We've abandoned the concept of hereditary titles, that is, the concept that you're born into a social rank and are given special consideration or respect without doing anything other than being born to the right parents.
However, the idea of an impressive sounding title is kind of nice, so give them to everybody. Now hold your bones! Of course you're thinking "If everybody has them they're worthless." and of course you'd be right. So here's what makes them special: You can lose your title. Criminals, people who don't take care of their kids, people who chose to sponge off of welfare when they're perfectly healthy and capable of work but just chose not to get stripped of their rank just get called Mr and Ms. And if the reason you were stripped of your title was minor, an error of youth for instance, the title can be earned back with service to the community or otherwise showing worthiness.
I think the most noble thing a person can do is to mind their own business, work hard, take care of their family and pay their taxes. I have much more respect for a person like that than some spoiled debutante that never worked a day in their life. I think it would be great to have the unsung heroes of society, those who do the work and take care of their families and communities be celebrated by their very title. Every time their name is mentioned, they get a little tip of the hat from society.
Give kids a message: "You are precious aristocracy if you do the right things with your life, but you can lose it if you don't."
Plus it kind of gives an f-you to the current "nobility", a group that doesn't much impress me.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 27 2016 Highland Titles https://loveandgarb...and-titles-selling/Well baked in Scotland. [pocmloc, Jan 27 2016] an article by GeneralWashington http://harpers.org/...le-cast-of-thought/ [calum, Jan 28 2016] // Plus it kind of gives an f-you to the current "nobility", a group that doesn't much impress me. //
Your opinion may be forcibly revised when the Buchanan tribe hear about your views ....-- 8th of 7, Jan 27 2016 Gee, I'm really afraid of loyalists supporters of the king and the aristocracy.
Said no American ever. ;)-- doctorremulac3, Jan 27 2016 Well, perhaps Wallis Simpson...-- RayfordSteele, Jan 27 2016 Ah! For the 'landed gentry' when the land is 1/4 acre?-- Steamboat, Jan 27 2016 //Your opinion may be forcibly revised when the Buchanan tribe hear about your views //
Au contraire. We are frequently appalled by the behaviour of some of our titled acquaintances. Only last week, we discovered that Lady Clundaugh has been involved with sheep _again_. Our bloody sheep, mind you! I just knew that we shouldn't have moved next to her back in the 1400's. It's people like her who give Earls a bad name.
And, for the record, we haven't been a recognized //tribe// since some time back in the 700's.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2016 What's so noble about working hard?-- pocmloc, Jan 27 2016 Also, I didn't realised you'd only lived there since the 1400s. "nouveaux riche" then?-- pocmloc, Jan 27 2016 I wonder if the etymology of 'nobility' originated as a shortened form of 'no ability...'-- RayfordSteele, Jan 27 2016 LOL. Very clever.
My only link to the "no-ability" class from the old country is William Wallace who I'm supposedly related to somehow. I mention this full knowing it sounds like bragging but I was told since I was a kid about the Wallace clan that we come from and its illustrious main man. When the movie was announced it was like "Hey, they're making a movie about Uncle Bill!". Suddenly the brand name went up in value, deserved or not.
Anyway, he wasn't exactly a peasant like the movie would have you believe so that's about as close to a title as I come, which is not even remotely close at all. In fact, my cousin traveled to Scotland to research our relationship and all he found was some documentation from our area about the relative that was some relation to William that said "He had many children". Not exactly definitive.
Anyway, the main point of pride my dad and uncles shared with me wasn't that we were related to some historical figure, it was that Scotsmen were great engineers.
//What's so noble about working hard?//
Hard work elevated man from an ignorant animal shivering in the dark, living and dying at the whim of nature to what he is now. The summit of creation itself, setting foot on the moon and beyond. Man, through his efforts may be the ultimate achievement of the Universe, the first spark of intellect in a cold dead cosmos.
You don't get that by sitting around eating government cheese.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 27 2016 //you'd only lived there since the 1400s. "nouveaux riche" then?// Not really; but in the 1400s we decided to downsize. East Anglia was a bit of a tight squeeze, but it's worked out well.
//What's so noble about working hard?// Hear hear!-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2016 //Hard work elevated man bla bla bla.....//
Eh, who am I kidding? Work sucks.
