Many sportspeople are knighted (Dameified?). Service to community for regular folks also gets honours for those who stand out. At least in the wider commonwealth this has been true for all my life and my parents too. Look up Sir Clive Lloyd, Sir Bobby Robson, etc. There’s a lot of orders of knights who are appointed solely at the discretion of the monarch in there but those specific orders are usually related to the functional aspects of the monarchy. I’m thinking specifically of the orders of the Garter and Thistle here. Generally, at least in Elizabeth’s reign the majority of honours I’ve seen have been for service to the community, arts, sports etc. and the person has genuinely been involved.
As I said, celebrities (famous sports people, actors, comedians) get knighted, probably because giving such awards to people “beloved by the Public” makes the Honors System seem honorable, even though such recipients are a tiny proportion of the whole - this very much dovetails with my point about how putting image management above almost all else is a well entrenched cultural characteristic of the English upper classes: by very publicly giving knighthoods and damehoods to celebrities they’re maximizing the projection of a “good image” for the Honors System whilst minimizing the number of members of the “lower” classes who get it.
You will notice that in every year’s honors list there’s only one or two knighthoods and damehoods for “celebrities” right next to a much larger number of people getting similar awards whose only “honor” is being upper class and/or faithful servants of the State (and by State I don’t mean Society as a whole, I mean the centuries old power structures of Britain).
I would say your view of it reflects their great success in using the technique of honoring people “beloved by the Public” to shape the Public’s perception of the Honors System as rewarding merit, all the while the hard numbers show such recipients are but a tiny fraction of the total.
Beyond that you’ll also see upper middle class people who have been faithful servants of the Establishment get knighthoods (quite common in the Justice System and probably why Sir Keir Starmer got his knighthood), which makes sense as a form of incentivising such people to be faithfull servants of the British Establishment - people within the machinery of the State who express a want for change don’t end up in the Honors List.
Working Class people who were actual heroes risking their own lives for other people only ever get minor honors.
What I’m saying is I don’t notice that. Most of the people I see getting honours are regular folks. There’s a few toffs in there and the rest are people who genuinely did something, and they come from all walks.
The regular folk who aren’t celebrities get minor honors, not knighthoods, and it gets covered to death in the Press how some fireman or nurse got “an honor” and yet they’re never made “Sir” something of “Dame” something-else - the Press always spins it as a great thing and never mentions it’s only the smallest of honors that they’re getting.
If you go see the actual list of Knighthoods and Damehoods (and don’t get me started on Lordships), it’s mainly the moneyed, upper middle class - the kind of people who are in the BBC’s Board, Theatre Directors, heads of banks, owners of large companies and so on - and people in senior positions in the State aparatus.
Call me weird, but I think somebody who risked live and limb to save children from a fire deserves a knighthood much more than somebody who is a CEO of a bank or owner of a supermarket chain.
Many sportspeople are knighted (Dameified?). Service to community for regular folks also gets honours for those who stand out. At least in the wider commonwealth this has been true for all my life and my parents too. Look up Sir Clive Lloyd, Sir Bobby Robson, etc. There’s a lot of orders of knights who are appointed solely at the discretion of the monarch in there but those specific orders are usually related to the functional aspects of the monarchy. I’m thinking specifically of the orders of the Garter and Thistle here. Generally, at least in Elizabeth’s reign the majority of honours I’ve seen have been for service to the community, arts, sports etc. and the person has genuinely been involved.
Agree on the lordships though
As I said, celebrities (famous sports people, actors, comedians) get knighted, probably because giving such awards to people “beloved by the Public” makes the Honors System seem honorable, even though such recipients are a tiny proportion of the whole - this very much dovetails with my point about how putting image management above almost all else is a well entrenched cultural characteristic of the English upper classes: by very publicly giving knighthoods and damehoods to celebrities they’re maximizing the projection of a “good image” for the Honors System whilst minimizing the number of members of the “lower” classes who get it.
You will notice that in every year’s honors list there’s only one or two knighthoods and damehoods for “celebrities” right next to a much larger number of people getting similar awards whose only “honor” is being upper class and/or faithful servants of the State (and by State I don’t mean Society as a whole, I mean the centuries old power structures of Britain).
I would say your view of it reflects their great success in using the technique of honoring people “beloved by the Public” to shape the Public’s perception of the Honors System as rewarding merit, all the while the hard numbers show such recipients are but a tiny fraction of the total.
Beyond that you’ll also see upper middle class people who have been faithful servants of the Establishment get knighthoods (quite common in the Justice System and probably why Sir Keir Starmer got his knighthood), which makes sense as a form of incentivising such people to be faithfull servants of the British Establishment - people within the machinery of the State who express a want for change don’t end up in the Honors List.
Working Class people who were actual heroes risking their own lives for other people only ever get minor honors.
What I’m saying is I don’t notice that. Most of the people I see getting honours are regular folks. There’s a few toffs in there and the rest are people who genuinely did something, and they come from all walks.
The regular folk who aren’t celebrities get minor honors, not knighthoods, and it gets covered to death in the Press how some fireman or nurse got “an honor” and yet they’re never made “Sir” something of “Dame” something-else - the Press always spins it as a great thing and never mentions it’s only the smallest of honors that they’re getting.
If you go see the actual list of Knighthoods and Damehoods (and don’t get me started on Lordships), it’s mainly the moneyed, upper middle class - the kind of people who are in the BBC’s Board, Theatre Directors, heads of banks, owners of large companies and so on - and people in senior positions in the State aparatus.
Call me weird, but I think somebody who risked live and limb to save children from a fire deserves a knighthood much more than somebody who is a CEO of a bank or owner of a supermarket chain.