It isn't the Middle Ages in Europe, true, but the current monarchs are also not Medieval monarchs.  We no longer have "off with their heads", local uprisings caused by the king bedding a duke's wife and, most importantly, no more bloody dynastic wars.

(And the English had already tried a "French-style solution" over a century before the French)

renatohm said:

since it's very likely that the Queen will be replaced by a King, will the anthem change to reflect that?

National Anthem of the British Empire (1901-1952) - "God Save the King"

stancrist said:

I find it somewhat humorous (and more than a bit odd) that there are modern, western countries which still have a queen or king.  After all, it's the 21st century, not medieval times. The idea that a few individuals are entitled to national wealth, power, and prestige, not because they did anything to earn it, but due solely to who their parents were, is mindboggling.

It is difficult to justify the hereditary principle, although it seems to be observed to some degree even in republican countries (the Kennedys, Bushes and so on). What gives me pause is that the countries I most admire, and which score very highly in life satisfaction surveys, mostly have monarchies: Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

autogun said:

the countries I most admire, and which score very highly in life satisfaction surveys, mostly have monarchies: Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden

I do not think that it relates to being a monarchy, because Finland, IIRS, is also high on this list

In my opinion, it is mostly relevant to them being more concerned with their own well-being rather than playing in geopolitics. And being relatively small and more or less homogeneous nations also helps.

graylion said:

The German Anthem has been shortened for very obvious reasons.

The resons are not that obvious. Since the text of even the full anthem are rather tame compared to a lot of other national anthems.

Besides the title of the threat is: humour.

Its a pretty common joke in Germany that the German anthem has been shortened because the football players and politicians are notorious bad singers and can't even properly remember the text of the one verse they are supposed to sing.
 

stancrist said:

RovingPedant said: Since the other option is confiscating wealth to ensure everyone has to work up from the same starting position sounds a little communist.

Eh, wot??? That's absurd. There is no need to be communist.

Actually its not absurd. Quite the oposit.
It can be easily argued that its absurd for a society to award some person who did not paticipate in accumalating it, rights to material property of another person just because these two persons are somehow biological related. To argue for this it requires conciderable effort and has serious results for a society as a whole. For example equality immediatly goes out of the window.

Its a pretty intresting topic from a philosophical point of view.

mpopenker said:

I do not think that it relates to being a monarchy,

I agree.

mpopenker said:

In my opinion, it is mostly relevant to them being more concerned with their own well-being rather than playing in geopolitics.

I don't think this is a major factor.

mpopenker said:

And being relatively small and more or less homogeneous nations also helps.

Definetly.

Its also important to define life satisfaction. And look at the details. The people in the countries mentioned all have traditionally a rather relaxed and layed back attitude. Which helps a lot with being satisfied. Where this attitude comes from most likely is the answer to the question. Since this attitude and their view on life is not new but developed over long time there propably are only a few factors that emerged in the last decades that had any major influence.

stancrist said...

If they don't have "royal" titles, then they're not what I'm talking about (i.e., queens, kings, and "royal families").

I guess I don't make the distinction between a "royal" and rich to the point of being divided from most of the rest of the people.

stancrist said...

Eh, wot???  That's absurd.  There is no need to be communist. 

The other option to having a "royal" family is to not have one.

If you lump "royals" in with "rich to the point of being different"  then it's not such a leap.

stancrist said...

Perhaps.  But, it was certainly quite effective.  

To an extent. One could argue that the immediate effect in France and Russia was simply to put a different tyrant on the throne. 

stancrist said...

It's called "public relations" -- what else can they say to justify a lavish lifestyle and being paid many tens of millions of dollars every year, for no reason other than being members of one particular family.

 

Indeed, it works for them and others could consider doing the same - very few national leaders across the world were born paupers.

Brazilian anthem is quite long, and very few people know it all from memory, so we have a similar joke here

mpopenker said:

In my opinion, it is mostly relevant to them being more concerned with their own well-being rather than playing in geopolitics. And being relatively small and more or less homogeneous nations also helps.

I agree, Max. It does suggest that, if we could start from scratch, the ideal world would consist of a much larger number of  smaller countries. Big countries seem more likely to create various problems, for themselves as well as others. 

However, it does seem odd that so many (albeit not all) of the surviving monarchies seem to be small, relatively well-off and well-run.