Re: link to titles for sale: //“Buy land in Scotland & you may style yourself as Lord or Lady of Glencoe! From £29.99.”//
I'll grant any man or woman the title of "Undisputed Grand Imperial Ruler Of The Universe" for less than half that. For only £9.99, you will receive a link to a handsome certificate that may be printed and framed. Ignore traffic laws, slap people for looking at you funny, do whatever you want! You're Ruler of the Universe!"*
*Slapping people or running traffic lights is not recommended. Shipping extra. All sales are final.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 27 2016 //Hard work elevated man//
No no no. Hard work kept man fed. What elevated him (and her) was a series of inspired ideas by people who were either rich enough to lounge around thinking, or who worked flat out because they were driven - in which case it wasn't hard.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2016 With all human achievement hard work is involved. Somebody had to empty Aristotle's shit bucket.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 27 2016 Yep, and I bet it wasn't Aristotle.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2016 Nobility: people who marry their distant cousins...-- RayfordSteele, Jan 27 2016 I'm not being sarcastic Ray, if you made up: "Nobility = no- ability" that really is very brilliant. I know I bust balls but I also know to give praise when praise is due.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 27 2016 I wonder what's going to happen to estate taxes as meaningful youth treatments become available within 20 years or so.-- theircompetitor, Jan 27 2016 I knew you weren't being sarcastic. I didn't think it was that great...
I'm distantly related to crazy Mary Todd Lincoln.
And it seems we're all related to Charlemagne.-- RayfordSteele, Jan 27 2016 //I wonder what's going to happen to estate taxes as meaningful youth treatments become available within 20 years or so//
I assume you're referring to the "Aging cured in ten years" article that's out there.
A drug that "cures death?" I smell a zombie apocalypse. "Warning: Eternalife may cause some zombification in certain patients."-- doctorremulac3, Jan 27 2016 Not me, more likely Genghis Khan. And possibly King David :)
Actually funny enough I did the 23andme thing some years ago and did get some pretty bizarre surprises.
Yes, said article but I had assumed it's coming soon regardless. SF usually trades those treatments for infertility, but how would you enforce that? Genes are just information. So even the typical distopian "only the very rich can get it" is not really possible.
I suspect Elon better hurry up with his spaceships-- theircompetitor, Jan 27 2016 //I wonder what's going to happen to estate taxes as meaningful youth treatments become available within 20 years or so//
Well, you'll be stuck with the same bunch of useless mouth-breathing dolts as politicians forever.
We predict a significant rise in the number of assassinations.-- 8th of 7, Jan 28 2016 //estate taxes// that's easy. Annualise them, rather than rolling them over until death.-- pocmloc, Jan 28 2016 This idea is a neat encapsulation of the American attitude to the social structures of Old Europe: proclaimed disdain coupled with a desire to recapitulate those structures. In this, the American attitude is akin to that of the surly, spiky teenager who left home in a righteous huff, sure in his knowledge of the world and of his parents' folly, but now finds life more complicated and yearns, from his cold room above a kebab shop, for a return to the flawed but comforting certainties of Home, but is so crippled by shame of admitting error, of having to confess that his rigid internalised view of The World was utterly jejune, that he will not, cannot go back. Not to that. Not to their love and their forgiveness. His parents, meanwhile, do their best to ignore the reports from semi-well-meaning friends of their son's progress ("he's actually working in the kebab shop yes oh dear what would his grandmother say and after you spent so much money on his schooling") and instead drowning their failure-guilt in a lake of fine French wines, Gevrey-Chambertin, Sancerre, oh dash it why not just open that beaujolais nouveau?-- calum, Jan 28 2016 //'no ability...'//
Actually, "nobility" is closely related etymologically to "knowability". That is to say, nobility and celebrity are kinda cognate, and one of the great regressive movements of the twentieth century was the restoration of nobility in the form of celebrity.
Carry on...-- pertinax, Jan 28 2016 + Kind of sensible Sir Doctor!-- xandram, Jan 28 2016 Baked, sort of. The man who invented the safety razor blade was named King Camp Gillette.-- hippo, Jan 28 2016 And the King of Beers. No wait, what?
As a slight but related aside, speaking of nobility and how one treats people culturally and how language influences it, I recall when I first was studying English, the emphasis on "you" being the equivalent of the Russian "you" which is both plural and the proper way to address those that you're not familiar with, as opposed to "thee", which (in Russian) is how you greet those you know well, and how strange it was.
By contrast, there is no way to call someone "you" in Hebrew, there's only a "thee", everyone's always on the same footing of familiarity and disrespect :)-- theircompetitor, Jan 28 2016 //+ Kind of sensible Sir Doctor!//
Thank you Lady Xan.
//Baked, sort of. The man who invented the safety razor blade was named King Camp Gillette.//
Plus we've got Duke Ellington, Prince and Lady Gaga.
Wow Calum, that was actually kind of emotional and poetic. I think there's some writing talent in there.
