I guess this is a joke, but just in case the letters are newly discovered and it's on historytoday.com which implies something quite a bit in the past.
We've travelled quite some distance between the sight of an exposed
ankle leading to years of secret letters carried by clandestine horsemen,
stolen longing glances, and an "impossible love" ending in
murder-suicide - to hookup apps meaning you're never more than a
fuckbuddy notification and two minute Uber ride from a quick shag.
Not sure if the world is a worse or better place. Something gained,
but something lost too.
To be fair, though we do remember the burning intrigues and the Eloise & Abelard tragedies more clearly, people at the time were actually wildly promiscuous. Most high-ranked churchmen had lovers, many priests slept around, many (I hesitate to type "most") married couples were unfaithful; I might be feeding into country clichés here, but I can only remember one or two French kings not having a respectable amount of lovers (the single ones being sometimes married off so that upcoming illegitimate children could have an official fathers... but that didn't mean the end of the happy couple). Love/sex life at the court was active enough that Louis XV loved keeping up with his nobles' hijinks, and used his spy network to keep up with the numerous trysts (including keeping track of sheets to know if a woman might be pregnant...).
The 19th was incredibly puritan and tightened the screws somewhat, but it's also the century of the grandes horizontales, high-class courtesans, and it was still "normal", if not almost mandatory, for bourgeoisie men to visit brothels at least once (not to speak of the, ahem, freer customs in the countryside). If you married young, it might just be because a kid was actually on the way; personal experience here, but that's why my grandparents got married on both sides of the family).
What has changed is mostly ease of contact (when you sleep with someone in a random place, you have a good chance to see them again if you want to/you don't have to wait days for an answer with a long-distance relationship), the risks associated with a relationship (whether kids or societal scorn, though the risk was mostly for women) and public discourse around it all: before, state-approved discourse and media, from books to songs, extolled the virtue of pure, sincere love while now, discourse around love and sex is far more "agnostic", for lack of a better word.
> now, discourse around love and sex is far more "agnostic", for lack of a better word.
I don't think 'agnostic' is the term: modern discourse is pretty strongly on the side of complete and total libertinism. The idea of chastity is considered laughably impossible by the vast majority of media voices. The western world even has an entire month of the year dedicated to being proud of sexual adventurism.
'Agnostic' is way to anodyne to describe the modern world's view of sexuality IMHO.
It's unbelievable how much stuff routinely emerges from bank vaults. Apparently people deposit things and then just disappear, I guess because they forget to communicate address changes to the banks and/or don't mention such accounts in their wills. Occasionally the banks just leave stuff behind when moving out, like guns and master tapes: https://www.nme.com/news/music/joy-division-31-1283483
It seems to me the only reason to remember the Mayerling incident is the role it played in the start of WWI and even then how significant that was could be questioned.
The death of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, who had no heir, meant that the direct line of succession to the from the then emperor Franz Joseph was broken. The line to Austro-Hungarian throne then fell to the son of Franz Joseph's brother, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav nationalist. The archduke's assassination then led to the 'crisis' that precipitated the First World War.
Whilst the chain of events from Prince Rudolf's death 25 years earlier to WWI is likely tenuous it nevertheless does highlight the fact that the inbred and largely incompetent European monarchies were incapable of resolving the serious diplomatic issues that arose from the 'crisis', this then led to war.
If any good could be said to arise from WWI then it seems that the demise of many of these monarchies is one of them albeit that the benefit from losing them wouldn't be felt until some 30 years later after WWII.
My personal opinion is that monarchy and modern democracy are essentially incompatible.
Big question now, whether democracies are capable of long-term survival or not? So far we only had examples in either essentially, island nations (U.S. can be counted as such too: it doesn't have neighbours to speak of), or preserved by external military force. I don't think any democracies apart from UK (island) could sustain themselves in Europe if not American military "assistance".
And now it becomes questionable if democracies are beneficial at all even if they can survive. It's more and more apparent that objective interests of the people (electoral mass, the numerical majority) is at odds with the objective interests of nations themselves. Choice increasingly seems to be between abolishing democracy (China), or washing it out till it becomes just a formal paperwork thing (Russia), or just slowly but inevitably declining into obscurity, irrelevance and civilisational dead end (Western Europe).
