Republic

If ever there was a sign of the times it must be this story. A group called Republic are questioning the legality of a school cooking competition related to the Queen's Jubilee. To my mind this story encapsulates everything that is wrong with our collective consciousness.

I had to learn more about Republic so I visited their website and read some Wikipedia . It turns out they may have as many as….14,000 members! That would mean approximately 0.02% of the British public support this organisation. This is quite ironic for an organisation decrying greater democracy. Yet through some crafty PR they have got themselves in the news for something so absurd it beggars belief.

It would seem that the members of Republic are suffering from something which can only be described as a 'sense of proportion’ failure. We are talking about a school cooking competition! But it seems that in the age of decadent entropy any random event is an open wagon for all sorts of absurd and irrelevant viewpoints to have their day in the sun.

My favourite quote from a member of the Republic website has to be this one;

“To think that our future Head Of State will get the job as a family hand me down makes me want to scream. I want our Head Of State to have a mandate of the people and a real job.

- Greg King”

Well Greg, if this is the most emotive issue in your life you have a serious problem. I recommend you stop screaming, go outside, see all the suffering that is real in the world and get a sense of proportion and start doing something meaningful with your time.

What next for Republic? A reminting of all British coins for the school tuck shop as they endorse the monarchy? A blanket ban on school trips to anything with 'royal' in the name? A ban on programmes mentioning the royalty before the watershed.

Is Britain better off without a monarchy? Frankly I quite like the bizarre British system of a gelded monarch with absolutely no real power but lots of stately positions of power which acts as a great safeguard against a real dictatorship. A dictator is something we have miraculously avoided during the lengthy era of constitutional monarchy. Remember people vote for dictators.

Plus the Royals bring in yankee dollars and sells mugs which is definitely worth the costs of the civil list.

What is the real motivation behind this highly unpopular movement?  Most of the prominent members of Republic are current or former labour MPs and most of the pleb member quotes seem to be rallies against inherited privilege rather than any innate repression suffered under the monarchy. I think Nietzsche described it as ‘ressentiment.’ Afterall this isn’t Swaziland.

"While the noble man lives in trust and openness with himself, the man of ressentiment is neither upright nor naive nor honest and straightforward with himself. His soul squints; his spirit loves hiding places, secret paths and back doors, everything covert entices him as his world, his security, his refreshment; he understands how to keep silent, how not to forget, how to wait, how to be provisionally self-deprecating and humble. A race of such men of ressentiment is bound to become eventually cleverer than any noble race; it will also honor cleverness to a far greater degree: namely, as a condition of existence of the first importance."

- Nietzsche "On the Genealogy of Morals"