Take it from us, we feel sorry for Prince Andrew, the disgraced member of the British Royal Family who used to be HRH Duke of York, colonel of regiments, darling of the popular rags and mags, and many other things. Perhaps he still is some of them. However, it doesn’t really matter. Because he has fallen so very far, so very completely, from such a position of grace, that it would be inhuman not to feel some sympathy. And above all to ask why. Because if it can happen to him, it can happen to any one of us.
“Prince Andrew has no hinterland” explains Royal Correspondent Valentine Low. [1] Why should he? Unlike his more cerebral elder brother, this Prince passed straight from hyperprivileged upbringing to posh school to immediate commission in the Royal Navy. (an admirable institution in many ways but not one in which qualities such as reflection and contemplation are strongly encouraged) From then on, the young man’s dream: war hero, celebrity, and unrivalled access to young females in breeding condition, as the zoologists say. It must have seemed great-why waste time to stop and think?
“The unexamined life is not worth living” asserted Socrates. No one would dream of asking Prince Andrew to study Socrates, or any other philosopher. It would be unnecessarily cruel, and futile. But there was someone else around, in his youth, who said the same thing more accessibly. That someone was David Byrne and his popular musical singing group the Talking Heads. who famously observed:
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” [2]
Andrew never seemed to stop to muse upon the fragility of the human condition. How provisional good fortune can be. Many like him, who have fallen, find comfort in intellectual or religious beliefs developed when the good times still seemed to roll. Did he not hear this song once, while entering a nightclub in all his pomp? While navigating his expensive motor car along the well-manicured lanes of Surrey? And if not, how does he cope now, when all is stripped away? Look on this Prince, this hero-and feel pity.
[2] extract courtesy https://www.bing.com/search?q=talking+heads+once+in+a+lifetime+lyrics&form=ANNTH1&refig=fe29d298bbd64d648428aa500e91de36&
#price andrew #socrates #talking heads #fate
and if you’re interested, here’s the song in full
Learning, Science and Society 