Worst thing is that none of these paths is attractive to the actual people, yet one of them seems to be inevitable. Best i can hope for is that democracy survives in some rich island nations, funded by rich people who ran away from rise of dictatorships or collapse of societies in their country, and paid for by the money derived from them.
This is a little over the top, I'd say. Canada and Mexico are large nations. They just are mostly not in conflict with the US. And Western Europe declining somewhat in relative influence is not a cataclysmic thing. I would say the aggressiveness of totalitarianism at the moment is not evidence of its superiority as a political system as much as of anxiety about retaining power. The problem with democracies is a problem with propaganda. The larger a prize the democracy is the more it is riven by propaganda.
> I don't think any democracies apart from UK (island) could sustain themselves in Europe if not American military "assistance".
France has nuclear weapons. That's pretty much a conversation ender when it comes to sustaining your territorial integrity.
And the EU adding an extra percent... or two of GDP on military spending is all it would take to not be reliant on that "assistance". It doesn't do it because it doesn't have to. Why waste money when someone else is happy to do so for you?
Sure, someone like Finland is a bit of a precarious position, but its a bit of an outlier among European nations.
The main enemies to democracy are not without - they are within. In the United States, for instance, some of the most prominent ones are 147 congressmen. [1] You can't defend against internal enemies with an army or a navy.
> And the EU adding an extra 1% of GDP on military spending is all it would take to not be reliant on that "assistance".
NATO countries are supposed to do that anyway, as part of their commitment to the organization. They've been ignoring that for a long time and simply expecting the U.S. to pick up the slack.
"Big question now, whether democracies are capable of long-term survival or not?"
Right. This question has troubled presumably many others and me for years and unfortunately, I am inclined to agree with your assessment (inasmuch as I have gained from my perception of how modern democracies have functioned—or should I say failed to function—in recent decades).
These matters are complex, so at the risk of misinterpretation through oversimplification I'll keep this to just a few general points (there are of course many more):
• Assuming that democracy represents the view of the majority of citizens then its actions ought to reflect the will of the majority of its citizens. Unfortunately, this is rarely if ever true as those who obtain power are usually in a privileged position (having access to electoral funds, easy access to media, etc.). Moreover, the question of their motives for seeking office also arises (even when ethical, pragmatism often rules the day thus ethics are compromised).
• Even when democracy is truly representative of the majority then two significant issues remain.
The first is that the wishes of the minority remain unfulfilled and the second is that no matter how hard a democracy tries, its ability to resolve problems at the level of individual citizens remains strictly limited. Therefore, democracy is a blunt instrument—that is, through practical necessity, it governs at a granularity above that of individual citizens and thus cannot satisfy the wishes of individual citizens in a fulfilling way. (Perhaps I should express that more in terms of the utilitarian concept of the greatest good for the greatest number (as per Priestley, Bentham, Mill etc.), but then that doesn't fully articulate what I mean (as I'll explain).
• Perhaps rather delving into political theory an example would provide the quickest explanation (I've used this case previously on HN to illustrate the point but it's only one of many, many similar instances). Take the issue of copyright law reform. Whilst concept of copyright has been around since the Statute of Anne in the early 18th Century, it didn't really come of age until the Berne International Copyright Convention of 1886 which came into being at the instigation of high-profile authors such as Victor Hugo. Significantly, the Convention provided for international recognition of copyright, more specifically its ability to be enforced across all signatory countries.
(Whilst the undisputed necessity of copyright law, both the 1886 Convention and essentially all copyright laws in all signatory countries since then have been made at the request of (mostly powerful) copyright holders—and not in the name of the great unwashed masses, in effect, they have been grossly underrepresented throughout the history of copyright law.)
Initially, copyright was essentially irrelevant to the average citizen, for even if an individual had wanted to violate copyright then he or she would not have had the practical—the extensive technical means to do so. However, some 80 or so years later in the 1960s that situation changed significantly with the development of the photocopiers and then again with the advent of digital technologies 20 or so years later. To cut it short, here are just a few of the many issues:
- As copyright was essentially irrelevant to the average citizen at the time of the Berne Convention, there was no effective opposition to the arguments put by the authors, they therefore won the day by default and as a consequence of their success (in gaining the international treaty) their newly-found status further entrenched their position as it effectively 'legitimized' their claims in full whether they were deserved or not, thus their view of copyright has overwhelmingly dominated the progression of copyright law ever since.
