Harry Mountbatten-Windsor declared, in his interview for the British channel ITV, “I want a family, not an institution”, thus posing in herald of psychological and relational modernity against the tyrannical gravity of frameworks of tradition . A family who, he says, does not know how to recognize him like his brother, as he befits in ordinary contemporary ethics where any parental preference is now banned. His book-COMBAT carries the mark of this devastating resentment, since he has the substitute (Spare, in English), revealing the depth of his obsession.
The small problem is that this survey, real in fact, does not refer to new family relational codes, but to the statutes of the British monarchical tradition. Precisely, hammers Harry, “I want a family, not an institution”. Except that he is not a real herald of relational modernity and does not reject everything from the institution, demanding certain privileges, continuing to be called “prince”, and above all fueling the essentials of his protest narration by facts relating to members of the royal family. What would Harry be without the Windsor?
These contradictions were noted by many observers, however that others have stressed the infantile and capricious nature of its recriminations. The latter declared themselves tired by the too large place taken by facts deemed derisory – Harry molested by his brother and eliminating by falling on the bowl of the dog -, at the ravages of inflation and dramatic war in Ukraine.
We can however think that it is not useless to look at what this soap opera-reality reveals to us from our time. Because it is not for nothing that it captivates opinion.
Self -esteem structural deficit
The first point to note is self -esteem, the generalized demand for recognition which now submerges society, such as analyzing the German philosopher Axel Honneth by developing a phenomenology of moral injuries. Harry is a big injured man who has not managed to treat his injuries since the death of his mother.
It should be noted, however, that the weakening of self -esteem begins even before any notable injury. Positive adherence to oneself is indeed all the more difficult to achieve since our late modernity based on individual autonomy is continuously defeated it. Through ordinary conversations or messages on the Internet, everyone continues to note each one: so and so, this. But this vast mutual and permanent evaluation system is biased. Because everyone, to try to strengthen their own self-esteem, has an annoying tendency to give bad grades to others to value themselves. Which never remains without effects. Existing only under the gaze of others, we feel the manifest discrepancy between this bad notation and the idealized dream that we forge ourselves. The modernity of individual autonomy causes, by this gap, a structural deficit in self -esteem.
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