Prince Harry proves lunacy of hereditary royalty
His memoir "Spare" bespeaks depravity, ignorance, and fixation on trifles
Prince Harry’s memoir Spare fortifies the folly of hereditary royalty brilliantly demonstrated by Thomas Paine in Common Sense and The Rights of Man more than two centuries ago.
Harry exhibits not a single admirable quality. But there are many to be deplored.
Take homicide.
Harry claims he killed 25 Taliban members (not in self-defense) during two tours serving with the British army in Afghanistan. He never asks why the British were there in the first place. He does not reflect on the three Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839-1842; 1878;1880; 1919) in which the British invaded Afghanistan to oppose Russian influence there which could threaten Britain’s imperialist conquest of India. Harry did not reflect on war’s legalization of first-degree murder. He did not reflect that the Taliban had not attacked London.
Harry’s killings betray a chilling immorality akin to the legally repudiated “following orders” defense of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem and Herman Goering at Nuremberg. He callously elaborates: “When I found myself plunged in the heat and confusion of combat I didn’t think of those 25 as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board. Bad people before they could kill good people.”
How did Harry know he was killing “bad” people? They had not been charged or convicted of crimes with the trappings of due process. His own life was unthreatened. He knew or should have known that the military in Afghanistan commonly mistook innocent civilians for terrorists. Among other things, the American military killed at least three children and longtime aide worker Zemari Ahmadi with a drone strike in August 2021, based on a mistaken belief that a vehicle contained explosives. The fog of war makes wrongful killings inevitable.
Complicity in legalized first degree murder did not cause Harry reluctance. Killing 25 humans did not make him proud, but neither did they “make me ashamed.” He points the finger at his military training to evade responsibility for his serial homicides: “You can’t kill people if you see them as people. They trained me to ‘other’ them, and they trained me well.”
Are you surprised that Harry chose to adorn himself in a Nazi uniform to attend a “Natives” and “Colonial” themed party in 2005?
Are you surprised that Harry indulged juvenile thrills and hormonal gratifications while enrolled in Eton College, the summit of England’s elite boarding schools? He smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine, and lost his virginity with an older woman in a field behind a crowded pub.
Harry shares puerile quarrels over bridesmaids dresses, Easter gifts and lip gloss, and a physical altercation with his equally immature brother William over criticism of Meghan Markle. His memoir recounts a life of trifles. No concern for seeking to undo or atone for the stupendous injustices the British Empire inflicted on the world. No concern with using his privileged birth to strive for wisdom and irreproachable character guided by every benevolent instinct of the human heart. No concern for setting a standard to which the wise and honest may repair.
Adulthood is made of sterner and wiser stuff.
But Harry is only 38. There is ample time for self-redemption. To achieve immortality, Harry should renounce and condemn the idea of inherited privilege, status, or prestige. British royalty should be abandoned to a museum alongside the Divine Right of Kings. It mocks the self-evident truth that all persons are created equal; that, as Thomas Jefferson sermonized, “the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of god.”
My advice to Harry is simple. Grow up. King Lear is a wonderful example of the steep price to be paid for growing old without growing wise, which is what Harry is doing.