A Single Testicle and a Head Full of Water
Social Darwinism, the Hapsburgs, and the Modern Wealthy Elite
A stellar example of the Hapsburg inbreeding program, King Charles II of Spain was reported to have such problems with his infamous Hapsburg jaw that he could not chew food and often drooled. When he eventually died in 1700 his autopsy recorded his insides “did not contain a single drop of blood; his heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water.”[1] (Granted, the science of the time was frequently not very science-y, but you gotta give the report props for being a rather interesting take on the insides of this particular human.)
Ultimately, I chose this description because it so dang symbolic of the state of greed and mental decay of our modern wealthy elites. Further, the same beliefs that allowed Hapsburgs to continue on their merry incestuous way into generation after generation of imperial power isn’t so different from today. (You might say, but Kristy, we don’t allow drooling people in leadership positions today. And to that I give you Rudy Giuliani.)
Of course, stories of Hapsburg inbreeding[i] and the entire topic of inbreeding make for interesting and troubling discussions. We like to look back and shake our heads at the persistent foolishness of 16 generations (that’s some major commitment) of first cousin and uncle-niece marriages (and other close relatives), all in the name of increasing and/or consolidating power.
In all honesty, the lurid details are fascinating and the intent that brought it all about is quite worthy of first rate derision. I’m certainly among those who marvel and can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Perhaps I’m a horrible person but while some people ask for cute pet photos on social media to lift their spirits, I’d much rather hear a Hapsburg story.[ii] The whole debacle will engage me every time. We have the luxury of these individuals living a long time ago and the centuries allow these stories lose their humanity (not necessarily a good thing). They become rather legendary… and legends (even the bad ones) aren’t seen capable of existing in the modern world. But the truth is we are just as human, flawed, and issue ridden as other people throughout history.
Of course, I’m not here to talk about inbreeding specifically. In fact, I’ve quite purposefully picked the Hapsburgs out because of their use of incest to obtain, maintain, and expand power. As well as to point out how social beliefs that not only kept the Hapsburgs in power but incentivized ordinary people to defer to and admire them continue in new contexts with our elites. To state plainly, we do the same shit to celebrate and uphold the power of rich people, particularly when it comes to dynastic wealth.
Social Darwinism, for those who are not familiar is a concept that emerged in the 19th century to justify the wealth and power of the elite. It is deeply rooted in racist ideas and further allowed a vehicle under the guise of pseudo-science (that’s not how science works, assholes) for eugenics theories to firmly entrench in popular (white) thought. Again, in plain speak… jerkwad rich, powerful, white people found a new way to justify their continuance to be jerkwads, as well as rich, and powerful. Yeah, meet the new boss, same as the old boss shit.
What’s worse, whole swaths of ordinary people… us common folk, buy into this belief system. It’s no surprise this concept piggybacked onto Darwin’s work on natural selection (much to Darwin’s dismay) during such a time as the Gilded Age. Related to Social Darwinism (and also originally a Gilded Age phenomenon) is the ideology known as The Gospel of Wealth. Now I won’t go into all the particulars and evolution (har-har) of the ideology because the history and offshoots are much and many. More importantly for the purpose of my argument, The Gospel of Wealth has come to mean in modern terms the idea that God rewards those who work hard and work smart. Therefore (this is the Social Darwinism part) those who are poor and unsuccessful are there because they are intrinsically inferior, either through their own laziness or lack of intelligence. Listen to supporters of people like Trump and Musk and you’ll hear a lot of these concepts repeated:
He's a great businessman (that’s why he’s rich). He must be doing something right. He’s brilliant. He’s an innovator. He’s not afraid to take risks. He understands the needs of the future. He makes “certain” people know their place. He’s confident. He knows how to make money. He looks “right.”
Even common phrases such as, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, God rewards those who work hard, and self-made, are part of the mythology of The Gospel of Wealth and Social Darwinism. Each phrase has a complex winding history of their own.
Whether it be divine auctoritas[iii], the divine right of kings, Social Darwinism, or the Gospel of Wealth, the reasoning and effect are the same— some greater thing or state, whether it be god(s), a great natural force, hard work (those handy bootstraps), smarts, and/or a superior head circumference have deemed the wealthy elite to be above others. They are your betters because they are intrinsically better even while they can’t close their inbred mouths to chew their food. Even when they marry their nieces. Buy a social media website (and slowly choke it to death) because they need to be in charge. Talk about sexually assaulting women. Destroy a republic to satiate an ego.
You’d think humanity would get a clue by now. But that’s one of the things we do well, hit our heads against the wall and wonder why our heads hurt.
The same ideologies are repeated… the elite are simply better and we’re going to go on making sure this idea is affirmed, no matter how inbred, ridiculous, or horribly they behave. No matter any evidence of bad decision making, failure, or ill intent. Even further, we’re going to make sure we put ourselves as close to the sun as possible by standing on the ground meat of those eaten by the machine because that’s what our betters do… and we certainly don’t want to be the ones ground up.
After all, it’s God’s will to deem who is meat and who is human.
[1] Quoted in Mihaela Dana Turlic, Andrei Ionut Cucu, Anotonio Periciaccante, Giulia Tosolini, Stefano De Luca, Bogdan Costachescu, and Claudia Florida Costea, “Hydrocephalus of King Charles II of Spain, the Betwitched King,” European Neurology, Volume 81, Issue 1-2 (2019). https://karger.com/ene/article/81/1-2/76/125277/Hydrocephalus-of-King-Charles-II-of-Spain-the
[i] For the science and detailed look at inbreeding coefficients and the Hapsburgs check out: https://www.nature.com/articles/hdy201325 and to take a look at the circular spaghetti mess of a family tree https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664480/figure/pone-0005174-g001/ and https://www.nature.com/articles/hdy201325/figures/1
[ii] In the interest of further detailing descriptions of Hapsburg inbreeding as symbolic corollaries to the way the modern wealth elite go about business, I leave you with this written by the British envoy, Alexnder Stanhope, “He has a ravenous stomach, and swallows all that he eats whole, for his nether jaw stands so much out, that his two rows of teeth cannot meet; to compensate which, he has a prodigious wide throat, so that a gizzard or livers of a hen passes down whole, and his weak stomach not being able to digest it, he voids in the same manner.” From Spain Under Charles the Second, Extracts From Correspondence https://books.google.com/books?id=-gihMsfhDiIC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=spain+under+charles+ii+stanhope+shrewsbury
[iii] “…the Roman distinction between the idea of auctoritas and the idea of potestas. Auctoritas is the influence that derives from personal respect, wisdom, and virtue without having legal power. Potestas instead comes from the Indo-European lexeme pot-, which refers to the established power. The division of roles between the auctoritas of augurs, jurists, judges, and senators, on the one hand, and the potestas of magistrates and family fathers, on the other hand, served to establish not only a wise and healthy political, social, and legal balance in Roman society but also an ontological equilibrium. Because the power was considered indivisible by nature (Cicero, De re publica 1.38.60), it must respond to something or someone beyond itself and be limited by an external agent (i.e., by moral authority). Moral authority was, therefore, an effective check on the power of Rome.” Auctoritas (On Moral Authority_ by Rafael Domingo, University of Navarra—School of Law 1999 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2930468
Yessss this is great. Also footnotes. You are amazing.