- Due to entrenched international law, reforming copyright law at a national level to benefit ordinary citizens has proved nigh on impossibl...
Modi loses state elections even after vigorous campaigning - Bengal 2021 is a great example. So Modi is not infallible. Not only that, he doesn't even get 50% of national votes, but wins on the basis of first past the post system. The farmers protests and the subsequent about face from him on implementing farm laws again shows the limits to his powers.
Is India a flawed democracy which is backsliding? Absolutely yes. But it's a democracy as much as the US is one.
> the inbred and largely incompetent European monarchies were incapable of resolving the serious diplomatic issues that arose from the 'crisis', this then led to war
I don't agree: the issue was less the monarchs and more the democrats. Even the supposed autocracies like Germany had a significant and influential democratic component. In an earlier era, I think it likely that monarchs would have sued for peace once the lines settled down, but in the modern era of mass newspapers and relatively large suffrage, they were constrained by popular sentiment and had no choice but to continue what was largely a hopeless conflict.
And it really was hopeless, a stupendous expenditure of blood and gold for basically even odds of winning for any participant.
> My personal opinion is that monarchy and modern democracy are essentially incompatible.
I don't really care what the form of government is, so long as it preserves its citizens' liberties. I think that there is something admirable about the governments of the U.K., the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Norway &c. (and yes, they are all very different); France, Germany and Italy could plausibly benefit from their example.
"I think that there is something admirable about the governments of the U.K. <...>; France, Germany and Italy could plausibly benefit from their example."
I don't disagree with your assessment but ultimately the writing is on the wall for monarchy (as, on average, the powers of monarchies have been atrophying steadily over the last few centuries and there's no sign of any letup). Much of monarchy's current appeal in countries that still possess monarchies and the concomitant [apparent] stability of their political systems comes from both nostalgia and a reticence to change (given historical circumstances, such views are hardly surprising, especially so in countries with a long and illustrious historical (monarchical) lineage).
One wonders how, say, the U.K. would survive in a cultural sense if its monarchy were to be suddenly abolished. After all, its cultural heritage is extremely important to a huge number of its citizens, especially so given its loss of empire (from which the country has been smarting badly ever since WWI and especially so since WWII when in the wake of the War the country suffered significant loss of power and prestige on the international stage).
Nothing could have made this more obvious than The Suez Crisis of 1956 when on the world stage the U.K. looked like a petulant brat sans any diplomatic experience (one even cringes when thinking about what happened). Whilst the U.K. has largely recovered from this hugely embarrassing incident and that it's largely forgotten by many of its citizens (likely because of its embarrassment), it nevertheless only ever achieved a partial recovery in status.
(The evidence for the decline in power and influence of monarchies is reasonably solid. One cannot forget that monarchical power was once essentially absolute but these days (fortunately) it's only a shadows of its former self. It's impossible to put aside or forget the maniacal malevolence of Henry VIII or say the utter hatred George IV's subjects had for him. The fact is that whilst the monarchy represents stability in some countries it doesn't necessarily follow that it will always stay that way (and as we've seen with pre-WWI European monarchies, Hapsburg, etc., situations can change dramatically in just the spur of a moment).
I'm not condoning such rapid political change, as it inevitably comes with considerable dangers as witnessed by, say, the French Revolution. Arguably, the Reign of Terror - la Terreur - that followed the French Revolution and the beginning of the First Republic has few equals in modern history with respect to its sheer brutality and its effects have been very long lasting indeed (as my French relatives keep telling me and demonstrating the fact with any number of present-day instances). Thus, in this regard, your comment about France, etc. plausibly benefiting from the example is rather apt; nevertheless, I don't see that detracting from my argument (as it's a separate issue).
That said, the English were hardly any better, it's just that they started earlier. The Battle of Towton in 1461 during The War of the Roses, is almost unbeatable for sheer violence and utter brutality (although it's not alone with such a reputation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton.
I mention this and hold my views about monarchy not from any gloating republican perspective—in fact far from it—but rather from evidence that supports the position that monarchies are in decline. Of course, many could or would contend that I could be just saying this and that in fact I'm a diehard republican at heart—and I acknowledge that it would be difficult for me to disprove the fact. In my defense, I can only state that I'm from a Commonwealth country (Australia) and that I've U.K. parentage. Moreover, the fact that I'm still in posses...
