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Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

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Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#51

Post by Rexxar »

inglor_cz wrote: post #13
danans wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 irreversibl…

There is an observation, though, that most European monarchies that turned into republics or dictatorships in the 20th century did so after losing a major war. Monarchist countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK ... that either stayed out of the war mess or ended up on the winning side were more likely to keep their monarchy. Prior to the military conflagrations that started in 1914, v…

It was a little sooner, but the first stable French Republic was created after losing the war against Prussia in 1870. Curiously, royalists had the majority in the first parliament but didn't manage to agree on a king, they lose the next election and then monarchists rapidly disappeared from France politics. So 3 revolutions (1789/1830/1848) fail to create a republic but losing a war manage to do it.

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#52

Post by epolanski »

madaxe_again wrote: post #26

Small correction to the article - Alexander Karađorđević is not crown Prince of Serbia, but of Yugoslavia. I went to school with his sons, we were in the same house, same year - they went by “Prince” rather than Karađorđević - quite a few kids had fictitious surnames to avoid attention. They were regular and likeable dudes, liked skating, cars, hip-hop, bad 80’s movies, games. Nobody cared that they were princes, or…

I am grandson to some polish count who lost all titles and wealth when eastern poland became Ukraine post ww2. My father used to tell me our ancestor generals saved Vienna from the Ottomans. I cannot empathize as much, as I never believed my father till I started receiving letters to receive compensations from polish government.

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#53

Post by aryehof »

solveit wrote: post #38
dathinab wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not really monarchies, they are democracies with a small amount of monarchic elements. Monarchy in my understanding implies the rule of the monarch. The Monarchs in most EU countries do not rule, through some have some restricted political influence. I think the UK might be an exception, where as far as I remember the royalty still theoretically holds pretty much all the power just politely decide to pretend…

> I think the UK might be an exception, where as far as I remember the royalty still theoretically holds pretty much all the power just politely decide to pretend they don't know they still rule. I would say that it is the rest of the country politely pretending that the Queen actually holds the enormous power she is legally entitled to. It is the law that is a polite fiction.

In the UK, Parliament is sovereign. As such, the British Monarchy can be abolished by an Act of Parliament. It is the popular will of the people that prevents that happening.

That the British people should choose to maintain the monarchy, or that Canada and Australia should choose to have the Queen as their Head of State, confuses outsiders (particularly Americans) no end.

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#54

Post by tremon »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #12
speeder wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 plac…

> 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... I think you wanna say “the advantage of a republic” because a monarchy doesn’t mean lack of democracy. Many europeans…

No, they meant democracy. You are conflating the terms "ruler" and "head of state" if you think their comment is about monarchy vs republic. It's not as if no president has ever been assassinated either: people kill for power, not so much for ceremonial titles.

Going a bit on a tangent here, but it is for that reason that I personally prefer the European monarchies over the directly-elected presidencies of e.g. France and the USA: it's very hard to have a meaningful pluriform democratic society when national elections break down into a single-winner-takes-all outcome. I much prefer the democratic structures of e.g. The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, where the election outcomes (and, importantly, the media narrative surrounding the elections) are focused on the composition of the legislature, and the subsequent ruler is determined by negotiations between the winning political parties.

Of course, Germany is a good example of how to run a republic and still have a pluriform democracy, and the UK is a good example of how even a constitutional democracy can devolve into winner-takes-all outcomes (namely, by allowing a few large parties to monopolize the entire political landscape). But in general, I'd say that the countries that do not directly elect their head of state are much healthier democracies than the ones that do.

(yes, I'm aware that most countries that elect their head of state also have separate elections for their legislative bodies. But going by the media coverage of US presidential elections and the recent re-election of Macron in France, that seems an afterthought compared to the democratic processes in more representational democracies).

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#55

Post by telesilla »

Biologist123 wrote: post #37
madaxe_again wrote: post #26

Small correction to the article - Alexander Karađorđević is not crown Prince of Serbia, but of Yugoslavia. I went to school with his sons, we were in the same house, same year - they went by “Prince” rather than Karađorđević - quite a few kids had fictitious surnames to avoid attention. They were regular and likeable dudes, liked skating, cars, hip-hop, bad 80’s movies, games. Nobody cared that they were princes, or…

Thanks for this post. Not standard fare for HN. May I ask - do you ever laugh at the weirdness of it all? That hundreds or even thousands of years ago, a bunch of cut throats and thugs started to give themselves cute names, and - cut to the present - all of the United Kingdom bows and scrapes in deference to their descendants who still sport those made up titles? From the inside - which more or less is your position…

>How did we get to this?

You haven't read Macbeth? It's about pride and legacy.

