It is an understandable tendency. We tend to exaggerate the rapidity and the effects of change and dismiss or de-emphasize the inertia of most human experiences. Here attitudes and behaviors about politics and consumer choice change but have less impact in the long run. We are forever suggesting that a change of American presidents will bring about either the millennium or the apocalypse. So far, through 44 presidents, the parade of presidents has brought about neither.
Life goes on.
The death and burial of the English aristocracy deserves some of our attention. The recent funeral oration by the 9 th Earl of Spencer for his sister, Princess Diana, suggests that there is still more life in the aristocracy than our democratic proclivities would like to admit. Let us go back a century to 1900. Britain has become democratic. The Queen reigns but does not rule.