Quakerly Baubles

[Rosalind Mitchell]

On the day on which we learned that Danny Boyle joins the likes of Ralph
Vaughan Williams, E M Forster, Doris Lessing, Aldous Huxley and David Bowie
in declining the offer of a mediaeval bauble, I am moved to wonder.

Quakers have long maintained a testimony against titles and honorifics. Yet
those fine upstanding Quaker physicists James Jeans, Arthur Eddington and
Jocelyn Burnell accepted the offer of katies while their equally illustrious
non-Quaker colleagues Paul Dirac and Stephen Hawking declined theirs. Is it
a case of "wear it as long as thou canst?"

Rosie

[simon gray]

On 29 December 2012 16:45, Rosalind Mitchell <walne...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Quakers have long maintained a testimony against titles and honorifics.  Yet
those fine upstanding Quaker physicists James Jeans, Arthur Eddington and
Jocelyn Burnell accepted the offer of katies while their equally illustrious
non-Quaker colleagues Paul Dirac and Stephen Hawking declined theirs. Is it
a case of "wear it as long as thou canst?"

i think this is an instance where rosie's view is more in keeping with mainstream quaker thought than my view is.

for what it's worth, i don't think there's anything wrong, unequal, or even unquakerly in principle of having some form of system whereby 'the state' (whether that's on the nomination of members of the public or by the Shadow CabalTM(TINC) can honour people in recognition of their contribution to the general wellbeing of society, and i don't think that's necessarily inconsistent to do it by means of giving them a medal and the right to add certain letters at either end of their names.

what i do think is worthy of a rethink is the current way of separating honours in to different degrees - i mean, how was it decided, what were the criteria whereby eg bradley wiggins was deemed to have made so much of a contribution that he got the full bag of being sired, whilst the boxing woman has to be content with merely being just a member of the british empire? indeed, how was it decided that the boxing woman - who nobody had heard of before and i think frankly most people had forgotten about between her medal and the news announced today, was worthy of being membered, whilst other british (para)lympic medalists didn't get anything?

i think a modern honours system would have just two levels - one level which gets you in to the legislature (ie, whatever might succeed the title 'lord' - and i do think the upper chamber of our parliament should remain at least substantially appointed rather than elected), and the other which is just the recognition of a job well done. i've no particular opinion about what the two new honours might be called, but i think it would be nice if the names of them at least maintained some kind of a traditional link with our country's long history rather than being given some kind of a bland modernist name.

on a point of order, the wikipedia page for paul dirac describes him has having received the order of merit, whilst still accepting the honourific of fellow of the royal society, and i also rarely if never seen stephen hawking described without having professor - the very first quaker title rejection - in front of his name; and of course lots of people who've been doctored use their titles on the grounds that they've worked hard for it so they'll bloody well use it. so what's the conceptual difference between a title or an honourific which has been bestowed by an institution or a professional body rather than by the state?

(me, i'm still strongly thinking about returning to college part time to finally getting around to doing a phd - though that's motivated more by it conferring upon me the right to wear that rather fetching hat than the right to be called doctor simon)

--
www.star-one.org.uk ~ www.winterval.org.uk ~ www.birmingham-alive.com

[Rosalind Mitchell]

On Saturday 29 Dec 2012 18:41:03 simon gray wrote:
> i think this is an instance where rosie's view is more in keeping with
> mainstream quaker thought than my view is.

Are you suggesting that my view is usually _not_ in keeping with mainstream
Quaker thought then?

>
> for what it's worth, i don't think there's anything wrong, unequal, or even
> unquakerly in principle of having some form of system whereby 'the state'
> (whether that's on the nomination of members of the public or by the Shadow
> CabalTM(TINC) can honour people in recognition of their contribution to the
> general wellbeing of society, and i don't think that's necessarily
> inconsistent to do it by means of giving them a medal and the right to add
> certain letters at either end of their names.

That much is fine. I run into trouble when the bauble in question confers the
right to a title and the suggestion that if one chooses not to address or
refer to the recipient with it (as I don't) one is being disrespectful.

> what i do think is worthy of a rethink is the current way of separating
> honours in to different degrees

The whole thing is a mess. One order would do very nicely, I think,
preferably not one with "Empire" in its title. Something along the lines of
the French "Legion d'Honneur".

