A positive consequence of noblesse oblige

I'm not a huge fan of the royal family, and really never have been. Setting aside the fact that I think the monarchy has, at least in a number of ways, outlived its usefulness, I tend to find the current bunch of English royals to be a dreadfully dull group.

That, however, is to be expected, as my principle exposure to monarchs comes via collegiate education in medieval history. For all of their flaws, medieval kings, princes, and barons weren't a boring lot.

That being said, there are some positive things to be said about the House of Windsor, principle among them is their continued devotion to duty and service, especially their continuing devotion to military service. If I recall correctly, Prince Andrew served in the RAF, and both Prince William and Prince Harry are serving in the Army, with Harry apparently preparing to deploy to Iraq. Now, if he is deployed (something which is still by no means certain), I have no illusions that he'll be shipped into anything but the most safe command that can be found for him. Yes, he is trained as a tank commander, but I have a feeling that no one in the chain of command is going to risk the life of the boy who sits third in line to the throne (to say nothing of the extent to which his presence could endanger his comrades).

That being said, there is something nice about this display of noblesse oblige, especially when it's compared to the behavior of the privileged classes in America.

A couple of years ago, I ran across an article in The American Scholar that discussed the war memorial that had been maintained on the grounds of the private prep school that the author had attended. For generations, alumni of the school went on to serve in the military, and quite a few died while serving. Looking back at that monument, the author noticed something. After World War II, the numbers of alumni serving in the military dropped off sharply.

In the last fifty years, the sense of noblesse oblige that drove countless young men from powerful families to serve in the military in previous generations seems to have faded away. I have spent years trying to figure out why that should be, but I haven't been able to come up with a satisfactory explanation.

What I do know is this: the trend is not a good one.

For all of our protestations of egalitarianism, we have become a heavily class-based society, in which one's circumstance of birth is heavily predictive of one's lifetime opportunities to exert real influence over the course of the nation. There are exceptions, of course, as there are with any "general rule," but it still holds that those who will determine the course of the nation are, most commonly, those who's parents made such determinations.

It is also true that contacts between the varying social classes are relatively limited. This is, quite simply, a product of human nature. Like draws like, and we are more likely to socialize and otherwise associate with people from similar backgrounds who have similar experiences. It is entirely possible, nay likely, that the scion of American aristocracy (and we do have our own aristocrats) will go through his entire life without having meaningful contacts with members of other social classes. And now, because so few upper class families hold with the old tradition of military service as a feature of noblesse oblige, it is entirely possible for a member of the upper class to never lose a relative to military action, or to even know someone else who has lost a relative or friend.

They are, thus, even further removed from the human consequences of their actions, and this removal makes it all the more easy to rationalize the "necessity" of a particular conflict.

This is not to say that members of the upper classes are evil or cruel. Rather, they are human. And for a human, it is easier to order death when you do not have to deal with the direct emotional consequences. (Consider the difference, emotionally, in pushing a button that unleashes a guided missile from a mile away and pulling the trigger to remove an enemy who is standing directly in front of you.) Never having to receive one of those carefully and lovingly folded flags and never watching someone dear to them receive one, they never have to deal with the consequences of their actions and decisions.

We will likely never know what HRM Elizabeth II thinks of the Iraq War (talking publicly about that sort of thing would likely be something she would consider an abrogation of duty), but there is at least one thing we know. If Harry is deployed, whatever her opinion of the war may be, it will be framed in both the cold logic of political analysis and in the emotions of a grandmother who will likely lose sleep worrying about a loved one.

A Republic, if you can keep it . . .

At least once a week, I tell myself that the major news organizations will wake up and someday realize that there is a difference between news and infotainment, that the former is their bailiwick, that - given their special status in our democratic republic - conveying the former rises to the level of a sort of sacred trust. And, at least once a week, I'm proved wrong.

Of course, none of this should surprise me.

We are well past the era of Edward R. Murrow, and news agencies no longer see themselves as purveyors of a public service, instead perceiving their operations as a simple business, driven by the bottom line, as any other business must be, at least to some extent. So, they give us what sells, and scandal and gossip are - and likely always have been - what sells.

It's something I've been trying to figure out for years.

Personally, if given a choice between reading The Economist or Mother Jones and reading People or Us Weekly, I'll generally pick the former.

Now, I'm not saying that magazines like People don't have their place. The world is far too big, complex, and serious a place for anyone to survive and thrive in it without the occasional resort to whimsy. But there is something very wrong when more people know the details of Anna Nicole Smith's court cases than know the major players in the current conflict in Iraq.

After the Constitution was written, Ben Franklin was asked what sort of government had been created. His response? "A republic, if you can keep it." The Founders were educated men, who understood that the government they had created was both strong and fragile. Strong because its legitimacy sprung from the most defensible of all sources of power, the continuing consent of the governed. Fragile because, when the populace is not educated, concerned, and engaged with the process, it is all too easy for the privileged and the powerful to corrupt the system to their own ends.

At the end of the day, preventing that corruption and co-option is the most sacred of the Press's many duties. It has been said that "sunshine is the best disinfectant," and that has been proven true time and again over the last two hundred years. Corruption is like mold, flourishing in the dark, under rocks and behind the scenes. Generally, when it is exposed, it withers in the bright light of popular outrage.

But what happens in a world where corruption, when exposed to the light, is greeted with little more than a yawn?

This is a valid and important question, as it is the world we are currently living in. No bid contracts in Iraq, rampant waste by FEMA in the wake of Katrina, campaign contributions exchanged for access and influence: all of this occurs today, and is met with nothing more than a collective yawn.

When searching for the reason for this public lassitude, many liberals blame the Press. And, if truth be told, they do bear some responsibility. They do cover the stories, but with no where near the frenzy that is applied to speculation over the paternity of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter. To a certain extent, this is the fault of the Press for allowing themselves to be just like any other business, and giving the people what they want.

The greater blame, however, belongs with us. CNN and its brethren give us what we want. They give us scandal and titillation and just about anything they can get some good video for. They live by "if it bleeds, it leads," an aphorism that exists because we collectively have made it more profitable for them to choose infotainment over information, titillation over information, Anna Nicole Smith over a child living in Iraq.

We have chosen to be ill-informed. We have chosen to be apathetic. We have chosen to care more about cheating at Daytona than about cheating in the nation's capital. And, in making those choices, we have cast in real doubt our ability to keep the Republic.