No.3470
Were the aristocracy as useless and unproductive as often depicted, or did they administer some kind of useful function that was worth the cost?
Would you revive local Kings and Queens, or are you content with the national figure?
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No.3475
I wouldn't know. Aristocracy is a business of mannerisms and presenting honorable titles. It begins with the belief in unequal ability in human beings. Aristocracy and meritocracy aren't mutually exclusive terms.
>useful function
Not everyone serves a useful function. Egalitarianism is a conflicting doctrine that brings people into conflict. Most people prefer hierarchy as a guiding hand rather than the dangers of egalitarian dogma.
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No.3486
*spreads asscheeks over post*
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP
*perfect shit lays upon post*
*smears it across with big toe*
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No.3487
>>3470
The aristocracy served a clear function: Local to semi-local administration on the same learn-from-birth principle as the king.
Admittedly, this got progressively lost over the years.
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No.3490
>>3470
Back in the feudal days, a vast majority of noblemen weren't particularly better off than free peasantry. They beheld no vassals of their own and had to till the land to make a living in between military campaigns. There was a even saying back in the day, "One who ploughs in the forenoon jousts in the afternoon." What did set the poor nobility apart from actual peasantry, though, was the concept of honor and martial spirit that ran in their family cultures. Even the most destitute of nobility were expected to make a name for themselves in battle instead of just being content with living off the land. Even with the rise of absolutist states centuries later, when much of nobility were little more than glorified businessmen and bureaucrats, there were still enough poor noblemen to become Europe's finest soldiers, explorers, and even scientists.
The closest modern-day equivalent would Russia's Cossacks. They're not socioeconomically better off than the rest of the Russian population, but driven by their family heritage, they patrol the streets in cooperation with the police, participate in the revival of pre-Soviet Russian culture and Orthodox Christianity, and willingly volunteer in the military at a time when the government is considering abolition of conscription due to the pervasive culture of dedovshchina hazing. If Spengler is correct that Russia will be the center of a new form of civilization, then the Cossacks will be shoe-in for the feudal nobility that characterizes the early phases of all other civilizations priors.
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No.3491
>>3490
I've heard this point too. Some nobility weren't very much wealthier like other aristocrats.
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No.3492
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No.3493
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No.4522
Imo, aristocracy has always been about a hierarchy of responsibilities and who is responsible for who. This is the meaning of status and what I would presume the Medieval perspective of vassalship was all about. It was just a ladder of loyalties, contracts, and oaths.
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No.4526
>>3486
>Australian enters the thread
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No.4940
>>3470
The "uselessness" of the aristocracy that normally gets depicted comes to us from a fairly brief period of time in the history of France and mostly stemmed from the Glorious, but still flawed, Sun King's emasculation of the nobility, which was the logical conclusion after he defeated the parliamentarians and the nobility lost the Fronde. When dukes, duchess, counts, and barons are removed from their lands and kept in gilded cages like poodles and made to fight over things like who gets to help the King put on his cape just so that they can get a little time to speak with the king, it makes them appear very weak and useless.
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No.4942
>>4940
Word.
Then a number became useless traitors in the French Revolution. I have mixed views on aristocracy, but I generally think aristocrats should have autonomy. Sometimes also worry that aristocracy sometimes seeks to overtake monarchy. As we've seen in the time of King Louis XIV, that this centralization didn't work for the monarchy of King Louis XIV, who unlike King Louis XVI, didn't have the ability to maintain these circumstances in good peace. Centralization is generally bad for monarchs who cannot perform as the most lofty autocrat. We notice this in the time when the Court of Versailles became a bed of gossip and fettered school girl chatter.
>kings inherited an autocracy when they aren't prepared to take that action
People look at the leadership of Franco and well admire it around here. The problem is that after Franco, Juan Carlos I wasn't even willing to take autocratic whims like Franco. It swapped from one leader to the next. Franco's autocratic government was not his government. People expect Juan Carlos I to be a continuation of Franco, but Juan Carlos I wasn't Franco. If Franco had been a monarch and had offspring, it would be easier to continue that rule in tradition, but as we seen with King Louis XIV and King Louis XVI, this can create problems.
Not a stern critique of autocracy, which I generally support, but it is a fault. This makes a good case for the sovereignty of autocrats to be as less intrusive and social engineering as possible, so it cannot fail absolutely. This is why autocracy definitely needs less control such as public and more private industry, but never give up command and authority as kings.
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No.7218
>>3470
Aristocracy are basically smaller monarchs both in function and form. They have many "very" useful functions provided a king does not mess with them all the time.
- They manage province(s) more effectively than any centralized approach.
- They compete with each other thus greatly improving the development of their own dominions.
- They will "homogenize" their dominions according to their own and their people's tastes, such as attracting certain kind of people and keep others at bay. Such as one province attracting manufacturers but keep artists away while other one attract artists and keep factories away, thus providing a vast option for each of your people's desires. No genius will go unused
- They will keep their own military forces from their own budget thus will save you from keeping a central standing army all the time. Also will provide a strong head on defense from unexpected attacks.
- You can use them (if necessary and if they are loayal) to produce heirs and in case of infertility or unexpected deaths your kingdom will still have heirs behind. You won't have to rely on inter-lineage marriages.
