Re aristocracies.
He points out, quite correctly, that we have now had two for some time. I agree with that.
One has to qualify the term aristocracy, however, and acknowledge that the country was founded on repudiating them.
What he calls aristocracies are not the aristocracies of old. Not at all.
I know that some historians, perhaps DK, see our constitution as a species of continued aristocracy, but without the old formalities.
I tend to disagree with that interpretation, for a variety of reasons.
Another issue that lurks here is that there were perhaps always two faux aristocracies here, but they weren't called that at the time, and some among each would have bitterly repudiated the inference.
They orientation followed, to some extent, the old distinction between town and country.
No comments:
Post a Comment