This is what will kill the monarchy. Everyone before the reigning queen lived in a world where royals enjoyed more privacy than commoners, not less. They were only seen in public in carefully scripted occasions designed to awe their audiences. Now they have to keep a king/queen face 24/7, and human beings just can’t do it.
Good point, but I also think that they will start having events where they know that there will be no taping and that people who break the rules will be “kicked out of the club.”
Or by that time the public will have become so oversaturated with daily celebrity gaffes that that currency will be devalued, and the only scandals to produce any appreciable reaction in the audience will be the most egregious or the most titillating. Nip slip? Public canoodling? Being visibly intoxicated in a night club? Yawn. The kid may have to do some O.J.-level shit for people to pay him more mind than any given celebrity sex tape.
Not only will this ubiquitous, “eye-in-the-sky”, surveillance kill the monarchy. I think it will kill society as we know it around the globe. Everyone in the world will have to learn to deal with the fact that nothing they do is “private”.
Maybe that sounds hyperbolic. But seems to me the way things are headed.
“Some people who think God put them in charge of the United Kingdom just had a baby”
The people who had a baby are not in charge of the United Kingdom. The father’s grandmother (the Queen) is not in charge of the UK. Nobody, including them, thinks God put them in their roles. They are there because they are in a line of hereditary monarchs. How many mistakes can you make in a single sentence?
The public desire for celebrity gossip is insatiable. Insatiable. They will never tire of him.
The whole thing assumes that these things get published to a noticeable degree.
Why would they, in a time where, despite blogs, more and more information gathering is in the hand of certain elites who also control the main means of information transport and payment.
Where does that “10% of photographs ever taken were taken in the last 12 months” meme come from? I can’t find anything that really explains how this was worked out. It reminds me of the debunked “more people alive now than have ever lived” story, though a little more plausible, I guess? There’s this: http://blog.1000memories.com/94-number-of-photos-ever-taken-digital-and-analog-in-shoebox
and the theory behind the analog estimates makes sense, but how could anyone know how many digital photographs have been taken?
This isn’t the first time Cory has said something like that. It’s saddening, because he’s not a wildly ignorant person, so he just does it to be “controversial” I guess.
There is a corollary to this, which I find even more worrying: in a representative democracy with this kind of ubiquitous surveillance, what sort of person will be a viable candidate for election to high office?
Either we’re going to have to get used to the idea that presidents and MPs and congressmen and ministers got drunk, took stupid-looking selfies, and sexted their friends when they were 15-18, or we’re going to have a choice of candidates who are all hyper-repressed Pod People, or psychopaths.
You seem to have forgotten that part of Brenda’s title which runs “Defender of the Faith”.
She’s the supreme governor of the Church of England. And the Monarchy is still based on “God’s Ordinance” per the 39 Articles.
We tend to forget this, but the monarchy is an ancient institution and the root of its claim to supreme power in the realm is that they rule by Grace of God.
(This irritates those of us who don’t believe in an Invisible Sky Daddy. But it doesn’t mean that line of hereditary monarchs don’t rest their claim to rule on the assertion that God gave them the right to do so.)
Kicked out of the club with a $50k cheque from the Daily Mail will be worth it for some.
If they carry on down that route, they’ll have to become more and more exclusive and reclusive, and then the bigger the prize for revealing the internals. With the ease of recording situations now, and the pace of tech advancement, I’d say every single indiscretion is going to get out. If they go reclusive, that in itself will be a major story.
I reckon William and Harry are fully aware of this.
Speaking of being out in the open - poor old Kate M, having to parade in public within 24 hours of giving birth. And poor baby, subjected to the flashes and loud crowds. Last thing I’d wish.
As with so many monarchical things, so much is so ambiguous and tenuous when you get down to it.
“Supreme governor of the CoE” - well, were I god, I’d have a little discussion with my editorial panel.
And let’s not forget the questionable right of the house of Windsor to occupy the throne.
Just as a question: Wikipedia shows me that the “The Chicago Times was a newspaper in Chicago from 1854 to 1895, when it merged with the Chicago Herald.”. I would like to see this newspaper, that does not hire professional photographers anymore. I would like to know how that looks like. I guess it’s a spelling mistake? Maybe Chicago Tribune?
“… the root of its claim to supreme power in the realm is that they rule by Grace of God”.
That would only make sense if monarchs had, or claimed, supreme power, which they quite plainly don’t.
They don’t exercise that power, but they do claim it. Queen Elizabeth is the head of state of sixteen different countries. Every piece of legislation is signed by her or her representative acting in her name. In theory, she or her representatives could veto a bill.
and doesn’t the standing British Army report to her? She’s head of the Church of England too.
Not much power there then.
Why do you regard the possession of what amounts to a veto as equivalent to the possession of supreme power? Supreme power does not lie in simply being able to say “No”. (Or, more precisely, “La reine s’avisera”.)
