obeying the king

[marycatelli]

So why do you obey the king after all?

There's the history of why -- the alleged divine blood, or the solemn election -- but that's not what's here and now.  Royal blood tends to get a lot of mysticism, not to say mystification, wrapped about it.  Pomp and circumstance go to a great deal to impress people.  Not to mention the clothes you wear

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.
—George Lucas

which sound profoundly shallow, but it probably does impress people.  Especially those people not up to a discussion of the philosophical principles behind the concept of government.  Even those who are may benefit because, after all, loyalty is a sentiment as much as a principle, and actually, the principle is less reliable when times are hard than the sentiment.

And it's probably more pleasant all around than the alternative of having the guards knock heads together.  Judicious use of pomp and circumstance toward that end is probably wise.

Comments

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Um.

George Lucas has missed the point ("No, surely not he!" I hear you cry... or not).

People would, if he were correct, obey anyone who lived in such a place and dressed like that.

Technically that is literally true for most of history. The reason for that is, up until the Industrial Revolution, the only way to live and dress that way was if you had what was then the most effective revenue-generating system possible.

To wit, an army.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

But the question is: why does the army (or the hearthsmen, or the knights, or whatever) obey that one person?

Way too much fiction bases the authority of the king/emperor/prince/chieftain/captain on a group of one-dimensional henchmen, without ever explaining what's in it for the henchmen, and what their reason is for not turfing out their leader and splitting the goodies between them.

You don't have to awe/impress/inspire loyalty in *everyone* but I think history demonstrates that the king who can't inspire enough loyalty swiftly becomes an ex-king.

[marycatelli]

Wandering about in primary source finds many situations where the loyalty was fierce, primary, and unquestioned by anyone about.

Here lies our lord brought low, our best man lies in the dust.
If any warrior thinks of leaving the battle, he can howl for ever.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Or at least, that is the way it's supposed to work: the cultural model: I am loyal to the death to the ring-giver!

(But one can't help feeling that if the ring-giver fails on the ring-giving front and lacks the necessary charisma, the thegns may start finding that they are terribly busy come campaigning season...)

[marycatelli]

Unsatisfactory kings are always a conundrum. though failing in battle would be worst.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Well, at first he was the guy who figured out how to keep everybody else from starving to death, and got a cut of the goods when they brought their food to be stored. After that spread far enough to be impractical as a matter of personal dependence, he was the guy who was keeping the army from starving to death, because his dad left him the hat so he could be recognized.

Later it was because he could beat the crap out of everybody else, and a system of paying extortion money in return for not getting the crap beaten out of you arose. After there were too many people to beat up individually, it was kept organized by the guy who got the hat from his dad.

[marycatelli]

eh, the development of agriculture seems to be too gradual for that to be a plausible origin.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Not agriculture, long-term food storage. That can't be done gradually; you're doing it or you're not.

[marycatelli]

Sure you can. First you save for a few days, then for a few weeks, then for a few months. . .

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

%P

You're storing it or you're not, ya whippersnapper ya.

[marycatelli]

To this day, we use processes that will only prolong stuff for a few days.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Four hours is supposed to be dangerous.

[marycatelli]

For some foods. Not for others. Indeed, one of the charms of grains is that they can last long and long. . . but you can do other stuff to other stuff to preserve it.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

There just seem to be way too many exceptions for the economic answer to be the whole one.

Just in England: Richard II. Henry VI. Charles I of England.

Or look at the end of the Merovingians. You need more than an army to be a king: you have to act like the kind of person that makes a convincing king, or people will just appoint someone else to the job. Kingship in history is a lot less hereditary than it is in Tolkien.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

The kings you name were wastrels whose troops lacked the wherewithal to keep them in power. I'm having a little trouble seeing the objection here.

By the bye, "...people will just appoint someone else..." strikes me as a curious circumlocution. If you have the army, nobody is going to be in a position to "appoint" a new king; if you don't, things are likely so bad that the first member of the people to manifest a better understanding of the army's economic situation is going to "appoint" himself. With a sword or with a pillow, as the case may be.

[marycatelli]

Well, if you argue that anyone who was deposed by definition did not have the armies to keep them on, it is, like all circular logic, irrefutable.

But "wastrel" is not an economic state and therefore doesn't explain their being deposed in economic terms.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

???

How is "squandering all your money on stuff before you've paid for what you need in order to live" not an economic state?

And how is dying of something because you don't have the cure for it "circular logic"?

[marycatelli]

Oh, you mean "spendthrift" not "worthless person" -- and many kings have been spendthrifts without losing the throne.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Yes, Richard the Heroic Hostage comes to mind-- but it was the bills he ran up that began the process of reducing the Crown to a costume when John tried to pay them.

I have never heard the word "wastrel" defined as "worthless person". ("Minstrel" occasionally, but not as an automatic synonym.)

[marycatelli]

He wasn't the only one.

And I have.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

My stock answer in this sort of situation tends to be "That's not my fault", but this is too interesting.

Ove the years I have heard a number of fundamentally worthless persons described as wastrels; but only as a symptom.

[marycatelli]

I've read it in dictionaries.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

That is a great pity.

[marycatelli]

In real life, the only stable thrones are the figureheads. Which is why, for instance, the emperor of Japan has longest dynastic line.

[marycatelli]

You assume that one has to precede the other, rather than a dialectical relationship.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

It's not an assumption, it's an observation. Dialectical relationships exist only until you leave the campus; afterward real-world rules apply.

[marycatelli]

Nonsense! Many things have dialectical relationships. Supply and demand, for instance; this is why the price fixing of Marxist dictatorships failed (and was not properly Marxist, too).

Or technology and society. I have run across statements that technology drives social changes, society does not drive technological changes, but that's obviously as silly as the other way 'round. Germany didn't go to war because they had discovered a way to synthesize rubber and so could stand the British breaking off their supply line; they went to war, and then discovered it because their supply line had been broken. Whereupon synthesized rubber proceeded to change society by making it cheaper. . . .

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Bad example. Synthetic rubber was discovered a hell of a long time before Germany occupied the Rhineland.

[marycatelli]

Wrong war. They made a good bit of progress during World War I.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Oh.

Hey, how about those Knicks?

[marycatelli]

What sport is that?

0:)

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Moopsball.