TC, so I'm some languages the pronoun that you address somebody as changes as your relationship changes? I'm not sure I'm grasping the concept. Is that like calling somebody "Bro" instead of "Sir"? I only speak one language and I'm embarrassed when somebody I know well runs into somebody from another country and starts a long conversation in their language, especially when they start laughing and connecting. I just sort of sit there like a big dummy. If I were to learn another language it might be the one that has the most word concepts that english doesn't cover. Like German's "schadenfreude".-- doctorremulac3, Jan 28 2016 When I was taking Russian, as my Russian prof told me that the language was a bit awkward with the concept of ownership with the whole 'by me there is transliteration of 'oo menya yest,' if they had a phrase that was equivalent to 'I totally owned that race.'
Doc, [calum] is arguably our most talented writer. I've seen some of his work.-- RayfordSteele, Jan 28 2016 That true C? Do you have other stuff online that we can see?-- doctorremulac3, Jan 28 2016 //concept of ownership// maybe that's why they went for collectivism :)
Yes, possessive attributions in Russian are something akin to proper English spelling for those accustomed to phonetic spelling, nearly incomprehensible-- theircompetitor, Jan 28 2016 Dr effectively like sir. In aristocratic homes, e.g. War and peace, you might say you to your parents or even husband or wife, thee to your kid or bar buddy
[Jutta] ok submit button dissapears on large annos on mobile chrome-- theircompetitor, Jan 28 2016 Thanks folks for the entirely unwarranted compliments - I'll take them, still. I can confirm that I am not the halfbakery's most talented writer: that honour imo goes to GeneralWashington, who wrote The Exchange Rate Between Love & Money, an actual novel which is actually good. I say this having not read pertinax's book, which might be better.
My internet writings are lost now to the collapse of various ill-starred social networks.-- calum, Jan 28 2016 //My internet writings are lost now to the collapse of various ill-starred social networks// - correlation does not imply causation, but sometimes it does.-- hippo, Jan 29 2016 How about "Citizen"?-- smendler, Jan 29 2016 That would be the lowest rank before "prisoner". We can dispense with "comrade" all together.
So here's what I learned about peerage rankings. From top to bottom they are:
Duke
Marquess
Earl
Viscount
Baron
Life Peer - an appointed peerage program that started in 1958
Baronetage
Knightage
I'm still looking for the job descriptions and resume skill requirements to get these titles. Wasn't mentioned on the page I was looking at so further research is required.
Then you've got the citizens that aren't as good as all the people above. They're just called taxpayers. Their job in life is threefold:
1- Pay taxes, 2- Fuck off, 3- Die.
Anyway, not sure how you'd adopt these various titles to the proposed idea. Still a work in progress.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 29 2016 I once filled out an online form, and it asked for my title, but instead of a text input there was a drop down box. Whoever designed the form must have been exceedingly bored, or taking the piss, as they had listed every possible title, including King, and right at the bottom was Emperor. I can't remember what I actually selected.-- mitxela, Jan 29 2016 If it had a dropdown for "Imperial Wizard" or "Grand Dragon" I'd suggest not joining whatever club offered those options.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 29 2016 //I'm still looking for the job descriptions and resume skill requirements to get these titles//
While you're at it, you should also check out the associated salaries, many of which are between zero and zero.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 29 2016 I remember viscount - the green foil was especially exciting to a young boy!-- pocmloc, Jan 29 2016 Has anyone mentioned the obvious?
God of _____
Goddess of _______-- blissmiss, Jan 29 2016 Might be a pretty challenging title to live up to.
//With all human achievement hard work is involved. Somebody had to empty Aristotle's shit bucket.//
//Yep, and I bet it wasn't Aristotle.//
Remember, "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
John W. Gardner (some guy)-- doctorremulac3, Jan 29 2016 I don't want to be god "of" something. That sounds a bit second-rate.-- pocmloc, Jan 29 2016 All philosophy is shoddy. At best, it's an amusing diversion for those who do it. And don't go telling me that "philosophy" used to be synonymous with "science" - that was a few centuries ago.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 29 2016 //All philosophy is shoddy.//
There's truth to that but I'd be more inclined to say all philosophers are shoddy.
Invoking plumbers vs philosophers might sound silly at first until you consider how many people philosophers have killed and how many lives plumbers (including anybody who's engaged in keeping our drinking water separated from out toilet water) have saved.
I don't know if it's safe to say plumbers have saved more lives that doctors but it's certainly safe to say they've done more for civilization than philosophers.
Philosophers just get better press. Plus you've never heard of "philosopher's crack", togas not being prone to that particular clothing malfunction.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 29 2016 //philosopher's crack//
Isn't that known as cannibis?-- RayfordSteele, Jan 29 2016 I know it can certainly turn some into instant philosophers.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 29 2016 random, halfbakery