O'Really?

It’s easy to be impressed by people’s titles. From the Chief of this, to the Director of that and from the President of this, to the Leader of that or the Head of whatever and Manager of so-and-so: Titles tell you something about their holder. In the UK we have some extraordinarily grandiose and pompous titles, some of which have been in the news recently, often for the wrong reasons:

• Lord Mandelson (formerly “Prince of Darkness”), now Peter Mountbatten-Darkness
  • The Right Honourable … A peculiar title used in the third person
• Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, to give its full name (KBE)
  • Commander of the British Empire: what’s left of it (CBE)
  • Order of the British Empire: what’s left of it (OBE),
  • Member of the British Empire: what’s left of it (MBE)
• Sir, not like “Yes Sir” in school or “SIR, YES SIR!” in the military but:
  • SIR as in Knight Bachelor or
  • Knight Bachelorette aka Dame
• Kings and Queens like:
  • Charles Mountbatten-Windsor I’ve stripped him of his title, because he’s Not My King
  • Camilla Mountbatten-Windsor .. and his wife too, because she’s Not My Queen
• Fairy Tale Titles like:
  • Princess of Wales: Catherine Mountbatten-Windsor (stripped again)
  • Prince of Entitlement: This is less of a fairy tale, more of a horror story for anyone who associated with the recently stripped Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Universities everywhere are stuffed full of people with fancy sounding titles too: Professors, Chancellors, Masters, Fellows, Doctors, Deans, Principals, Rectors, Proctors, Wardens and so on. Churches love to lord it over us too with their Archbishops, Bishops, Deacons and Vicars etc. In many organisations you’ll find plenty of Associate so-and-so’s, Deputy whatnots and Vice bla-blas.

Titles, titles everywhere! Some hard earned, some inherited, some awarded, some bought. While there are many good and legitimate reasons for using titles, they aren’t always used with honourable intentions. I’m thinking of scenarios like:

• “Don’t you know who I am?”
• “We’re not on first name terms yet”
• “You must use my titles when addressing me…”

Titles can be dehumanising for both addresser and addressee. When titles are stripped from their holder, it is a good reminder that we shouldn’t be too enamoured by them in the first place, especially when they carry lots of baggage. The weightier the titles, the more cumbersome they can be for everyone.

Titles have a tendency to put people on a pedestal, which they inevitably fall off at some point. Shelley puts it better:

So, titles are tinsel because we’re all human, decorated or otherwise. You might like a bit of tinsel on your Christmas tree, who doesn’t, but a tree is still a tree – with or without the decorations. So the next time you’re impressed by somebody’s title, remember that the titled, en-titled, un-titled, de-titled, re-titled and stripped of their titles, are all people with human flaws which might otherwise be obscured by the decorative and fancy titles we give each other.

References

1. Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1812) “Declaration of Rights.” In The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 1, edited by E. B. Murray. Romantic Poetry; Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/actrade/9780198127482.book.1

You can cite this page using the Digital Object Identifier provided by rogue-scholar.org either the long DOI:10.59350/1fs12-2z824 or the shorter doi.org/qvd8, both point to the same thing.