BeatrixFan said:
I agree with you but he musn't think of himself of "just Harry". Alot rests on the Royal Family. If they lower their standards and behave like commoners then what's the point in it all? That's when it becomes dangerous.
Okay, but when I read in one of the early biographies about prince Charles that he even let his girlfriends call him "Sir" in their bedroom, I found it, well, strange, even bordering on the ... hm... which word is best here...., even bordering on the kinky side. I've nothing against playing powergames in the bedroom, but then the accent is on "playing" while the prince seemed to be haughtly living the "august position" he was born to. Okay, it is mere gossip as far as that goes and I treasure the prince for what he does for the unfortunate in our society.
But - I'm a German educated by teachers who were born in the war or shortly thereafter and had lived through 1968 as rebelling students. For us the idea of power and the perversions who may come out of the misuse of this power both through dictatorships and through society and its system has been a very important topic on the agenda.
So for me the idea that prince Harry is able to distinguish between "HRH Prince Henry of Wales" and plain "Harry W." (be it Windsor or Wales) on different occasions for me is a positive thing. For it seems to tell me that he is not only counting nobility or royality among his "equals" but has other friends as well. Agreed, he probably won't befriend a working class girl, but I don't see him as the "typical" british officer of the 1800s either, who has only contempt or indifference for people who are from a different background.
As for "lowering their standards" - for me prince Charles is setting a standard, but not because he is Royality and wants people to call him "Sir", but because he really talks to the people and really tries to help them. He lives according to his own standards and these are "good" in my interpretation. prince Harry really might live exactly as he wants - if he follows in his father's and the queen's footsteps, I'll like him and be glad that he has the position to get people's attention for his projects. But if he started behaving like his distant cousin Ernst August of Hanover, who is called the "Prügelprinz" ("beating prince") here in Germany because he easily starts beating people up when they displease him and has been convicted for that, then for me Prince Harry would loose all claim to being interesting.
Hope it's clearer now.