“It was pitiful for a person born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and Church and nobility; as if they had any more occasion to love and honor king and Church and noble than a slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why, dear me, ANY kind of royalty, howsoever modified, ANY kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always figured as its aristocracies -- a company of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions...
The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.”
Hahahahaha. So true. Well said.
As a non-monarchist, I still think one should consider the countries that are monarchies and see how they measure up: Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Japan, and every member of the Commonwealth (including the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, etc).
Speaking of 'Aristocrats' ... Look in the mirror ...
Most US Congress members are now millionaires | The Verge
More than half of the members of US Congress are now millionaires. According to personal financial disclosure data filed last year and analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics, at least 268 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012. This marks the first time in history that the majority of the United States' lawmakers have fortunes totaling more than $1 million.
There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.
Oscar Wilde
Twain was a mentally unstable novelist who only in the dying years of his life did a transformation from being a wanton Imperialist to a vocal anti-Imperialist but his racism and his hatred of the native Indians hardly ever changed. Referring to black Americans using the N-word (in Hucks Finn) and calling the native Indians " the scum of the earth" (The Noble Red Man) are still etched on the public's memory. So his views on monarchy are based on the same limited and naturally biased knowledge that he had of the constitutional monarchies of Europe and particularly of Britain. The same limited understanding that resulted in the obvious shortcomings of his novel The Prince and The Pauper.
To Anglophile: With a name like that I certainly expected a better understanding of English language from you. What is the message of Huckleberry Finn? The struggles of a slave to gain his freedom and reunite with his relatives. Twain is the narrator of a story that was pretty common in deep south and mind you some 20 years prior to start of Civil War. Imagine how ridicules would have been if he referred to slaves as African Americans. I can only compare it to witnessing many interpretations of Cherry Orchard in the U.S. and Americans naiveté in understanding the wit and bitter humor of Chekhov’s story in the last days of Tsarism . One of the rare things that we Iranians can understand and relate to. And your vain effort to connect this piece of history somehow with Twain’s ideas of Monarchy is beyond contemplation. . Whether you and I like it or not, the Monarchy is outdated and a dying breed, Just take a look at the last 500 years in history. Recommended reading “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”
The problem with Iranian Republicans (AKA Jumhorikhah) are they can't seem to find a way of selling republicanism to omat islam, so they figured let's try to trash monarchism instead. This is like a sales person who can't sell his product but instead bad mouths competitors product!
Dear MRX, one day we will get over the hurdle of Islam but the fact remains that Monarchy didn't work for Romans, Greeks, Chinese, Russians and finally Iran. The form of monarchy in most of Europe is water downed version of what once used to be and even that will come to an end due to the fact that people don't wish to carry the burden of paying for bunch of lazy, good for nothing royal families.
Dear Kamal, may be the time is not on the side of monarchy.Although if one looks at all the progressive and modern states now and days good chunk of them are Monarchy and even in hell hole like Mideast, Monarchy based countries seem to do much better than the republican ones.
Again all I hear from Iranian leftits and so called Jumhorikhah are how bad monarchy is (Like a borken record!) so I challange them to start selling their republican as an oppose of bad mouthing the competition.
Hmm … I must have hit it where it hurts most to have caused such a cheap shot and personal attack by this blogger. What a pathetic response! My English is terrible but the blogger’s is even worse than mine as he clearly doesn’t understand that an Anglophile is not the same as an Anglophone!! Twian’s racism is not my invention as some of the most acclaimed American and British literary critics testify to it. The blogger needs to be much more erudite before quoting from the people he knows nothing about. How Twain’s racism is related to the subject at hand? Read about his ardent support for American Imperialism, before the turn of the century, when he supported American imperialist interests in Hawaii. Not to mention his hatred for the red Indians (The Noble Red Man), all rooted in his upbringing in his slave-owning family. Blogger’s silence of these issues is quite amusing. So a mentally inconsistent Twain who once believed the Spanish war was the worthiest of wars is the last person to comment on the merits of Monarchy.
