Thursday, July 17, 2014

Monarchist Utopia?

What, exactly, do monarchists want, if we could have our way with the world? I set out one proposal for Europe here. But my friend Charles Coulombe has sketched out an even more ambitious agenda, from his robustly Catholic perspective, in "The Perfect Versus the Good." While I cannot agree with every point of his article, it's certainly an appealing read, and when it comes to the present Spanish monarchy I fully endorse his warnings against making the perfect the enemy of the good. I'm less willing to apply his logic to participation in U.S. politics and U.S. patriotism, because I'm unable to see those things as "Good" at all.

4 comments:

Aaron Traas said...

Interesting read. I'd say that Charles' ideal is a bit too far even for my taste. I see no need, for example, for Alaska and Louisiana to be returned to Russia and France -- their monarchs sold them, after all. But I think we'd both agree that Charles' utoptia is a better world than we have today.

August said...

I'd have the pope toddle off to an old folks home, empty the Vatican of cardinals, and ban the filoque. The new pope would be first and foremost the bishop of Rome and the eastern Orthodox might actually reunite with us under these conditions. The Papal States would be suicidal; has he not noticed the unpleasantness cause by the Pope playing strategic games in Europe?

Then there is the dire need for any would be aristocrats to understand Austrian economics, so as not to make the stupid mistakes so many did during the industrial age.

There is no utopia. I assume there is probably a need for a segue, though. Many people think voting is practically a sacrament; there has to be a plan, probably multi-generational, to move the people away from thinking like that.

Laetitio said...
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Laetitio said...

To be fair, no monarchy has ever SOLD Louisiana to anyone. France ceded it to Spain in 1762, and Spain retroceded it to the French Republic (under duress) in 1803. So, technically, our last monarch was Carlos IV.

Now, Napoleon DID sell it to America that same year, but that was a year before he crowned himself Emperor.