Now to make these things up above possible:
- You need to have a king/queen that is light on the absolutist scale. If not nobility will be disloyal and disaster will await.
- These nobles "must" be left on their own provinces and must not be collected on a capital ! At all costs ! If they are torn from their own lands and simply kept as "power holding decorative pieces" they will simply kill of the king and get the power to themselves in a government (pthui ! ) taxing people to hell and beyond.
That was the mistake of France and Prussia.
- Their relation has to be kept on the good side with the royal family and their rivalry between each other has to be kept (somehow) on the civil side or at least must be turned to a non-lethal level.
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No.7220
>>7218
This, to be honest family.
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No.7232
>>7218
Your post itself is good but wtf are those pics
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No.7243
>>7232
Oh, the one with the ladies is from a Japanese game where you play a skilled and bright son of a middile/lower noble who is attending to "Royal Academy" of the Kingdom you are living in where you meet and help/save many royal ladies and chose one of the paths leading to marriage and stuff.
The dancing wolf lady… well I just liked it really :)
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No.7263
>>3470
At my church, the choir ends every chorus with the minor doxology, part of this short saying are the following words;
>As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
So let's assume for a moment that this is a perfectly unchallengable statement. The world never changes, so you are bound to find aristocracy alive and well in our society, and every other one.
Ultimately our modern "meritocracy" system absolutely endorses and accepts the fundamental principle of aristocracy. Aristocracy comes from the Greek "hoi aristoi krate" = the rule of the best. Aristocracy is not the rule of heredity over sense and it cannot sustain it's title in the absence of positive contributions to society.
Really meritocracy is the same thing, just without a human face; following the principle of profits over the welfare of society.
So the question "is aristocracy useful?" is ultimately flawed, aristocrats will forever exist, and even co-opt the most ambitious revolutions, managing to survive in such anti-traditional regimes as the USSR, or modern America. Really you should ask; what kind of aristocracy should we want?
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No.7264
>>7243
>Anarcho-monarchist
This post, to paraphrase Col. Sanders, is window-licking good.
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No.7276
>>3470
Aristocracy as administrators, rather than a military class, was the a big part of monarchism's degeneration.
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No.7283
>>7276
I'm not OP, and I don't disagree, but I'd like to know more about your reasoning for saying this.
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No.7288
>>7283
The nobility's power was predicated on them acting as a trained military class. Metal was expensive. Horses were expensive. Food was expensive (relative to now). You needed to have money to be able to afford to spend the majority of your time improving your ability to fight. That was a massive part of why the system made sense.
The transition from military class to something akin to bureaucrats is part of what spurred on absolute monarchy, which is the worst form of monarchy. The classic criticisms are monarchy are directly concerned with it. Monarchy as a general system essentially strawmanned itself.
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No.7301
>>7288
>spurred on absolute monarchy, which is the worst form of monarchy
If you're too focused on muh aristocracy, yes, from your perspective.
>he classic criticisms are monarchy are directly concerned with it
Criticism goes all around each form of government.
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No.7308
>>7288
>Transition into bureaucrats spurred on absolute monarchy
You have this backwards. But if you're correct it gives the lie to the idea that the aristocracy in France was so uncontrollable and macho before the Fronde.
Really Louis XIV did not make a mistake with absolutism other than the punitive way in which he imposed peace by effectively imprisoning his nobility at Versailles. It damaged the economy because the nobles were in fact already bureaucrats and economic managers, and had been for ages, and it turned Versailles into the kind of snake pit of competing interests that ended the monarchy within 2 generations.
Classic criticisms would have remained with any system, but Louis XIV built his kingdom so that it could only be well-ruled with his characteristic iron will. The very fact that one had to "go to Versailles" to get anything done, effectively meant that one day someone would "go to Versailles" to commit regicide.
The way things worked out in the end have very little to do with philosophy or ideology, as always. The idea that ideology and philosophy precedes political action is just thinking like a republican.
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No.7309
>>7301
>Criticism goes all around each form of government.
Yes, but when most people criticize monarchy, they criticize absolutism specifically. Comparatively, there isn't anyone criticizing contractual feudalism, and it's much more difficult to create a criticism due to the inherent stability of contractual monarchies. Yes, nothing is completely immune to criticism, but absolute monarchy is much easier to criticize. If absolute monarchy becomes what most people think of when they think of monarchy, monarchy as a whole becomes much more ridiculed and much easier to criticize by association. >>7288 has a point by calling absolute monarchy a self-strawman. I know we have a few absolutists on the board, and I'm almost certain that none of us care overmuch about criticism by the normies. However, even if you are an absolutist, I don't think you can deny that absolutism leaves itself much more open to criticism than other forms of monarcy.
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No.7310
>>7309
>Comparatively, there isn't anyone criticizing contractual feudalism, and it's much more difficult to create a criticism due to the inherent stability of contractual monarchies. Yes, nothing is completely immune to criticism, but absolute monarchy is much easier to criticize.
I wouldn't know about this one. Feudalism has its critics just the same, and it's most often what people whine about – do you want feudalism, they say – whereas the complaints for absolutism usually come with caricatures of the pomp and ceremony. Usually people think you're a slave under feudalism. Does that not receive criticism? Surely, an ancap knows what it's like to be called for wanting feudalism. My opinion is that the criticism depends on who you ask.
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