[migstopheles]

Reductio ad absurdum: everything is meaningless, so why do intelligent, educated people do anything?

I find views like this pointlessly cynical. The man has been done something good for society, why on earth shouldn't he accept the acknowledgement?

[mariusz79]

Many reasons, but let me quote few people who actually declined the "honor": "I get angry when I hear the word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds me of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised."

"An OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King's Cross station."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_declin...

[migstopheles]

Quoting Michael Winner, a multimillionaire conservative, probably isn't your best line of argument :)

But seriously, these are both personal opinions, and the first one even seems to be working against your original assertion that the honour is meaningless.

All things considered, if you have an issue with the monarchy and the "aristocratic" government (not quite accurate, but there's a point there), that's completely valid. Rallying against an almost entirely unrelated honours system is way off-target, and I would imagine that abolishing it would do more harm than good.

[mariusz79]

I was asked - "why on earth shouldn't he accept the acknowledgement?" My reply is an attempt to provide a partial answer to that question, and is unrelated to the rest of the discussion. :)

[Luc]

I suppose one could argue that a club that has 'For God and The Empire' as its motto, and awards military-sounding titles, is about more than just getting recognition from society. Though perhaps it's not to be taken too seriously...

[mariusz79]

He did something to help promote computer science to people who could not afford a computer. Accepting OBE, on the other hand, is equal to becoming a member of a caste system. You either believe that all people deserve equal rights, or you don't.

[markdown]

> Accepting OBE, on the other hand, is equal to becoming a member of a caste system.

No, it's like receiving a Nobel Prize, or a Medal of Honour (or any medal, really).

An organisation awarding a prize to someone who has done something remarkable for his fellow men.

[mariusz79]

The titles given are taken from the aristocratic system that's still alive and kicking in the GB. And while OBE does not give the recipient anything special besides titles, heraldic supports and order of precedence, one could argue that it's supporting the aristocratic system. If you accept a title, be it sir or knight, or whatever else there is, you indirectly accept that the person with a higher title is above you, even if they did not earn that title with the hard work like you did, but simply by being born into a right family. You accept being a royal subject, , and you accept that the king or queen, are not your equals but your rulers.

In any modern society we have titles, and honors but they have to be earned.

President, general, senator is your equal, selected for their office based on the skills (I know that a staggering oversimplification, and a very naive point of view) not based on the birth right.

[Angostura]

> one could argue that it's supporting the aristocratic system

One could. But most people would disagree.

[mariusz79]

Let's eat s*. Billions of flies can't be wrong!

[dfc]

To say that this is "like receiving a Nobel Prize, or Medal of Honour(sic)" or the Victoria Cross is absurd. There are 1,946 MoH recipients (excluding civil war recipients when it was awarded under different conditions), 1,357 Victoria Cross recipients and 876 Nobel Laureates. In one year "more than a thousand people have been recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours."[1]

[^1]: With one thousand awardees this seems more like an Eagle Scout Badge or

[markdown]

Yes.

Like an Eagle Scout Badge or a Medal of Honour.

Doesn't matter how many people get it, my point is that it's a reward for either doing something positive or achieving something remarkable.

[dfc]

The Medal of Honor and/or Victoria Cross are not rewards.

[markdown]

Jesus Christ dude, you're missing the point completely.

Read the comment I originally responded to.

[nicholassmith]

An OBE (and MBE) are basically a nice bit of paper and a day out. They confer no privilege or powers, it's just a recognition that's given.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

The UK may have a class system (sadly, all capitalist societies do and must), but it does not have "castes". Knighthoods and other honours are merely titles.

[arethuza]

Out of interest, what do you see as the link between classes and capitalism or are you equating social class with a level of income (or ownership of assets) - it's really much more complex than that in the UK due to the remarkable amount of historical baggage we have.

[hcho]

Not the OP, but concentration of wealth in the hands of a class and concentration of capital in the hands of capitalists sound awfully similar.

[arethuza]

Having loads of money is neither necessary or sufficient for belonging to the UK Upper Class, traditionally at least:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_structure_of_the_United_...

[NB I'm really not defending this state of affairs - just pointing out that "Upper Class" traditionally meant "aristocracy" not "rich" in the UK].

[hcho]

I don't think anybody is disputing that. But there was a time upper class meant rich, no? That's considered proto-capitalism by many.

[frobozz]

If you can change your caste, then it can't be a caste system, can it?

[mariusz79]

You can't change it - you can only be accepted into it. So not only you have to do something extraordinary, someone from the caste needs to like what you did. Or you could be born into it...

[migstopheles]

I think you're confused about what this honour actually is. Receiving an OBE doesn't imbue any extra rights or powers, it's literally just an award for doing something that helps others. That's specifically what it was created for.

You can't be born into it, and the system has traditionally honoured thousands of 'normal' people that have been nominated, usually by their peers, for doing work in their field or community.

[asuffield]

I think you're confused about who awards these. Honours are awarded based on decisions made by a committee comprised of the members listed here:

https://www.gov.uk/honours-committees

As you can see, some of them are themselves honours recipients, and some are not.

In no sense is this a self-awarding organisation - and the only reason there are so many recipients on the committee is because honours are given out to just about everybody who has achieved anything of note.

[mariusz79]

@migstopheles I wasn't talking about being born into OBE, but about being born into British aristocracy. I admit that OBE is just a small part of the whole system of honors, but by using titles and heraldry it still helps to keep the caste system alive in the GB.

[sbuk]

There is no caste system in the UK. There was a class system that is largley defunced, despite pretestations to the contrary. You aren't even British, so why do you care?

[pjc50]

The OBE doesn't convey any extra rights on the recipient.

[mariusz79]

order of precedence, titles, heraldic supporters.