Is this a normal way of looking at state-state relations? I understood the Suez canal thing as a loss of prestige (obviously, the UK was no longer able to 'walk the walk', of being an empire), but to see it as a humiliation seems weird to me. Humiliation implies a degree of popular investment in the imperial project that really wasn't there. States by themselves are not persons, and thus are shameless.
You're right about the monarchy, although they are surprisingly pernicious and deep-rooted in the UK itself. I was pretty shocked when they interrupted every BBC channel on the TV to deliver an announcement about Prince Phillip dying - I was only vaguely aware of who he was, and he neither lived nor died in a remarkable manner. I'm not sure how much ordinary people engage (apparently, most people switched off the telly, and there were a lot of complaints), but the establishment investment in the monarchy is pretty intense.
"...but to see it as a humiliation seems weird to me."
OK, fair enough, but I didn't gain that perspective on my own. Type in 'U.K.', 'Suez Crisis' 'embarrassment' and or 'humiliation' into any search engine and you'll get any number of authoritative references to the fact.
Even though I was a just child at the time, I vividly recall the huge kerfuffle the 'Crisis' caused. I was fully aware of the fact from daily newspaper headlines, animated discussions my parents were having over the matter, etc., that it was about the biggest news story since WWII.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/suez_01.shtml (note the BBC's comment 'In Britain too there had been widespread outrage', you'd reckon the BBC would avoid such comments unless they were both very relevant and unavoidable).
"I was pretty shocked when they interrupted every BBC channel on the TV to deliver an announcement about Prince Phillip dying - I was only vaguely aware of who he was..."
Obviously, you live outside the U.K. or any Commonwealth country (certainly no criticism intended because in the grand global scheme of things, HRH was pretty irrelevant).
(I recall a colleague mentioning his death to me during a telephone conversation (as he heard the announcement live on the radio that was running in the background at the time). That was enough for me to shut out every bit of news media for several weeks—as I knew there would be unavoidable wall-to-wall coverage of the event for weeks to come and frankly I knew that I could not stand all the palaver. Even now, I still don't know the details of his funeral but I do know that those who watched just about any news channel in the English-speaking world would have had to have known the details as they would have been impossible to avoid (of course, I cannot speak for non-English news outlets).
That's why HN is so relevant, one can still keep up to date and avoid all unnecessary/useless dross. :-)
It's long before my time: it's still floating around (even for millennials like me) as a turning point in the UK's history, but I always thought of it as a bit like the US-Spain war, or a less-grimy opium war, the marker of a fait accompli. I mean, everybody must have been aware for decades at that point that the UK didn't have the resources to do imperial power politics.
I grew up firmly in the era of the 'imperial memory hole', so it's really been brexit (and all the culture war stuff that accompanied it) that's made me pay attention to the whole british empire thing.
EDIT:
On the PPhillip thing, I guess I don't own a TV, or a radio, so that probably helps. But still, a guy whose only claim to fame is that he's married to a woman who is famous for never saying anything has to be the least noteworthy celebrity I've ever heard of. You actually have to do stuff to register.
"I mean, everybody must have been aware for decades at that point that the UK didn't have the resources to do imperial power politics."
Yeah, absolutely true, but just to make sure the U.K. rubbed the fact home with such style and panache that no one could ever forget the fact (comparatively speaking it was much bigger than Brexit—perhaps the U.K. forgot it was no longer a superpower and that international opinion now actually mattered (in that it could no longer get away with such arrogance as it did in the days of empire). What other possible reason could there be?
Mind you, the U.K. was not alone, it was egged on and encouraged by its cohorts France and Israel.
"I don't agree: the issue was less the monarchs and more the democrats."
...A late footnote.
Again, I'm not in total disagreement with this position. However, I would point out that argument over this matter has never fully settled since since the outbreak of the War. From my perspective, the most researched and still the most authoritative reference on this matter is A.J.P Taylor's 1954 book The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Struggle_for_Mastery_in_Eu....
Later, in 1961, Taylor augments this earlier history with his equally famous and controversial book (as you'll note from the link): The Origins of the Second World War,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_the_Second_Worl.... (The fact that Taylor's account is controversial is testament to the fact that there is still considerable disagreement over the origins of both World Wars. The Wiki link provides a lively commentary on that debate and it's well worth reading.)
