RoR: Forum

Post 0

Thursday, March 20 - 12:33pm

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Do you remember what they called the Reign of the Kennedies? They called it Camelot. Jack was King and Jaqui was his Queen.

Bob Kolker

Post 1

Thursday, March 20 - 2:42pm

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Without a love of royalty, we wouldn't have all those teenage girls growing up thinking they're "daddy's little princess." And Disney would have to close. ;)

Seriously though, ever read George Lucas's comments about the ending of STAR WARS? On the influence of TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT on the regal ending, Lucas professed a belief in the need for a "benevolent dictator."

George Lucas says: “...there's a reason why kings built large palaces, sat on thrones and wore rubies all over. There's a whole social need for that, not to oppress the masses, but to impress the masses and make them proud and allow them to feel good about their culture, their government and their ruler so that they are left feeling that a ruler has the right to rule over them, so that they feel good rather than disgusted about being ruled.”

And:
That's sort of why I say a benevolent despot is the ideal ruler. He can actually get things done. The idea that power corrupts is very true and it's a big human who can get past that."

The topic of Tibor's article is actually the seed of a story unfolding that Landon Erp and I are working on, more on that soon, hopefully...

Post 2

Thursday, March 20 - 6:05pm

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George Lucas said:

That's sort of why I say a benevolent despot is the ideal ruler. He can actually get things done. The idea that power corrupts is very true and it's a big human who can get past that.

Interestingly, one of the mass market pictorial books tied to Revenge of the Sith stated that it was important to note that Palpatine did not see himself as evil, but rather as a savior of the Republic.

Put another way, Palpatine chose to use the Dark Side of the Force to "get things done" and most likely considered himself a "big human" who could get past the principle that "power corrupts."

Certainly the audience that applauded Palpatine's new ordering of the old Republic into the new Empire felt "good rather than disgusted about being ruled."

All of this begs the question: Benevolent -- by what standard?

Post 3

Friday, March 21 - 11:19am

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Very few folks who are evil see themselves as evil. Malicious ones may, but even they have some rationalization to offer, usually. All dictators I am aware of convinced themselves that they are swell fellows. No matter, they are thugs.

Post 4

Friday, March 21 - 12:02pm

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I am doing it for The Good of The People. Etc. etc.

The Greater Good is the enemy of the human race.

Bob Kolker

Post 5

Friday, March 21 - 1:54pm

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I think that you have to get deeper to find the taproots of social psychology. The name "pharaoh" means "house." The man was identified with the structure that was shelter. We speak of the "house" of Hohenzollern or Arpad or Vasa and those kings did manage their estates as their own houses, though to outsiders, the land was called "Pole-land" or "Germania" or "Hungary" and so on. We know from neolithic houses that often the heads of progenitors were removed from the bodies and set up inside, as if to converse to. We still speak of the head of state, the commander in chief as the man in the White House. These are very old, deep ideas, apparently transmitted subconsciously across generations.

We misuse old words that have been propagandized into new meanings. Few here would support tyranny. However, I have pointed out that the tyrant was a self-made man on the rise in mercantile archaic Ionia who managed the city for the citizens as an enterprise. This was the time of the invention of philosophy and of science and of the invention of coinage. This is when writing replaced speaking as the primary mode of cultural transmission. As non-citizens of Athens, the immigrant Ionian philosophers wrote and sold books. We call the play "Oedipus Rex" but he was not a king. The name of the play was Oedipus Tyrannos. He earned his status via a special feat. The play can only be understood fully on that basis.

So, too, do we demonize the despot. But the despot was only the master of the house. Understand the word on that basis. If you object to despotism, then go elsewhere, leave this land, find your own place and start your own house where you will be the master.

The founders of the American republic called George III a "tyrant" to deny his kingship. They called him "despot" because they had literally left his house and found places of their own where they sought to be masters.

We, today, are even beyond that event horizon. We are not "masters" but merchants. Ideally, we are stateless, landless. We deal with all men as strangers... with all that means and such meanings are deep and old. Respect and distance define relationships between strangers. Exchanges of gifts are the basis of association. If no exchange is possible, each wanderer goes his own way. It is only when you come onto the land of a house that you must deal with the master and his household of wives, sons, daughters, servants, cousins, brothers and in-laws... with all that entails... including blood feuds, a ritual highly unlikely among merchants. But if you socialize with Objectivists (or "libertarians" etc.) you will find that the formalities of household often supplant those of commerce. Bourgeois virtues can be hard to find in practice.

Post 6

Friday, March 21 - 4:02pm

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M.E.M writes

We, today, are even beyond that event horizon. We are not "masters" but merchants. Ideally, we are stateless, landless. We deal with all men as strangers... with all that means and such meanings are deep and old. Respect and distance define relationships between strangers. Exchanges of gifts are the basis of association. If no exchange is possible, each wanderer goes his own way. It is only when you come onto the land of a house that you must deal with the master and his household of wives, sons, daughters, servants, cousins, brothers and in-laws... with all that entails... including blood feuds, a ritual highly unlikely among merchants. But if you socialize with Objectivists (or "libertarians" etc.) you will find that the formalities of household often supplant those of commerce. Bourgeois virtues can be hard to find in practice.

I reply:

But we are created in families. The family is the natural unit of human association. You learn to talk in a family context. Your first human contacts are in a family context. You learn you basic human relations in a family context.

