God Calls Me God

I've thought a lot about eliminating all forms of official rank. For Americans, the notion of titles is supposed to be anathema, or it shows a preoccupation with rank that marks you out as unranked.

But since the issue is not honours in the US, but in Britian, I can comfortably side with those who would keep them without compromising my American ambivalence about rank.

Further, I can ask the same question about rank as about gay marriage: whom is it hurting?

Since the same people supporting gay marriage tend to be the ones heading the charge contra honours, what value system are they upholding?

If they support liberty of choice in action, then why constrain the Queen? If they are strict eqalitarians, then why have an Upper House (Lords) at all? Hell, why not push for a workers' paradise?

Noting their inconsistancies does not, by itself, justify ranks. But a functioning system whose only flaw is that some people find it distasteful is not sufficient by itself either to warrant its removal. I find most racial beauty pageants distasteful. Others agree with me. So what?

Exactly.

In the current Labour governement, long promised civil service reforms are stalled, Oxbridge is suffering from myopia about their role in British (maybe even world) society, and crime in central London is probably as bad as any time since petticoats.

Are ranks the cause of such problems? Is their elimination the solution to any of them?

Comments?

Letter From Europe: Is Knighthood Ready for the Ax? How Unchivalrous!