Full Circle

One of the privileges of being an American is that we reject the very idea of privilege. Or at least, we claim to. By this I mean that the idea of inherited privilege is anathema to our creed; the very idea of kingship repulses us. At least, it used to.

I wonder what our founders would make of millions of Americans obsessively and compulsively being drawn to the spectacle of a royal wedding. In England, no less. Of course, since fewer than half of Americans know that we fought our revolution against England, I suppose the point is moot.

Our revolution was a revolt against they very pompery and human-worship that so many of us were drawn to this week. But over the course of a quarter-millennium, it seems, we have been drawn into the same lust of mindless and elitist celebrity worship that our ancestors were so desperate to escape.

There are many reasons for this. Historic ignorance and amnesia doesn't help. Neither does television. But at the roots of this charade are two awful truths.

The first truth is that the Americans who are drawn to this spectacle apparently give no thought to why this nice young man (and I have no reason to doubt that the prince is a nice young man) is so wealthy.

Where did his family get its money? Well, slavery, slaughter, burnings-at-the-stake, and conquest in general, to give just a few examples. And while the current prince can not be blamed for the actions of his ancestors, we can be blamed for worshiping the family, power, office, and idea that this nice young man now represents.

The second truth is that our nation has mutated into a state in which the power of the president is something that kings of old would have lusted after mightily. In fact, tragically enough, the office of the American president today is far more powerful than the office of the prince and prime minister of England combined.

And perhaps our tawdry love affair with authoritarianism, which is obvious to everyone but ourselves, has subliminally conditioned many of us to be perfectly comfortable worshiping a man rather than an idea.

As an historian, I would like to think that I studiously avoid the pitfalls of idealizing the past. And while I may not have wanted to live earlier in the history of our nation, I do firmly believe that the consciousness of the citizens in those days was in some ways preferable to ours.

It is impossible to conceive millions of Americans 100 years ago obsessing over the details of the prince of England's marriage. It seems that as time passes, Americans show themselves to be just as prone to cattle mentality as anyone else. Great danger lies in our refusal to admit this fact.

It was said during World War II that if we lost, "we'd all be speaking German". And if we'd lost the American Revolution, we'd all be speaking the King's English. Turns out we are anyway.