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Comment by carlob | Hacker News Reader

A small caveat: nepotism was the practice when cardinals (who were celibate) would push their nephews into positions of power. So, strictly speaking, it is the other way around: celibacy caused nepotism, otherwise we would have had filism (from filius/son rather than from nepos/nephew).

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Nepotism today is probably most notable in politicians and Hollywood. (Hollywood is especially fascinating. Royalty runs rampant there.)

Those are both the cases where there is a public demand for nepotism, though. People want to see the next generation of the royalty, perhaps more than the kingmakers want to supply it. For that matter, sports is similar but slightly more meritocratic; lots of "Known Athlete Jr." out there in most sports, all of whom are at least good enough to play, but some of them only barely.

You're not giving professional sports enough credit. On the player picking side, it's arguably the last true meritocracy in the US. Teams are willing to take fliers on fringe Jrs because of genetics and maybe the media attention that will come to their team. Otherwise, they always pick the players with the best combination of potential and immediate talent, regardless of background.

Coaching on the other hand, that's as nepotistic as any political field.

Cardinals were very often not actually celibate, just like less promoted priests.

Yeah, those nephew were often illegitimate sons, but that just goes to prove that forced celibacy has never worked.

Depends what you mean by “worked”. It prevented the emergence of priest kings quite well. Not allowing legitimate sons puts a major crimp in anyone’s plans to turn a religious organization’s land into their personal property. See how the Teutonic order turned into Brandenburg upon Protestantisation.

The Pope was a priest king for centuries not to mention the smattering of Bishop/Cardinal led mini statesi n the HRE.

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