Democrazy

[Meticulous Man]

Lately I've been wondering if the nobility, back in the times before the 18th century &c, possessed some kind of knowledge about the governing of societies that the bourgeoisie and other lower estates lacked and which they have merely been trying to imitate with often catastrophic results. You know the French Revolution ended with Napoleon, the Russian one with Putin, US produces huge environmental problems etc. I also think quite many noblepersons (I've heard this said about at least Mannerheim of Finland) correctly considered Hitler a vulgar fool, for example.

[Aeson]

Because nothing bad ever happened under Feudalism?

[rah]

Like the King showing up at your wedding so he can screw the bride. King's privilege

[Meticulous Man]

Mel Gibson

[Elok]

For the record, it's unclear whether droit de seigneur was ever a real thing, or just one of many sensational stories people liked to tell. It was one of the most prominent misdeeds Gilgamesh was accused of, and Sumerian society was not really sexually conservative.

[Aeson]

Those peasants are really going to be sorry they revolted ... once inflation exceeds technological progress enough that they can no longer put a new iPhone on their credit card! That’ll show them how much they need the aristocracy!

[BeBMan]

If the nobility wasn't busy with conflict and persecution it became aware at some point that you need to have people to rule over in order to rule over people. So wiping them out in large numbers went out of fashion, esp. after the 30yrs war, unless maybe in far away colonies were things were often less shiny.

What was left in inter-European wars between say 1700 and pre-WWI was usually about matters that were negotiable - like "I whack you over the head with my army to get 3 more of your land" so the so-called "cabinet wars" became less devastating and more regulated as it was usually possible to settle those matters at some point.

Other prominent factors here were "I don't want to spend my whole shiny army/fleet in a conflict about 3 more (or less) land so I don't fight to the last (or rather, I don't let my subjects fight to the last) and "we need a more disciplined/professional army since the bunch of undisciplined plunderers we used in earlier times can't form a battle line or even load one of those cute new gunpowder thingies in a certain amount of time without throwing our formation into disarray".

Compared to that more modern wars/conflicts with a certain ideologic background were set to be way more destructive as they tend to define less or even non-negotiable goals like "I don't like your ideology/people/country etc. so I have to conquer everything/get rid of the evil xy forevah" (people/class/whatever)...

Elements of that were present in the "terror" stage of the French Rev, but it became way more drastic in the 20th century....


/cents

[Ecthy]

OP is not very meticulously researched.

[Meticulous Man]

Even though the OP might have been only half-serious, maybe the minister with the most freshness in the current cabinet of Finland is paradoxically the baron Anders Adlercreutz.

The cabinet has been called "blue-and-black" because of the involvement of Conservatives and the Finns party (which has practically become the Finnish affiliate party of AfD, Sweden Democrats, Front National, first time in government).

The Adlercreutz family own a friggin' 15th century castle near where I grew up.

[N35t0r]

Being the most 'reasonable' character in a bag of conservatives and alt-right characters is hardly a powerful endorsement.