Aristocracy

As more and more human beings wake up to their role as the prime predators and potentially responsible stewards of the deteriorating planet Earth, the time and energy spent on adulating aristocrats and royals can seem like a perverted waste of human energy and resources. I understand the enshrining of a royal pregnancy by heterosexuals who are hard-wired to reproduce. This birth becomes a grandiose symbol for births across the planet, most of which are beginnings of struggling and suffering human lives. But this symbol does not translate into reality for those being engulfed by poverty caused by overpopulation. 

No ordaining god has deemed this newly born royal English child superior. His superiority comes from centuries of wars, torture, beheading and assassination by his forebears. Anyone who lauds his superiority is colluding in the propagation of this form of human oppression, whether they acknowledge it or not. The madness of the English in this is legendary. They are a people known for an ancient sadomasochistic relationship with aristocrats. Their ability to live with the duplicity of aristocracy juxtaposed with parliamentary republicanism rivals that of the ancient Romans, who once attempted in vain to bring civilization to their island. 

The French roiled with the spasms of eliminating functional aristocracy for more than half a century. Now, over two centuries after their revolution against aristocrats, France stands as a global model of progressive democracy as well as a global model of cultural preservation against enormous external pressures.

The U.S. has a growing economic aristocracy which looks with teary-eyed admiration at the British aristocracy. Many of these economic aristocrats would be first to kneel before the altar of the sacred Founding Fathers, side by side with an altar of an evangelical religion which preaches a "gospel of prosperity". These dual worships are steeped in a gross misunderstanding of human history, fueled by narcissism, self-satisfaction and greed.

I am encouraged by the gradual marginalizing of hereditary aristocracy even in England. The economic aristocrats of the developed world only worship money and materialism. Perhaps their role in history will be to displace hereditary aristocrats, who see their superiority as god-given, as opposed to money-earned. Eventually, the human species will see the need for equality and social justice for its very survival. When that time comes, aristocrats will be consigned to the same place in history as extinct species.