Have We Forgotten That Feudalism is Horrific?
Why do we treat the inheritors of imperial wealth like Hollywood Pop-Stars?
Feudalism was truly a horrific system, and anywhere it exists today represents a repudiation of popular will. There is no representation, no say from the common person to the Halls of Power. In Feudalistic societies, laws are dictated, though the powerful are never themselves subject to them. It’s a system of complete and total domination, one that visited everything from genocide to famine across nearly every swath of land it ever touched.
So why do we treat their descendants like people to be looked-up to?
Naturally there is an argument that Pop-stars shouldn’t be looked up to either. I’d agree with that. But I also wouldn’t deny the truth that, despite what should or shouldn’t be, Pop stars are looked up to.
In all honesty I have not read a single story on the Megan-Harry Saga. My vague take away from headlines I’ve groaned at is that the seat of imperial power in one of the most devastating nations to peoples’ around the world is, shockingly, not super progressive when it comes to race.
What frustrates me so inherently is the over-focused drumming of the idea that this is somehow surprising. It’s as if the English crown hadn’t spent centuries committing atrocities around the globe. It’s like watching people express shock when it turns out a descendent of Hitler’s new 1/2 black wife isn’t going over well with the in-laws.
Even more astonishingly is how another royal story flew virtually under the radar.
Alongside the story of “family that spent centuries ruining 3 continents isn’t super nice” was the revelation of the true role of something known as Queen’s Consent.
The practice of Queen’s Consent has been considered a formality in Britain, one in which members of government take their proposals to the queen to receive a “consent” which most assume has already been informally approved. To many in the UK, it’s seen as a show of respect for the old Monarchy without giving it any actual power.
What was revealed however is that the Queen’s Consent is far more influential than anyone had imagined. Hundreds of possible bills, many widely popular, had been abandoned at the order of the royal family, using the refusal to grant Queen’s Consent as leverage. Followed over the years, the revelations showed a disturbing pattern of influence which the royal family of the UK seems to maintain. It even showed how the Queen had ensured laws would allow her to keep the family’s total wealth a secret from any public record.
Yet this story has played out as a blip in comparison to the eclipse of gossip-laden drama over Megan and Harry. It is of course natural to repulsed by racism and racist attitudes, but to allow the personal story to obscure the legislative one does injustice to both. It is this very process of maintaining power which brings into reality the painful racist realities so many needlessly suffer through.
One can point to corporate media as a culprit, the wealthy defending the wealthy and etc. Still, this information isn’t hidden. If the latent anger was there over royal wealth and power, a spark could ignite it, sending out viral stories and videos to pierce the fog of narrative that major news corporations work to maintain.
Instead, we ask ourselves how a family who has lobbied to hide their wealth, influenced Democracy in an autocratic fashion, sought colonies and destruction around the globe, could ever be so short-sighted as to express racist opinions in their personal lives. We look on at the descendants of people who ordered genocides and cultural exterminations, people who sought to colonize the Earth under a single hand of rule, people whose damage to the developing world has lasted to this very day, as if they are no more harmless than a Justin Bieber.
I’ll never read a Megan and Harry story, because I’ll never treat a feudalist institution as something to gawk at in tabloids. It is an inherently unjust system, one in which the privileged and the powerful horde massive wealth and wield it to the detriment of millions. Their racist attitudes should come as no surprise, and their pop-star wannabe kids aren’t icons. They’re spoiled rich kids living off the cash raided from nearly every region of the Earth.
