Kings and peasants

I’ve a lot of friends who participate in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronisms.) Basically, they are Medieval reenactors. They have a good time. They dress up, eat and drink well, play Medieval music, shoot crossbows and have battles. A lot of old skills are kept alive because of them.

There is one thing that prevents me from joining: royalty. They take their Medieval society stuff seriously enough to have kings, queens, and all the rest. I’ve a dislike of royalty that goes all way down to my DNA. It’s so bad that even phony pretend royalty, all in fun, triggers an aversion response.

One can imagine my distaste for real royalty is much greater. It’s one thing if a country like England wants to keep pet royalty, but why should other peoples care? When Americans fawn over visiting royals, it turns my stomach. Didn’t we have a revolution to do away with such foolishness?

Of course, I dislike anyone who claims authority over me. Yep, I’ve got a real problem. Maybe it’s never outgrowing my teenage rebellious years? I actually wasn’t all that much trouble as a kid. My folks and I got along well, as I respected them. Some teachers had problems with me, but I still got decent grades.

As an adult I was a Firefighter. My commanding officers had earned my respect so following their orders only made sense. I trusted them. What about the occasional officer who didn’t have my full trust? Frankly, then it was a matter of picking and choosing what commands to obey. How could that happen? Any number of ways. Let’s just say in the chaos of a fire, all commands are not followed. Sometimes the radios just go dead. It helps if your buddies back you up.

Government officials, both elected and unelected, don’t automatically get any respect. I judge them as individuals. Titles and badges carry little weight. Kings and royalty, are the worse. We are supposed to respect them because of an accident of birth? At least some titles are earned and have qualifications. Being born in an ancient band of thugs who crawled to the top of the heap should be an embarrassment. There are a few “royals” who’ve made a mark in the world, not because of their birth, but in spite of it.

My aversion to royalty has plenty of logical reasons, but there are enough of those. Who knows, maybe I got caught poaching on the king’s land in a former life.

-Sixbears