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Monarchies Are Better Than Representative Democracy
Why Churchill’s dictum was hopelessly wrong
Primate group species depend on social cohesion for their survival. Nowhere is this more true than in our own species, as we lack powerful muscles, sharp teeth, and tearing claws. For nearly all of our evolutionary history, the survival time of a solitary human would be measured in hours. In consequence, our brains have been shaped by millions of years of selection pressure to contain hardwired behaviors that are as predictable as the rising sun or the ocean’s tides.
It’s instructive to watch a troop of baboons. They can be sitting around, grooming each other, staring blankly out at the horizon, chewing mouthfuls of food, and generally enjoying a moment of tranquility. Then something startles one or two of them and a moment later the entire troop is howling and jumping up and down. Each baboon’s individuality becomes submerged in the group hysteria so that the troop acts as a single quasi-organism, teeth bared, ready to fight or flee.
We see precisely the same thing with human crowds. The French recognize the mindlessness of mobs in their language: the word for crazy is derived from the same root as the word for crowd (fou, foule).