Anyway, it seems to me that to get a good appreciation of this history one should study both books.
This assumes, that the crisis was perceived as one and not just as a chance to send the lower-classes into a meat-grinder, stabilizing the regimes by creating a external threat.
These people were not very well informed about the changes technology was about to inflict on warfare.
There were no nuclear weapons to be feared and unions/socialism to be silenced and demands for shared power by the growing industrial bourgeoisie to be ignored.
"These people were not very well informed about the changes technology was about to inflict on warfare."
It's hard to say how accurate that statement is but in all probability much of it is likely true. However, any reasonably well educated person of the day would have been well aware of the new highly industrialized nature of warfare from both the Crimean War and the American Civil War, both of which represented a new kind of 'advanced' warfare (especially so the American Civil War). Moreover, it wouldn't have been difficult to project that new developments made in the intervening 50 or so years since the Civil War, would likely make warfare considerably worse.
Right, 50 years is sufficient time to forget a war but nevertheless many veterans of the Civil War were still alive at outset of WWI. (Remember, Buster Keaton's Civil War film of 1926, The General failed to gain universal popularity as it was perceived by the many Civil War veterans who were still alive as biased in that it told the War from the South's perspective.) This 'corporate' memory should have had a substantial effect in preventing war but clearly its effects weren't nearly enough.
No doubt you're correct when it comes to considering the less well educated. However—as with many wars—I'd maintain that whilst they didn't actually start the war, that national hubris combined with young male bravado played an important if not overwhelming role in perpetuating it, especially so at War's outbreak before the grim and tragic reality of the trenches became fully apparent.
31 comments
[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 89.4 ms ] threadhttps://www.thejournal.ie/vetsera-mystery-mayerling-letters-...
Not sure if the world is a worse or better place. Something gained, but something lost too.
Anyway, I reckon things are still fairly complicated if you are a royal heir.
The 19th was incredibly puritan and tightened the screws somewhat, but it's also the century of the grandes horizontales, high-class courtesans, and it was still "normal", if not almost mandatory, for bourgeoisie men to visit brothels at least once (not to speak of the, ahem, freer customs in the countryside). If you married young, it might just be because a kid was actually on the way; personal experience here, but that's why my grandparents got married on both sides of the family).
What has changed is mostly ease of contact (when you sleep with someone in a random place, you have a good chance to see them again if you want to/you don't have to wait days for an answer with a long-distance relationship), the risks associated with a relationship (whether kids or societal scorn, though the risk was mostly for women) and public discourse around it all: before, state-approved discourse and media, from books to songs, extolled the virtue of pure, sincere love while now, discourse around love and sex is far more "agnostic", for lack of a better word.
If you haven't already indulged, I do recommend "The Great" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2235759/
I don't think 'agnostic' is the term: modern discourse is pretty strongly on the side of complete and total libertinism. The idea of chastity is considered laughably impossible by the vast majority of media voices. The western world even has an entire month of the year dedicated to being proud of sexual adventurism.
'Agnostic' is way to anodyne to describe the modern world's view of sexuality IMHO.
The death of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, who had no heir, meant that the direct line of succession to the from the then emperor Franz Joseph was broken. The line to Austro-Hungarian throne then fell to the son of Franz Joseph's brother, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav nationalist. The archduke's assassination then led to the 'crisis' that precipitated the First World War.
Whilst the chain of events from Prince Rudolf's death 25 years earlier to WWI is likely tenuous it nevertheless does highlight the fact that the inbred and largely incompetent European monarchies were incapable of resolving the serious diplomatic issues that arose from the 'crisis', this then led to war.
If any good could be said to arise from WWI then it seems that the demise of many of these monarchies is one of them albeit that the benefit from losing them wouldn't be felt until some 30 years later after WWII.
My personal opinion is that monarchy and modern democracy are essentially incompatible.
And now it becomes questionable if democracies are beneficial at all even if they can survive. It's more and more apparent that objective interests of the people (electoral mass, the numerical majority) is at odds with the objective interests of nations themselves. Choice increasingly seems to be between abolishing democracy (China), or washing it out till it becomes just a formal paperwork thing (Russia), or just slowly but inevitably declining into obscurity, irrelevance and civilisational dead end (Western Europe).
