Quote:
Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen
The glorification of the Emperor and the invocation of Divine Favor is not all that prevalent IMTU (especially the divine favor bit), but none of these are actually mutually exclusive with my Imperial Bill of Rights. And not just because people are fully capable of compartamentalizing their minds and holding several mutually exclusive beliefs simultaneously (although that alone would do it), but also because most of them are not actually mutually exclusive with it. People can be created with equal rights and still not have equal starts in life. Societies can have social ranks (actually, I find it hard to imagine one that hasn't) and still profess to believe that all ranks are worthwhile (I'd still give reaction modifiers, though). People can believe in social differences AND in meritocracy and social mobility. People can admire the Emperor and still realize he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like anyone else, etc., etc.
Yes, I can see all of these sentiments existing in my Imperial Culture too.
Hans
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IMTU the Emperor is for a lot of people a convenient and pleasantly personalized stand in for "the Imperium". Much as an Englishman will say "serving the Queen" when he really means "Serving Great Britain." The Imperium is to mechanical and impersonal to be able to count on attracting loyalty; it needs an Emperor as a source of charisma. Even people from cultures more used to abstraction would find it useful, people from more traditional arrangements would find it highly desirable.
The fact is, I think some kind of pseudofamilial system is really the default political arrangement among mankind and attempts at republican government or even more quirky systems are "artificial." Being artificial is not necessarily a bad thing; I also think humans to be transbiological, and that therefore the "artificial" deserves respect just as the "natural" does. However the "naturalness" of pseudofamilial politics makes me think a reversion to aristocracy and/or tribalism in a high-tech society is in fact not the least implausible idea of sci-fi.
I am sure some people would in fact attribute mystical significance to the Emperor, giving him if not divinity, oracular status. Ideas about him being able to heal with his hands or about flowers sprouting around Princess Iphigenia's feet when she dances, or whatever would float around. I don't picture such ideas being eliminated by super-tech. Indeed, the disjunction between the amount of information available, and the proportion of said information that can be processed by a given sophant may make superstition more common. The ability to use technological devices in no way makes people able to understand the science behind them, let alone giving them a worldview similar to a twentieth century intellectuals.