The arrest of Crown Prince Haakon’s son on rape charges is not merely a scandal. It is a metaphor for the rot that has consumed the West’s last vestiges of nobility. Once, princes were trained for war and governance.
Now they are raised on Instagram and impunity. The Norwegian monarchy, that quaint relic of Scandinavian social democracy, now finds itself staring into the abyss of its own irrelevance. The boy’s alleged crime is heinous, yes.
But the real crime is the culture that produced him: a fetid swamp of privilege, entitlement, and intellectual decadence. We compare this to the fall of Rome, but Rome at least had the decency to fall with a bang. Our decline is a whimper, drowned out by hashtags and PR statements.
The monarchy, stripped of all real power, now serves only as a cautionary tale. If anything, this verdict will be just. But it will not save us from the deeper corruption that plagues our institutions.
The crown prince’s son is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is us.
