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Britain
Prince Chuck's Comments Draw Rebukes
2004-11-19
Prince Charles' tirade against people who aspire to lofty goals beyond their natural talent earned him a rare public rebuke from a senior government minister on Thursday _ and gasps of disbelief from the British media. Education Secretary Charles Clarke branded the heir to the throne "old fashioned" after details emerged of a royal memo written in response to an employee's inquiry about promotion prospects. "People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability," Charles wrote in the memo, which was read out Wednesday at an employment tribunal.

"Not like you eh, Charles?" countered The Sun, a popular daily that is normally highly supportive of the monarchy. The prince is next in line to the throne by virtue of heredity. "Don't try to rise above your station," was how The Daily Telegraph newspaper, a pillar of the British establishment, summarized the prince's memo. Another conservative paper, the Daily Mail, devoted its first two pages to the story under the headline: "Don't get above yourself." In his handwritten note, Charles attacked Britain's education system for encouraging young people to nurture ambitions they are unlikely to fulfill.
Posted by:Fred

#14  I'm amazed that an arse cork like Charlie Windsor has actually managed to say something useful for once. It's not likely to happen again, so make the most of it.
Posted by: Onionman   2004-11-19 9:22:47 PM  

#13  nearly fell off my chair, 2b. best of the week, thx
Posted by: lex   2004-11-19 4:04:49 PM  

#12  just got it 2b.
LOL!

I thought he was trying to be one of the 7 pillars.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-11-19 2:20:54 PM  

#11  re: photo of Charles .... it appears that he took his dream to be one of Camilla's tampons more seriously than we all realized.
Posted by: 2b   2004-11-19 1:42:34 PM  

#10  Our creed is equality of opportunity, not of outcomes. Most kids outside the inner city grasp the distinction. And even the inner city kids recognize it as it applies to sports.
Posted by: lex   2004-11-19 1:38:02 PM  

#9  Hey Lex,

I basically agree with you, BUT, as people have pointed out, the egalitarian instinct can run agound on the PC shoals of self-esteem.

By all means everyone should be encouraged to try anything and strive for everything. That doesn't mean, though, that you will succeed. That PC kind of thinking leads to the entitlement society.
Posted by: AlanC   2004-11-19 12:45:43 PM  

#8  Short answer: Lance Armstrong. Helen Keller. Abe Lincoln. Martin Luther King. Thomas Edison. Helen Keller. FDR.

Long answer: Nothing better illustrates the difference between Americans and Europeans than Charles' thinking, which has its counterpart in the relentlessly pessimistic business reporting from the FT and the Economist.

Americans are taught that hierarchies have no meaning, that the past is not prologue, that "you can do just about anything if you put your mind to it," in the words of Teddy Roosevelt, a consumptive child who overcame his illness and became president.

Is Teddy's statement literally true? Of course not. Can a child be damaged by believing himself capable of anything? Of course, but how can one achieve anything without faith in one's own ability to master difficult challenges?

Besides, it's in the nature of children to believe in grand and improbable things. Become an astronaut. Hit the winning home run in the World Series. Win the gold at the Olympics. Cure cancer. Or overcome cancer and win the Tour de France, again and again and again.

More importantly, Charles like most Euros fails to see that (most) Americans also tell their kids not to trust in fairy dust or "genius", which Edison defined as "90% perspiration and 10% inspiration." Americans live eat and breathe the work ethic, and this spills over into how we raise our kids. Let's hope that the world's striving dreamers, or dreaming strivers, continue to be attracted by this land of opportunity. Keep yakking, Charles. And send your irrepressible dreamers to us-- we're waiting with open arms.
Posted by: lex   2004-11-19 11:23:01 AM  

#7  Nah, it's a good thing to have aspirations. Where people get it wrong is when they expect to achieve these goals without any honest self-appraisal. On the other hand, it makes for great TV when these knuckleheads who can't sing try to enter a national competition.

Still, it's funny to hear this talk about "aspiring above one's natural talents" from somebody who achieved his position by birth.
Posted by: BH   2004-11-19 10:31:42 AM  

#6  Sounds good to me. Charles was doomed by birth to his role in life. Given that the Queen Mum lived to 100 and the Queen seems in good health, he may never even see the throne.
Posted by: Steve   2004-11-19 8:38:28 AM  

#5  Only Americans aspire to such lofty heights, luckily we're everywhere. Must be 200 million in India.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-11-19 8:35:44 AM  

#4  I agree with him. The "self-esteem" movement in education has gone too far. My 14-year-old daughter, who is not musically talented, thinks she is going to be a rock star. She attends a public school in which the teachers have stopped grading papers with red pens because "red is so aggressive". I kid you not.
Posted by: Tom   2004-11-19 7:36:38 AM  

#3  Yeah. Charles does come out with an awful lot of crap, but in this memo he hits on some rather non-PC home truths. Seems a bit hypocritical for a Prince to be lecturing others about life's lottery, but then we aren't all dealt the same hand in life. Some get lucky by family, others by talent, others by attitude. You can't expect to rise to the top of your profession through attitude alone though. Unless you're a politician or journalist, that is. I rest my case.
Posted by: Bulldog   2004-11-19 6:01:32 AM  

#2  Here's it a bit expanded;


What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities? This is to do with the learning culture in schools as a consequence of child-centred system which admits no failure.

...People think they can all be pop stars, High Court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability. This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history.


...What on earth am I to tell Elaine? She is so PC it frightens me rigid.


Sounds to me like he's spot on.
Posted by: Tony (UK)   2004-11-19 5:51:24 AM  

#1  "People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability,"

What's wrong with that?
Posted by: gromgorru   2004-11-19 5:14:26 AM  

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