Worst thing is that none of these paths is attractive to the actual people, yet one of them seems to be inevitable. Best i can hope for is that democracy survives in some rich island nations, funded by rich people who ran away from rise of dictatorships or collapse of societies in their country, and paid for by the money derived from them.
France has nuclear weapons. That's pretty much a conversation ender when it comes to sustaining your territorial integrity.
And the EU adding an extra percent... or two of GDP on military spending is all it would take to not be reliant on that "assistance". It doesn't do it because it doesn't have to. Why waste money when someone else is happy to do so for you?
Sure, someone like Finland is a bit of a precarious position, but its a bit of an outlier among European nations.
The main enemies to democracy are not without - they are within. In the United States, for instance, some of the most prominent ones are 147 congressmen. [1] You can't defend against internal enemies with an army or a navy.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/...
NATO countries are supposed to do that anyway, as part of their commitment to the organization. They've been ignoring that for a long time and simply expecting the U.S. to pick up the slack.
Right. This question has troubled presumably many others and me for years and unfortunately, I am inclined to agree with your assessment (inasmuch as I have gained from my perception of how modern democracies have functioned—or should I say failed to function—in recent decades).
These matters are complex, so at the risk of misinterpretation through oversimplification I'll keep this to just a few general points (there are of course many more):
• Assuming that democracy represents the view of the majority of citizens then its actions ought to reflect the will of the majority of its citizens. Unfortunately, this is rarely if ever true as those who obtain power are usually in a privileged position (having access to electoral funds, easy access to media, etc.). Moreover, the question of their motives for seeking office also arises (even when ethical, pragmatism often rules the day thus ethics are compromised).
• Even when democracy is truly representative of the majority then two significant issues remain. The first is that the wishes of the minority remain unfulfilled and the second is that no matter how hard a democracy tries, its ability to resolve problems at the level of individual citizens remains strictly limited. Therefore, democracy is a blunt instrument—that is, through practical necessity, it governs at a granularity above that of individual citizens and thus cannot satisfy the wishes of individual citizens in a fulfilling way. (Perhaps I should express that more in terms of the utilitarian concept of the greatest good for the greatest number (as per Priestley, Bentham, Mill etc.), but then that doesn't fully articulate what I mean (as I'll explain).
• Perhaps rather delving into political theory an example would provide the quickest explanation (I've used this case previously on HN to illustrate the point but it's only one of many, many similar instances). Take the issue of copyright law reform. Whilst concept of copyright has been around since the Statute of Anne in the early 18th Century, it didn't really come of age until the Berne International Copyright Convention of 1886 which came into being at the instigation of high-profile authors such as Victor Hugo. Significantly, the Convention provided for international recognition of copyright, more specifically its ability to be enforced across all signatory countries.
(Whilst the undisputed necessity of copyright law, both the 1886 Convention and essentially all copyright laws in all signatory countries since then have been made at the request of (mostly powerful) copyright holders—and not in the name of the great unwashed masses, in effect, they have been grossly underrepresented throughout the history of copyright law.)
Initially, copyright was essentially irrelevant to the average citizen, for even if an individual had wanted to violate copyright then he or she would not have had the practical—the extensive technical means to do so. However, some 80 or so years later in the 1960s that situation changed significantly with the development of the photocopiers and then again with the advent of digital technologies 20 or so years later. To cut it short, here are just a few of the many issues:
- As copyright was essentially irrelevant to the average citizen at the time of the Berne Convention, there was no effective opposition to the arguments put by the authors, they therefore won the day by default and as a consequence of their success (in gaining the international treaty) their newly-found status further entrenched their position as it effectively 'legitimized' their claims in full whether they were deserved or not, thus their view of copyright has overwhelmingly dominated the progression of copyright law ever since.
- Due to entrenched international law, reforming copyright law at a national level to benefit ordinary citizens has proved nigh on impossibl...
Is India a flawed democracy which is backsliding? Absolutely yes. But it's a democracy as much as the US is one.
I don't agree: the issue was less the monarchs and more the democrats. Even the supposed autocracies like Germany had a significant and influential democratic component. In an earlier era, I think it likely that monarchs would have sued for peace once the lines settled down, but in the modern era of mass newspapers and relatively large suffrage, they were constrained by popular sentiment and had no choice but to continue what was largely a hopeless conflict.
And it really was hopeless, a stupendous expenditure of blood and gold for basically even odds of winning for any participant.