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#56

Post by emptyfile »

madaxe_again wrote: post #26

Small correction to the article - Alexander Karađorđević is not crown Prince of Serbia, but of Yugoslavia. I went to school with his sons, we were in the same house, same year - they went by “Prince” rather than Karađorđević - quite a few kids had fictitious surnames to avoid attention. They were regular and likeable dudes, liked skating, cars, hip-hop, bad 80’s movies, games. Nobody cared that they were princes, or…

>they went by “Prince”

Just reinforced my opinion that nobility in modern Europe is a bad joke.

If you ever find yourself in company of these self-described nobles, leave.

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#57

Post by GlassKingdom »

verisimi wrote: post #31
LAC-Tech wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like this irritate me to no end. The OP hand waves away centuries of good, bad and indifferent history, in many countries, with a single pithy comment, and people act like that's insightful. It's barely even worth acknowledging. Don't encourage sassy reddit one liners.

I, the OP, understand why you could be irritated. In fairness to myself, as someone who holds to individual sovereign autonomy as the only morally acceptable governing principle, I was being consistent! I don't accept the assumed right of government or of kings to rule over another, or me specifically. Our deferral to people we are taught are our betters, whose pronouncements we unreflectively accept as akin to the w…

There are many low-quality populist websites which will be more receptive to your cringe one-liners. Someone already mentioned the R word, also suggest you try T.

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#58

Post by madaxe_again »

Biologist123 wrote: post #45
madaxe_again wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> do you ever laugh at the weirdness of it all? Incessantly, to the extent that I find it hard to believe in society in any meaningful fashion, as it’s all just reified concepts stacked atop one another. It isn’t such a leap from “why aristocrats?” to “why states? Why employment? Why three meals a day?”. The best answer I’ve been able to come up with is security/fear. At almost every scale from PNG tribes to federal…

One last question: do you think your level of awareness is commonplace? I appreciate a baronet is not on a par with a Norman robber baron, but do you ever encounter a sense of shame amongst your peers (sorry for the pun).

No. There definitely are others from that circle who have gone down the same path as me, but it’s a distinct minority. Most end up completely inured within that world, and reinforce and justify each other’s values and prejudices.

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#59

Post by Biologist123 »

madaxe_again wrote: post #58
Biologist123 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One last question: do you think your level of awareness is commonplace? I appreciate a baronet is not on a par with a Norman robber baron, but do you ever encounter a sense of shame amongst your peers (sorry for the pun).

No. There definitely are others from that circle who have gone down the same path as me, but it’s a distinct minority. Most end up completely inured within that world, and reinforce and justify each other’s values and prejudices.

Very interesting. Your comment opens more questions than is probably polite. But can I ask, what are the core tenets of this weltanschaung (the values and prejudices) and would you say there is an ethnic dimension to it? I ask because (whilst fuzzy at the edges) there’s a fair argument that British aristocrats are essentially ethnic Normans. Is there a sense of different ethnicity?

For full disclosure, I’m exploring my hypothesis that Norman conquest of Britain created a template for colonisation for the next thousand years. And in which a key component of colonisation was an inculcation of locals with a belief that one’s colonizers were superior beings by virtue of their ethnicity.

I very much salute your reflection and insight. I’m reminded of David Graeber’s quote: “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently”. But the first step must be awareness.

Re: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals

#60

Post by madaxe_again »

Biologist123 wrote: post #44
madaxe_again wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> do you ever laugh at the weirdness of it all? Incessantly, to the extent that I find it hard to believe in society in any meaningful fashion, as it’s all just reified concepts stacked atop one another. It isn’t such a leap from “why aristocrats?” to “why states? Why employment? Why three meals a day?”. The best answer I’ve been able to come up with is security/fear. At almost every scale from PNG tribes to federal…

If anything, it gives you a close-up view of man’s ability to enchant others with stories and narrative; and for you to exit the fiction where you want to. Although nihilism is a risk as you point out, the upside might be the realisation that meaning can be constructed. One reason I don’t expect millennial princes to exit the monarchy, in the UK at least, is that they won’t be allowed to. Because their presence is a…

Very much so. I not only came to understand this through my own experiences, but also came to realise that much of what I was being taught at school was how to wrest control of any narrative, and make it mine.

It was a useful skill in building a business, and it’s a useful skill in understanding the human world - practically everything is a battle of narratives, of finding the better story, the tale which speaks to the heart and ensnares rapt listeners, eager to repeat the story to others.

It’s also useful in understanding markets. I don’t buy or sell based on any objective reality, rather what the dominant narrative in the minds of others is.

Most are oblivious to this. They take the world at face value, and never even consider that they are principally a bit player in another’s story - and that lack of knowledge keeps them trapped in the fairytale.

On the other hand, those like me who are, wittingly or not, trained in setting the scene, inevitably end up being the authors of our collective destinies. Sadly, many of the stories are very repetitive, uninventive, and cast villains as heroes.

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