The Myth of Blue Blood.
There is something rather revealing about the phrase “blue blood.” It sounds scientific, hereditary and almost mystical. It suggests that somewhere beneath the skin lies a superior substance, passed down through generations of supposedly exceptional families. Yet the more closely you examine the idea, the less it resembles biology and the more it resembles psychology. There is, of course, no such thing as blue blood in the aristocratic sense. Human blood is not blue. Oxygenated blood is bright red, while blood with less oxygen is darker red. The apparent blue colour sometimes visible beneath pale skin is simply an optical effect caused by the way light is absorbed and scattered by skin and tissue. In that literal sense, the only "blue blood" is an illusion. So perhaps blue blood is an appropriate metaphor after all: something that appears real from a distance but disappears when examined closely. An Inheritance of Ego Traditionally, having blue blood means belonging to an ari...