> My personal opinion is that monarchy and modern democracy are essentially incompatible.
I don't really care what the form of government is, so long as it preserves its citizens' liberties. I think that there is something admirable about the governments of the U.K., the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Norway &c. (and yes, they are all very different); France, Germany and Italy could plausibly benefit from their example.
I don't disagree with your assessment but ultimately the writing is on the wall for monarchy (as, on average, the powers of monarchies have been atrophying steadily over the last few centuries and there's no sign of any letup). Much of monarchy's current appeal in countries that still possess monarchies and the concomitant [apparent] stability of their political systems comes from both nostalgia and a reticence to change (given historical circumstances, such views are hardly surprising, especially so in countries with a long and illustrious historical (monarchical) lineage).
One wonders how, say, the U.K. would survive in a cultural sense if its monarchy were to be suddenly abolished. After all, its cultural heritage is extremely important to a huge number of its citizens, especially so given its loss of empire (from which the country has been smarting badly ever since WWI and especially so since WWII when in the wake of the War the country suffered significant loss of power and prestige on the international stage).
Nothing could have made this more obvious than The Suez Crisis of 1956 when on the world stage the U.K. looked like a petulant brat sans any diplomatic experience (one even cringes when thinking about what happened). Whilst the U.K. has largely recovered from this hugely embarrassing incident and that it's largely forgotten by many of its citizens (likely because of its embarrassment), it nevertheless only ever achieved a partial recovery in status.
(The evidence for the decline in power and influence of monarchies is reasonably solid. One cannot forget that monarchical power was once essentially absolute but these days (fortunately) it's only a shadows of its former self. It's impossible to put aside or forget the maniacal malevolence of Henry VIII or say the utter hatred George IV's subjects had for him. The fact is that whilst the monarchy represents stability in some countries it doesn't necessarily follow that it will always stay that way (and as we've seen with pre-WWI European monarchies, Hapsburg, etc., situations can change dramatically in just the spur of a moment).
I'm not condoning such rapid political change, as it inevitably comes with considerable dangers as witnessed by, say, the French Revolution. Arguably, the Reign of Terror - la Terreur - that followed the French Revolution and the beginning of the First Republic has few equals in modern history with respect to its sheer brutality and its effects have been very long lasting indeed (as my French relatives keep telling me and demonstrating the fact with any number of present-day instances). Thus, in this regard, your comment about France, etc. plausibly benefiting from the example is rather apt; nevertheless, I don't see that detracting from my argument (as it's a separate issue).
That said, the English were hardly any better, it's just that they started earlier. The Battle of Towton in 1461 during The War of the Roses, is almost unbeatable for sheer violence and utter brutality (although it's not alone with such a reputation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton.
I mention this and hold my views about monarchy not from any gloating republican perspective—in fact far from it—but rather from evidence that supports the position that monarchies are in decline. Of course, many could or would contend that I could be just saying this and that in fact I'm a diehard republican at heart—and I acknowledge that it would be difficult for me to disprove the fact. In my defense, I can only state that I'm from a Commonwealth country (Australia) and that I've U.K. parentage. Moreover, the fact that I'm still in posses...
Is this a normal way of looking at state-state relations? I understood the Suez canal thing as a loss of prestige (obviously, the UK was no longer able to 'walk the walk', of being an empire), but to see it as a humiliation seems weird to me. Humiliation implies a degree of popular investment in the imperial project that really wasn't there. States by themselves are not persons, and thus are shameless.
You're right about the monarchy, although they are surprisingly pernicious and deep-rooted in the UK itself. I was pretty shocked when they interrupted every BBC channel on the TV to deliver an announcement about Prince Phillip dying - I was only vaguely aware of who he was, and he neither lived nor died in a remarkable manner. I'm not sure how much ordinary people engage (apparently, most people switched off the telly, and there were a lot of complaints), but the establishment investment in the monarchy is pretty intense.
OK, fair enough, but I didn't gain that perspective on my own. Type in 'U.K.', 'Suez Crisis' 'embarrassment' and or 'humiliation' into any search engine and you'll get any number of authoritative references to the fact.
Even though I was a just child at the time, I vividly recall the huge kerfuffle the 'Crisis' caused. I was fully aware of the fact from daily newspaper headlines, animated discussions my parents were having over the matter, etc., that it was about the biggest news story since WWII.
