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[ChairmanPoo]

I'm very skeptical about the supposed impartiality and freedom from influences of monarchs. I'm basing myself on what I've seen the Spanish royals do and extrapolating to monarchies in general. I will respectfully avoid to comment on the British royal family because they're not my top priority and because  I have  respect for seniors who are venerable yet active (AKA while I'm not impressed by royalty titles, Elizabeth's longevity and social position do impress me a lot; seriously, I think a table talk with all the venerables in politics eg Jimmy Carter, Elizabeth, etc... would be something great to sit in.  It'd have been even better 3 years ago with Castro and Bush Sr sitting in)

In all honesty I find monarchies unacceptable because it means that there is a family that is legally better than you just for being born, that their children will have their life sorted while you and yours scramble by, just by virtue of their surname, that will take positions of power just because of that surname. And it won't be a de facto matter (eg: as with a standard multimillionaire). No, with these guys it's a de jure matter, they're better than you in the eyes of the state. I find this intollerable.

[scriver]

I wouldn't mind returning to an elective monarchy, with a new king being elected every 4-5 years.

[Teneb]

I wouldn't mind returning to an elective monarchy, with a new king being elected every 4-5 years.

So... a presidential republic?

[TD1]

I vote for Bran the Broken.

[scriver]

I wouldn't mind returning to an elective monarchy, with a new king being elected every 4-5 years.

So... a presidential republic?

No, an elective monarchy. I just said that!

[Loud Whispers]

Who said you can only have one home?

Some countries make it a particular point that you can't, UK is not one of them

Just because your current house is your home doesn't mean the house you grew up in stops being your home after all. Just ask the Good Friday Agreement: Being British doesn't stop you also being Irish. Define British then. But if any part of the definition can be removed in a person without them stopping being British, then it isn't a part of the definition.

I use the word problematic unironically here because British & Irish identity is beyond my ability to parse. Once separate, once the same, once overlapping and once irreconcilable, today I've known many people from ROI or NI for whom it was one or the other, or both. A lot of times, not by choice. It's especially insufficient to measure "home" in simple, personal terms, when the claims of identity are passed from one generation to another. Like a 3rd gen Briton being welcomed as a native to the home of their grandparents in a country they've never seen before. The consequences can be rather dire, if you look at wars where people are still fighting to this day to retake homes neither lived in - but their parents, or their parents, did.

And who said we need to replace the Royal Family with a Presidency and explicitly written constitution?

It was a safe assumption that you were not suggesting replacing the Royal Family with another Family, while the abolishment of a constitutional monarchy will lend itself to immediate concerns regarding the constitutional changes involved.

They don't *use* the power of veto anyway, and if they ever did they'd be chucked out, so why *give* a veto power to anyone when we already have the House of Lords fulfilling that purpose? A big problem America has with their presidency is they gave powers the royalty had already stopped using to a person in a position they actually let use them.

Because they are not the head of government, they are the head of state. It is not their role to exercise functions of government.

And the desire to artificially preserve 'traditions' and 'heritage' is also very easily exploited, I'd argue more easily and commonly exploited and to greater devastation than anything else in human history, and that this is something to beware of.

What do you think a natural preservation of tradition or heritage is? Passing knowledge from one generation is an active effort from one to the next. Mother nature can give us natural heritage in genetics but all else is up to us. The endeavour is human artifice through and through

I'm not arguing to go around burning down all tradition for the sake of it, but that their comes a point where they should be allowed to adapt or die with grace. When you are explicitly trying to 'preserve' them or stop them from changing or dying then all you're really going to achieve is a bastardization of them that risks coming at the cost of harming others. It's cultural eugenics, with the things implied by the word eugenics being fully intended. Traditions die, it's a part of their nature as memes, and that is good. Trying to mandate or apply explicit and conscious pressure to prevent that death is a dangerous road to walk.

Allowing it to die is just simple erasure and deletion, bastardization of the tradition IS the adaptation you are praising - it's cultural evolution. Just letting everything die because you'd rather not preserve tradition will result in your society being a cultural dead-end. Doing nothing and teaching nothing will always require less energy than preserving tradition, and even with the intention to keep traditions exactly the same, it is impossible. Even the most fundamentalist Sunni or Catholic sect will not resemble the faith it was even 10 years ago.

*EDIT

Traditions die, it's a part of their nature as memes, and that is good. Trying to mandate or apply explicit and conscious pressure to prevent that death is a dangerous road to walk.

Traditions die when people stop caring, or are unable to preserve it. Death, imperialism, globalisation, exhaustion and ignorance have all had their toll on the loss of traditions. It's not a good thing, it's just a loss of human memory. We're unable to do anything with loss, any more than we can discuss the ancient traditions of Sumer's parents

[MorleyDev]

Except in all countries with them, Heads of State have roles they perform, even when the Head of State is elected and separate from Government.