So we are not raised among strangers at all. We may end up
living among strangers (non-blood kin folk). Truly atomic human beings barely exist. We are social and socialized from the git go.

Do you have a family? Do you have children? If you don't what the hell do you know? If you want to find out what it is about have children and grandchildren.

Bob Kolker

Post 7

Saturday, March 22 - 6:49am

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Bob, it is not that you are not intelligent: you are. The problem is that your unmet childhood need for positive attention causes you to engage in these ignorant attacks on ideas you do not understand.

Objectivism is broad and deep and it provides us with a common context. As you note, we are social creatures. As an outsider, you violate rules you do not even perceive.

Case in point: atomic humans and families of origin. Bob, we learn language in the womb, but the purpose of language is not to communicate with Mom. The purpose of language is to enable thinking. We originate in families. The purpose of life is not to ensure the survival of your parents. We learn morality from our social context, but the purpose of morality is not to ensure the continuation of society, since, in fact, there is no such thing as "society." You do not admit to these facts.

If you want to see "atomic" humans, go to any city. It is a wonderful paradox that the City has enabled individuals to survive without a social group to belong to. You do not need to be a member of a tribe. You can just be you. Alone. One. The tribe can vote to throw a virgin into a volcano for the common good. In the City, we call that "murder." In the City your relationships with other people are not metaphysically different from your relationship with nature. In a world of cities, an individual can move from place to place -- via airship, without ever touching any primitive tribe's "sacred land." Indeed, now, you do not even need to travel. With electronic telecom (and eventually tele-operators) you can be isolated in your home and in contact with a billion people -- and again, your relationship with them is not metaphysically different from your relationship with nature.

As for having children, I am a parent, but that is irrelevant. Again, you are ignorant -- oddly enough, ignorant of the social context here. It was childless libertarians and objectivists like Ayn Rand or for that matter Erwin S. Strauss, Durk & Sandy, and many others, who developed the ideology of individualism that is appropriate to a civil culture. McCloskey calls the ethos "bourgeois virtues."

As Prof. Machan pointed out, many people seem to carry with them this atavistic need for family that is manifested as an admiration for "royalty." A hundred years ago, Herbert Spencer said that we are somewhere in the middle between the social organization and ideology of the Stone Age and the new organization and ideology of the Commercial Age. Objectivism brings you closer to that future time when commercialism is accepted as the baseline of "common sense." In some many ways, you admit time and time again that you are mired in that old-time Stone Age religion.

Your training in physiscs gave you the facility for an integrated, objective personal philosophy, but you sacrificed your best qualities to your own destroyers. You can change any time you want to liberate yourself from your past, anytime you want to break your ties to "royalty."

Post 8

Saturday, March 22 - 7:50am

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M.R.M writes:

Bob, it is not that you are not intelligent: you are. The problem is that your unmet childhood need for positive attention causes you to engage in these ignorant attacks on ideas you do not understand.

I reply:

I understand them perfectly. I -reject- them for what I consider to be sufficient reason.

And kindly do not psychologize. You have not the skill for it. You do not possess mental telepathy. Nobody does.

I operate from facts. Facts Rule. Theories sometimes serve.

Bob Kolker

(Edited by Robert J. Kolker on 3/22, 7:57am)

Post 9

Saturday, March 22 - 7:54am

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M.E.M. writes:

Your training in physics gave you the facility for an integrated, objective personal philosophy, but you sacrificed your best qualities to your own destroyers. You can change any time you want to liberate yourself from your past, anytime you want to break your ties to "royalty."

I reply:

I have reserved just enough love and compassion for my kin and children. The rest I did not sacrifice. I threw it away with joy. I have no intention of changing my approach. It has taken me over 40 years to construct it.

As for royalty, my Mission From God is to tell the emperor that he is bare ass naked. So much for royalty. I respect neither pomp nor pretense.

Bob Kolker

(Edited by Robert J. Kolker on 3/22, 7:55am)

Post 10

Saturday, March 22 - 6:01pm

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Boy, there is an ad hominem attack if there ever was one--"unmet childhood needs...etc." One really needs to know another very well to get into such stuff. One is safer to consider the position without reference to psychologizing, merely by addressing the argument and the coherence that's displayed.

Post 11

Saturday, March 22 - 9:15pm

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The initial essay here was, indeed, about a specific phenomenon, the "Royal Arms Hotel Syndrome." However, as I said, there is something deeper involved. Some people (many, perhaps "most") still harbor an atavistic desire to belong to a family. Adhesion to royalty and nobility provides that, a vicarious ancestor worship, made up of instant traditions. I stress that. Anthony Giddens has pointed out that many "traditions" (Scots kilts and tartans, for instance) are recent inventions. Much of "traditional" Judaism was invented by Zionists in the late 19th century. Stories of Robin Hood may antedate Ivanhoe, but that was its real origin, followed by the Howard Pyle book which created many of the stories. Le Morte d'Arthur and Idylls of the King were likewise inventions, creations of instant traditions.

Consider Star Wars: Princess Leia Organa, her adoptive father the viceroy of Alderaan; her real mother being Queen Amidala, and so on and so on... I will not say much about how poorly merchants fare in that yarn. I ask only: would it have lost its wonder and splendor, if Anakin had been a school-age intern in an advertising agency? Would we have sat open-mouthed at the glory of department stores, galactic malls, inventive marketing and the marketing of inventions? In short, have we come even halfway to the bourgeois virtues of Benjamin Franklin?

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 3/22, 9:58pm)