I disagree. Don't people "become" aristocrats in the act of being knighted? Don't people lose their aristocratic status, say, as French or Russian aristocrats did after their revolutions or as, for instance, Prince Harry did when he stopped being a royal? Maybe we have different ideas of what aristocracy means?
I disagree. Don't people "become" aristocrats in the act of being knighted? Don't people lose their aristocratic status, say, as French or Russian aristocrats did after their revolutions or as, for instance, Prince Harry did when he stopped being a royal? Maybe we have different ideas of what aristocracy means?
Being knighted does not make you an aristocrat. Knighthood is simply a national order of merit (in Britain, which is what I assume you're referring to). Sir Keir Starmer or Sir David Attenborough are both knighted but are not aristocrats. Equally, you don't lose aristocratic status. Prince Harry is and will always be an aristocrat (royalty and aristocracy aren't the same thing, anyway). French and Russian aristocrats remained aristocrats (and the French aristocracy still has that status many years after hereditary aristocracy was formally abolished in France). Aristocracy is a form of inherited caste status. If you can gain it or lose then it is not aristocracy. I don't think that going to Yale has anything to do with aristocracy: just being a part of the elite in a completely non-aristocratic system. When I read your article I thought you were mistaking aristocracy for elite status and earning potential.
As you say, probably different ideas of what "aristocracy" means. I am reminded of that scene in the 2005 film The Aristocrats, about the dirty joke, where one of the performers notes that the joke only draws laughs in countries like the USA that do not actually have aristocracies. The point being that countries that have historically had power based on hereditary caste understand aristocracy not as a matter of merit or good breeding but rather as reflecting a sort of drone status.
I disagree. Don't people "become" aristocrats in the act of being knighted? Don't people lose their aristocratic status, say, as French or Russian aristocrats did after their revolutions or as, for instance, Prince Harry did when he stopped being a royal? Maybe we have different ideas of what aristocracy means?
Being knighted does not make you an aristocrat. Knighthood is simply a national order of merit (in Britain, which is what I assume you're referring to). Sir Keir Starmer or Sir David Attenborough are both knighted but are not aristocrats. Equally, you don't lose aristocratic status. Prince Harry is and will always be an aristocrat (royalty and aristocracy aren't the same thing, anyway). French and Russian aristocrats remained aristocrats (and the French aristocracy still has that status many years after hereditary aristocracy was formally abolished in France). Aristocracy is a form of inherited caste status. If you can gain it or lose then it is not aristocracy. I don't think that going to Yale has anything to do with aristocracy: just being a part of the elite in a completely non-aristocratic system. When I read your article I thought you were mistaking aristocracy for elite status and earning potential.
As you say, probably different ideas of what "aristocracy" means. I am reminded of that scene in the 2005 film The Aristocrats, about the dirty joke, where one of the performers notes that the joke only draws laughs in countries like the USA that do not actually have aristocracies. The point being that countries that have historically had power based on hereditary caste understand aristocracy not as a matter of merit or good breeding but rather as reflecting a sort of drone status.