The veto is performed by the US President as a Head of State, not Head of Government (though they are that too). That whole process comes from the veto the monarch has as Head of State. Ours does have such a veto in law, and they just don't ever use it and practically can't do so anyway. That's just daft. So whilst Royal Ascent is required for something to enter law, it's always granted in such a way as that step could be removed entirely with literally bugger all practically changing. When a hydraulic press with a rubber stamp could serve the exact same function as you, you're role is pretty darn pointless.

Traditions exist because they get past down as part of social contract, sure. But what I call artificially preserving them is when people go out of their way to ensure or pressure people to pass or preserve a tradition. It's saying people should be preserving them as a moral act, and to not do so is therefore immoral. That there's an obligation to do so that people must fulfill. Instead of just allowing it to get passed down, changed, or weaned out as the natural result of social osmosis as the world continues to change. And that I object to, and is what I refer to as artificially preserving a tradition.

Just being a tradition by itself doesn't make it worthy of artificial preservation. Documentation? Sure, I'm all for that. It's a sad thing that their are stories and myths that we will never know because everyone who knew them is dead. And it's great when we get to record them before they die. It's also what I think about dead or practically dead languages: documenting them so they can never be forgotten as historical fact and future reference is a worthy endevour; but going out of your way to teach children them just so that people who aren't interested in studying the language keep speaking it for the sake of keeping it alive is pointless.

[TD1]

I don't know many traditions which are preserved through pure force. It is like trying to stem the tide of language change - build all the dams you want, the river will flow onwards.

The royal family is not artificially imposed as a tradition -

While the majority of people in all age groups support Britain having a monarchy, the older Britons are the higher this level of support gets: 57% of 18-24 year olds are monarchists, a figure which rises to 77% among those aged 55 or older. While men and women overwhelmingly support Britain having a monarchy (67% and 70% respectively), men (25%) are more likely than women (17%) to oppose it.

If these statistics were inverted, the royal family might stagger on for a generation. But two? Three? No chance. The river will not be dammed; nor will its course be dictated.

[Kagus]

"We do not climb upwards to grasp at Ladder Banana, young one."

"But why not, O elder?"

"Because we don't, dipshit."

[MorleyDev]

Which is why I've said that whilst I think we don't need them or that they serve a purpose anymore, I'm not called for the breaking down the doors. I may have misunderstood, but I've been treating the discussion as to "the nature of tradition as a whole" and "the monarchy" as happening side by side instead of as a single topic.

I don't bother to preserve what is in me a dead tradition I hold no value in, and for me the idea of investing value in the monarchy is such. I'm not going around telling people to kill their love for the monarchy or whatever, just don't expect me to hold the same reverence for them just because I'm British so I apparently have to, nor should I need to pretend that I don't think they shouldn't be kept around just because other people want them around. And that shouldn't make me any less British

[TD1]

*Shrug*

That which is dead may never die, then. You call it a dead tradition. I call it a changing one. As, to use the royal family as but one in an infinite-seeming list of examples, the traditions change with the times. The only worry I have about traditions of the non-stabby kind is when the linkage to the past is broken and people became apathetic about tradition itself. Once tradition (singular) or tradition (national) is severed, it does not evolve - that is a dead tradition.

[MorleyDev]

By dead in that post I meant "dead in me", instead of "dead in general". Sorry, edited to make that more clear.

New traditions are also born though from the mutation and death of old ones. Heck, Welsh only doesn't use a k in it's written language because of printing press limitations. Their are whole fast food businesses built on food that was invented by immigrants trying to create traditional dishes with regional ingredients. Battered Fish and Chips (Jewish immigrants from Spain and Portugal), Tikka Masala...both are 'British', both came from immigrants to the UK trying to make something from their culture with the ingredients of this region.

It's why I'm not too fussed about multiculturalism or the idea of cultures mixing. You don't get a lack of respect for traditions, you get totally new traditions for people to experience with the history of both cultures. Social osmosis going both ways.

[TD1]

Yes, though there comes a point where "social osmosis" replaces the host tradition. But in so far as it becomes part of the existing tradition, rather than replacing it, that's all part and parcel of the tradition itself evolving. New blood, a la Perrin and Faile.

[MorleyDev]

Yes, though there comes a point where "social osmosis" replaces the host tradition.

I guess I just don't see why that is a problem? A new strain supplanting an old one over time whilst taking on traits from both host and external. I don't think you'll get an external performing a complete replacement without a merging with the host to produce a synthesis (barring extreme situations like military invasions and forceful genocidal conversions, but that would be another form of Cultural Eugenics so very artificial), and I'm pretty sure that process is how the current lot was arrived at in the first place, so why mourn that it won't stop there?

The spirit of the history is preserved in the new synthesis, and nowadays we can document the literal history of the priors.

[TD1]

Because it's like the child killing its parent to be born. Certainly we don't begrudge the child its existence - it's quite nice! - but would you then want that child (for the sake of metaphor, a girl) to die in childbirth when it comes her time?

Our tradition influences our values and our perception of self. It makes me who I am. I would rather the world not lose that viewpoint simply for the sake of synthesis.