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Christ the King

An Irish bull is a statement that is, strictly speaking, illogical and yet whose meaning is somehow clear. Yogi Berra, a baseball player of another generation, was famous for them, as when he said, “No one goes there anymore; it’s too crowded” and “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours” I actually once heard a speaker say, “Raise your hand if you can’t hear me.” They need not be comic, as in this statement attributed variously to Blaise Pascal and to Mark Twain: “I have written a long letter because I don’t have time to write a short one.” They can also be profound, as with John Henry Newman—“We change only in order to remain the same,”[1]—as with Saint Paul—“When I am weak, then I am strong,”[2]—and, sublimely, as with Our Lord—“ Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”[3] In contrast, a paradox is a perfectly logical statement that seems at first glance to be self-contradictory but, on closer examination, make a lot of sense. G.K. Chesterton had a genius for them, as in this statement from Orthodoxy: “A maniac is not a man who has lost his reason. A maniac is a man who has lost everything except his reason.” Paradoxically, he did not write his most famous one: “Everything worth doing is worth doing badly.” What he actually said was: “. . . writing one’s own love-letters or blowing one’s own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly.”[4] Well, I have a paradox, one that can lead us into a consideration of today’s feast, Christ the King: “An aristocracy is the highest form of democracy; a democracy is the highest form of aristocracy.”

The defining characteristic of an aristocracy is not, as the word suggests, governance by the best, but rather governance by the heir, as the new Duke of Norfolk is the oldest son of the dead Duke, and as Prince Charles, whatever his abilities and convictions, will succeed Queen Elizabeth should she ever die. An aristocratic society, therefore, is based on the principle that anybody can do anything. If you happen to be heir to the throne, you can be a worthy ruler. The same holds across society; if your father was a farmer or a shoemaker, you will be one too, and there’s no reason why you should not be a good one. Of course, people broke out of the rigid divisions that governed a society based on distinctions of class, but the expectation was that you would remain where you were born, and, as everyone was equal in native ability, he who was upper class could—or rather should—meet the obligations of his state, just as a merchant’s son or a seaman’s would be good at managing a business or sailing a boat. I call it democratic in the sense that everyone is essentially equal. Differences in class and occupation do not arise from greater or lesser ability, but merely from an accident of birth. Playwrights and novelists exploited or challenged the concept by creating a character, apparently low born, who was actually of the nobility, or passed off as such. Shakespeare used the device in, e.g., Cymbeline and A Winter’s Tale; Mark Twain, in The Prince and the Pauper; and Shaw, in Pygmalion (alias My Fair Lady) as did J.M. Barrie in The Admirable Crichton.

The obvious limitations of aristocracy have been amply displayed in history. Henry VIII, who became king at seventeen, abused the royal power by waging unprofitable wars, executing political opponents, and pillaging the Church. The bewildering fluctuations in policy and practice during the reigns his successors—Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth—demonstrate the weakness of vesting power in the heir, whoever he turns out to be. Having royal parents does not equip a man or woman to rule, any more than the children of artists or mathematicians are necessarily as talented as their parents were. Democracy, then, enters as a corrective to the evils of aristocracy. Ironically, it turns out to be “rule by the best,” i.e., a true ‘aristocracy’. For in a democracy, the best, the highly talented, rise to the top. Consider the Olympics, where only those who are citius, altius, fortius (faster, higher, stronger) make the team. Similarly, a symphony orchestra recruits the best players, with no concern for quotas or other forms of political correctness. Universities, in theory at least, hire the smartest and most highly educated, as voters are called upon to elect only wise and experienced candidates to parliament. Thus, the most gifted—or perhaps, the richest or the most cunning—succeed in a democracy.

Praise the Lord

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