Generally speaking, Americans from their finest minds to their typical Joe Blow are the worst people to evaluate monarchy. By culture and by nature they are anti-monarchist and have no clue about the success of monarchical system in Europe and certain Asian countries. Americans, in general, evaluating monarchism is akin to the Nazis assessing Judaism. But worse than Americans are the clueless Iranians who blindly parrot their American idols without knowing anything about the history and background of the subject. In the words of Darius Kadivar: they are “bee hoviiat”! As there is no point in continuing this debate let me conclude by quoting from no other than Twain himself (LOL) :
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
Tata!
Hahaha, Look at all the insult that came my way by just questioning your pen name. I have to admit that your ignorance of this subject it very amusing to me and makes it pretty obvious that you have not read anything by this fine author. I cannot help but chuckle a muted laughter whenever I see your chosen pen name. It reminds me of the bald guy who insisted to be called “zolf Ali” :). The problem with internet and Wikipedia in particular is that it has made an expert out of every creature who can put a few sentences together and half coherently copy and paste it in a form of an opinion without bothering to at least read just one book in its entirety by an author who is universally accepted as the greatest American writer in history. Well let me enlighten you my dear by pointing to a few things that you missed in your haphazard “research”
How did Huckleberry Finn End? Huckleberry believed in his heart that not turning the only Nigger of an old widow, will have his soul burn in hell forever and ever. He had many an opportunity to turn him in, but found and excuse not to do so, untill the day came that he could not conjure up an excuse and cried out: I'll have my soul burned in Hell, but I won't turn in Nigger Jim! Now, Should Mark Twain have said: I won't turn this African American slave in....? What nonsense. It would take away the whole soulful beauty of this story. Furthermore, Mark Twain learned to speak Abonic. He wrote another book named “Pudd'nhead Wilson”, in which he also showed his sympathy for colored people. Even in his book "life on the Mississippi", which is also a semi biography he writes of hiding a slave woman.
Now Regarding the Indians. In his book "Roughing it", he writes about how the Government (it was in Utah and those days, Nevada was separated by force from Utah so it could be a new State, since silver mines were found there in abundance.) Massacred all people on a train and shoved the responsibility on the Indians. Only small children were left to be alive, as it was the custom of the indians, since they would take them in and make Indians out of them. However, somehow these children ended up being raised by Mormons!!! He exposed the cruelty of the Government towards the Indians very clearly. However, it took quite a while for this truth to be acknowledged by anyone else. Even when he was in St. Francisco as a journalist he wrote: Only the uneducated people dislike the chinese, while the educated ones honor them greatly.
Now, pray tell me, what made Mark Twain bother himself with learning Ebonic? What made him expose the unjust cruelty toward the Blacks? And, again, please go ahead and change the name "Nigger" to a politically correct name of today and then repeat Huckleberry's sentence at the end: ... I'll have my soul burn in Hell, but I will not turn in Negger Jim". That little boy learned to listen to the love that we all have in our hearts and although still believing that he is committing a sin on the greatest scale, obeyed to the whispers of his heart. You may want to do yourself a favor by clicking on below link to learn something about this great man: A True Story, Word for Word as I Heard It
A True Story, Word for Word as I Heard It
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I am not even going to get into the Prince and the Pauper, I have better things to do with my time than enlightening people who want to become notorious by writing ignorantly. I have sent you enough proof to hopefully benefit in the future by the beauty, humor, elegance, cleverness... wrapped into an astonishing ability of Literary writing... produced by Mark Twain whose understanding of humanity still astonishes me However, I sincerely doubt that a person who has such talent for ignorance and obviously even relishes in it (not to mention takes pride in it), will be so easily convinced to have a change of mind. After all, those people who were preachers and missionaries that tried to convert people to their belief by mentioning exactly when was Armagedon to come, suddenly tried even harder to convince people of their faith when Armageddon did not come as they had predicted. Our brain, has a strange tendency to hang on to its follies, and should it be presented with facts that refute its foley, tries to keep shop as always, by being even more zealous about its ignorant follies (Naturally, in a silly hope to preserve them) You see, once our brain learns to keep shop in a certain way, it just hates to change and insists on keeping shop as usual. We all fall prey to it, but that does not mean we can not make changes. I leave you with this article written in Guardian in the hope that at least makes you to think a bit before start typing. Good luck.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jan/05/censoring-mark-twain-n-word-unacceptable