Here's a few first-pass searches to that effect:
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-was-the-suez-crisis-so-im...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/suez_01.shtml (note the BBC's comment 'In Britain too there had been widespread outrage', you'd reckon the BBC would avoid such comments unless they were both very relevant and unavoidable).
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/shameful-incompetent-hu...
If you aren't already bored to tears then here's another long and detailed version:
https://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/27/examining-the-1956-suez-cri...
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Edit/afterthought:
"I was pretty shocked when they interrupted every BBC channel on the TV to deliver an announcement about Prince Phillip dying - I was only vaguely aware of who he was..."
Obviously, you live outside the U.K. or any Commonwealth country (certainly no criticism intended because in the grand global scheme of things, HRH was pretty irrelevant).
(I recall a colleague mentioning his death to me during a telephone conversation (as he heard the announcement live on the radio that was running in the background at the time). That was enough for me to shut out every bit of news media for several weeks—as I knew there would be unavoidable wall-to-wall coverage of the event for weeks to come and frankly I knew that I could not stand all the palaver. Even now, I still don't know the details of his funeral but I do know that those who watched just about any news channel in the English-speaking world would have had to have known the details as they would have been impossible to avoid (of course, I cannot speak for non-English news outlets).
That's why HN is so relevant, one can still keep up to date and avoid all unnecessary/useless dross. :-)
I grew up firmly in the era of the 'imperial memory hole', so it's really been brexit (and all the culture war stuff that accompanied it) that's made me pay attention to the whole british empire thing.
EDIT: On the PPhillip thing, I guess I don't own a TV, or a radio, so that probably helps. But still, a guy whose only claim to fame is that he's married to a woman who is famous for never saying anything has to be the least noteworthy celebrity I've ever heard of. You actually have to do stuff to register.
Yeah, absolutely true, but just to make sure the U.K. rubbed the fact home with such style and panache that no one could ever forget the fact (comparatively speaking it was much bigger than Brexit—perhaps the U.K. forgot it was no longer a superpower and that international opinion now actually mattered (in that it could no longer get away with such arrogance as it did in the days of empire). What other possible reason could there be?
Mind you, the U.K. was not alone, it was egged on and encouraged by its cohorts France and Israel.
...A late footnote.
Again, I'm not in total disagreement with this position. However, I would point out that argument over this matter has never fully settled since since the outbreak of the War. From my perspective, the most researched and still the most authoritative reference on this matter is A.J.P Taylor's 1954 book The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Struggle_for_Mastery_in_Eu....
Later, in 1961, Taylor augments this earlier history with his equally famous and controversial book (as you'll note from the link): The Origins of the Second World War, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_the_Second_Worl.... (The fact that Taylor's account is controversial is testament to the fact that there is still considerable disagreement over the origins of both World Wars. The Wiki link provides a lively commentary on that debate and it's well worth reading.)
Anyway, it seems to me that to get a good appreciation of this history one should study both books.
These people were not very well informed about the changes technology was about to inflict on warfare.
The american-civil-war was far away - the last war in living memory was a "smashing success" for those starting WW1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars
There were no nuclear weapons to be feared and unions/socialism to be silenced and demands for shared power by the growing industrial bourgeoisie to be ignored.
It's hard to say how accurate that statement is but in all probability much of it is likely true. However, any reasonably well educated person of the day would have been well aware of the new highly industrialized nature of warfare from both the Crimean War and the American Civil War, both of which represented a new kind of 'advanced' warfare (especially so the American Civil War). Moreover, it wouldn't have been difficult to project that new developments made in the intervening 50 or so years since the Civil War, would likely make warfare considerably worse.
Right, 50 years is sufficient time to forget a war but nevertheless many veterans of the Civil War were still alive at outset of WWI. (Remember, Buster Keaton's Civil War film of 1926, The General failed to gain universal popularity as it was perceived by the many Civil War veterans who were still alive as biased in that it told the War from the South's perspective.) This 'corporate' memory should have had a substantial effect in preventing war but clearly its effects weren't nearly enough.
No doubt you're correct when it comes to considering the less well educated. However—as with many wars—I'd maintain that whilst they didn't actually start the war, that national hubris combined with young male bravado played an important if not overwhelming role in perpetuating it, especially so at War's outbreak before the grim and tragic reality of the trenches became fully apparent.