I don't understand the exchange rate for sporting prowess either. Several
olympics ago one Kelly Holmes won two golds and got a katie, whereas this year
double medallists only got a CBE (Farah) or OBE (Trott). Indeed, a single
gold (albeit in a multi-discipline event) gets a CBE (Ennis) but two golds
including a multi-discipline event (Trott again) only gets an OBE. Also I
don't understand the conversion rate for the Parallel Olympics For Those Who
Aren't Really Good Enough For The Main Event.

> - i mean, how was it decided, what were the
> criteria whereby eg bradley wiggins was deemed to have made so much of a
> contribution that he got the full bag of being sired,

I think he got it mainly for the Tour de France (one over on the dastardly
Frogs don't you know!) rather than the Olympics. I rather hoped that Wiggeau
would be a refusenik but he has disappointed me. I would also have thought
that the Yellow Jersey, and the Olympic medals, would be their own suitable
reward.

> whilst the boxing
> woman has to be content with merely being just a member of the british
> empire? indeed, how was it decided that the boxing woman - who nobody had
> heard of before and i think frankly most people had forgotten about between
> her medal and the news announced today, was worthy of being membered,
> whilst other british (para)lympic medalists didn't get anything?

I have a theory that certain people were set up in advance to be Heroes. Some
others crept under the wire, like the chap who won the long jump, and didn't
get the full rewards, and some didn't live up to their billing (Pendleton) but
still got rewarded.

> on a point of order, the wikipedia page for paul dirac describes him has
> having received the order of merit, whilst still accepting the honourific

> of fellow of the royal society.

Those are medals with letters after their names and in the case of FRS it is a
professional acknowledgement. Katies and above are different, AISI.

> , and i also rarely if never seen stephen
> hawking described without having professor - the very first quaker title
> rejection - in front of his name;

And that is a description of his job.

> and of course lots of people who've been
> doctored use their titles on the grounds that they've worked hard for it so
> they'll bloody well use it.

This is an interesting one. Some have worked hard (and done original work,
for some values of "original") for the right to be called "doctor". Some have
merely done two (concurrent) taught bachelors degrees in medicine. From time
to time I decide to style myself Dr on the grounds that a) it's not gender-
specific, b) I have both a BSc and a BA and c) there's no legal reason why I
shouldn't. But on the whole I prefer not to use one at all.

Rosie

[Bill Chadkirk]

I've occasionally wondered what I'd do if I met 'Er Maj... I'm unlikely
to be gonged with an OBE, MBE, KG, Kings Cross or even a St Pancras.
But... I've kinda decided I would accept if I was allowed to address the
august presences as Mrs and Mr Windsor, if not Mrs and Mrs Saxe-Coburg
Gotha (or is it Gothe - bi-plane or play-write?). I don't think there
name was ever legally changed from Saxe-etc to Windsor by deed-poll or
whatever. I would be tempted to use Philip's name -
Schleswig-Holstein-Sondersburg-Gluckberg - but I would be afraid of
falling asleep before I got to the end.

Still, it's interesting. I used to pass through a car park on my way to
a railway station on my way to Euston Road and Fiends Ho, sorry, Friends
House. The attendant was a 'patriotic Englishman' and his lickle 'ut was
adorned with innumerable union flags (he wasn't at sea except
metaphorically, so they weren't union jacks) and pictures of the Liz in
her all regalia. I was always tempted to ask why, as a patriotic
Englishmen, he was flying an Irish-Welsh-Scottish flag with them emblem
of a Turkish martyr. And which family did he owe is loyalty to? The
Saxon Kings (basically, German), the Viking Normans, the Welsh Tudors,
the Dutch William, the German Hanoverians or our current melange of
German, Danish and Greek royalty. I came to the conclusion he was a
particularly clever and ardent supporter of the European Union subtly
displaying his loyalty to a pan-European state and infiltrating by
cunning means the xenophobic far right

Bill Chadkirk
www.billchadkirk.co.uk

Philosophers describe how society works.
The real point is to change it. Karl Marx

[Alec]

Time to link to Amos J Peaslee again:

 

http://tinyurl.com/2fno4dp

 

==>  Several olympics ago one Kelly Holmes won two golds and got a katie, whereas this year double medallists only got a CBE (Farah) or OBE (Trott).

 

So, had they been awarded knight/damehoods, would it have been more equitable?

 

Holmes was at the end of her athletics career and was seen to have struggled over adversity, and boy did she go out with a bang!  Farah and Trott are at the begining of theirs, and have many more medals in them.  Perhaps it'll be upgraded when all things are equal.

 

 

~alec