Therein you have a microcosm of modern British aristocracy. A class system that used to distribute power and responsibility has collapsed into a source of therapeutic validation for the fragile individualism of its members. False merit thrives between narrow horizons — and few are narrower than the blue bloods of England. Enabling these delusions are the hangers-on who crowd Britain’s husks of aristocracy. It takes celebrities, journalists, and photographers to clothe their naked imperium and validate their feelings of uniqueness. And what does the intelligentsia get in return for this courtship? The answer, of course, is nothing. Because if Britain’s nobs know one thing, it is that they owe the world nothing. They have kept their noblesse but eschewed their oblige. In its place has come venality and codependence: rugged individualism without the actual ruggedness.
The historical way-markers to this implosion are well-documented. The First World War delivered a demographic and psychological blow of unprecedented proportion. Yet the next generation laughed into the void. The Roaring Twenties were a whirl of parties and bankruptcies. Only with the aid of married American fortunes did a carapace of their old values remain intact. The ’60s dissolved what remained of those values in a fug of dope and good tail. Those who didn’t succumb to the new addictions succumbed to old ones they could no longer afford. Titans of the British military like Sir David Stirling — cofounder of the SAS and a descendant of Charles II — gambled away their estates at the hands of unscrupulous Mayfair casino-owners who pretended to be their friends. The aristos were co-opted for their charm — read: money — by a new milieu that promoted the glamour of sexual and social transgression. Blinded by their inherited feelings of self-worth, they never realized they were being used by people who despised them. As a result, nowhere was Britain’s postwar political direction — dubbed “The Management of Decline” — internalized as effectively as among the people who had once driven its ascent.
[…]
How could a species that once steered Britain to greatness now claim the Darwin Award in every passing decade? The simple reason is that British aristocrats are the only people on earth among whom stupidity is not only accepted but prized. As the ultimate proof against meritocracy, it is the ultimate badge of honor. As Stendhal wrote in Le Rouge et Le Noir, “It is not doing something well or badly that is the crime: but doing it at all.”
“Bunky Mortimer III”, “Class Rejects: A Guide to the British Aristocracy”, Taki’s Magazine, 2018-03-02.
May 28, 2020
QotD: The decline and fall of the British aristocracy
Comments Off on QotD: The decline and fall of the British aristocracy
No Comments
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
