities don't offer dignity to people the same way nobility can. I can't defend the behaviour of any of them, but there is value in the roles they occupy.
The point of nobility is to be able to take risks for principles, and having royals around provides a basis for that. Another is what can only be described as our modern managerialists seem to offer everything to people except dignity, and royals can wield that. I'm all for republics when you can keep them, but I think setting royals up as symbols just to militate against is a bit coarse. They can provide a source of stability and continuity, legitimate convening power, and dignity for people who have earned recognition. Having nobles and royals around is more useful than I think most people realize.
Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
#5Quoted post unavailable.
Started yesterday to read Churchill's "The Gathering Storm", where he describes the follies of the victors after the first world war: "Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the form of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency. Instead a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military a…
Having a king didn’t help Italy too much. However Churchill probably had a point conservatives and monarchists weren’t really ever wholeheartedly committed to the survival of the Weimar republic. They might not had been as keen to undermine at every opportunity had it been ruled by a monarch. Then again , the nazis might just have turned the emperor into an impotent figurehead (as happened in Japan and Italy).
Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
#6Quoted post unavailable.
I am from Brazil...
The monarchs here been very useful:
1. Pedro I declared our independence, and later helped Portugal with some crap and became known there as Pedro the Liberator.
2. Pedro II believed in technology, half of all railways in Brazil was built during his reign, he installed the second telephone in the world in Brazil (the first was obviously, Graham Bell`s one), built a research centre in the same place that produced awesome results (it is not heavily celebrated as launching rockets but most of the food production from Brazil, including exported things, are stuff developed by them at some point) and heavily defended that the education level should rise as whole. Also he, ironically, strengthened a lot Brazillian democracy, he himself believed monarchy to be useless and left basically voluntarily.
Brazil immediately after the coup derailed, the first republic was basically a crappy military dictatorship disguised as republic, it ended with another guy stealing the "throne" and becoming dictator himself, then a period of actual republic voting but with lots of instability and flirting with both fascists and communists, then another dictatorship, and now we have a republic where there were more failed to finish the rule than successes (1 president died, before taking power even, 2 were deposed, and only 2 actually got elected and finished their time in power)
The reason monarhy works, in principle, is because the monarch has to think long term, he can't fuck up the country or his heirs will be screwed. Of course there are always someone that go off rails but this apply to any system of government.
The advantage of democracy, in theory, is that there is less violence to choose who is the next ruler... That said our current president was stabbed during elections, a former president was in prison for a while, and politicians here have a knack of having very weird deaths in inopportune moments...
EDIT: I realized I should explain why Pedro I became Pedro the Liberator: Portugal was basically conquered by someone wanting to return Portugal to absolute rule, with the monarch having all the power. Pedro I despite starting with a heavy disvantage managed to free Portugal from the absolutists and put in power a Liberal government.
Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Started yesterday to read Churchill's "The Gathering Storm", where he describes the follies of the victors after the first world war: "Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the form of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency. Instead a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military a…
Having a king didn’t help Italy too much. However Churchill probably had a point conservatives and monarchists weren’t really ever wholeheartedly committed to the survival of the Weimar republic. They might not had been as keen to undermine at every opportunity had it been ruled by a monarch. Then again , the nazis might just have turned the emperor into an impotent figurehead (as happened in Japan and Italy).
> Then again , the nazis might just have turned the emperor into an impotent figurehead (as happened in Japan and Italy).
I bet that is exactly would have happened. The reality is that the advance of science and technology and general literacy was quickly eroding the traditional notion of the monarch having the consent of God or heaven.
By the turn of the 20th century this was almost complete, and largely irreversible. From that point on, the only value left in the monarch in industrialized societies was as a symbol of a national ethnic identity for societies that defined themselves in those terms.
Today, only the most extreme religious movements around the world see a return to monarchical society as a goal. Even the neo-fascists would prefer a dictator drawn from their ilk, not a king.
Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
#8Quoted post unavailable.
In a world where one can be "famous for being famous", where pretenders to titles and thrones can spend half a century pursuing Diplomacy as a semi-professional hobby, and where high-ranking government officials are often out of office within a few years, well-prepared pretenders can occasionally prove quite useful.
And when they're not needed - it's not like they're being paid anything, to keep waiting in the wings.
Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
#9Quoted post unavailable.
You may want to remember the moment when the King of Spain successfully preserved the democracy of the country by shutting down a military coup just 40 years ago.
"[...]the King of Spain appeared live on television, wearing the uniform of the Captain General of the Armed Forces (Capitán General de los Ejércitos), the highest Spanish military rank, to oppose the coup and its instigators, defend the Spanish Constitution and disavow the authority of Milans del Bosch. He declared: I address the Spanish people with brevity and concision: In the face of these exceptional circumstances, I ask for your serenity and trust, and I hereby inform you that I have given the Captains General of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force the following order: Given the events taking place in the Palace of Congress, and to avoid any possible confusion, I hereby confirm that I have ordered the Civil Authorities and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take any and all necessary measures to uphold constitutional order within the limits of the law. Should any measure of a military nature need to be taken, it must be approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Crown, symbol of the permanence and unity of the nation, will not tolerate, in any degree whatsoever, the actions or behavior of anyone attempting, through use of force, to interrupt the democratic process of the Constitution, which the Spanish People approved by vote in referendum. From that moment on, the coup was understood to be a failure[...]"
Monarchs still have the same function they always had. The represent a direct connection between the nation and the people, and in times of crisis they can stabilize the nation or put an end to political brinkmanship, even if they only hold symbolic functions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Spanish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...