The British royalty is national glue for the U.K. We don't have it here in the USA.
I mostly scoff at the whole royal rigamarole. The royal family. The line of succession. The dress up. The pageantry. The rules and courtesies and formalities. The monarchy isn't justified out of logic or common sense. There is consent built into the passive voice surrounding things royal. It is the way things are done. The Sphinx does not complain or explain. It exists, serene and permanent.
The monarchy spawns a kind of counter-revolution in the form of tabloid celebrity culture and behavior. Paparazzi follow "the royals" hoping to get publishable photos. People want gossip. They want to get behind the curtain. They want the real story, and the more scandalous the better. They precipitated Diana's death, but the royalty continued. The Sphinx endured.
Life is not 100% politics for me. When I need a break from the whirlwind I sometimes retreat to simple formula dramas on TV. The Hallmark channels have them nonstop. Some dramas involve an American woman in some unnamed English-speaking monarchy. She encounters a royal family and after some misunderstandings are resolved, she is understood by the Queen matriarch to be exactly the right woman for the single and marriageable prince. There is a royal style in manner and speech. No contractions. Full sentences. Never petty. Never emotional. The queen--and it is almost always the queen--is wise. She sees to it that the country's present and future is secure.
I consider Hallmark, in its simple formula uncomplicated by the messiness of reality, to be a useful clarification of the very idea of royalty. Queen Elizabeth was the archetype. She was imperturbable and permanent.
The USA is in a very different place. A substantial number of Americans appear to agree with Trump that our nation's government is illegitimate, and has been for a decade or more. They remain of the opinion that Barack Obama was a foreign-born imposter. Back in 2012 Trump was adamant that Mitt Romney, not Obama, won the election in a landslide. Trump said the 2016 election was miscounted and that he, too, won far more votes than were counted. Trump continues to insist he won the 2020 election and that it should be voided. Trump-supported candidates win primary elections repeating that. Meanwhile, he says that the apparatus of federal law enforcement, national security, and tax collection are all part of a liberal Deep State, and deeply illegitimate. They call Democrats an existential threat to democracy. Meanwhile, Democrats think that it is Trump and people who support his efforts to overturn elections that are the existential threat. Both sides think American democracy is in peril, but for opposite reasons.
The United States has our own version of the serene, wise monarch. We have our glue that persists despite the workaday conflicts of politics. George Washington, the anti-royalist, became our version of royalty. The Washington Monument is our Sphinx. The Constitution and Gettysburg Address are our Magna Carta.
It isn't enough. People attend Hamilton, the play, and then cheer defunding the IRS. There are no paparazzi or tabloid newspapers in the Hallmark movies, so there is no real threat to their county. In real life people eagerly chip away at the mythic ideas and institutions that hold a nation together amid the turmoil of politics. Our symbols of glue represent a mythic past that is lost. The phrase "Make America Great Again" is the slogan of people who believe democracy doesn't work. That is the new consensus: Democracy is in trouble. In America, democracy was both the politics and the mythic symbol. Democracy is our monarchy, and people fear it is on its deathbed.
Everyone agreed it was Prince Charles's throne now.
11 comments:
To see Charles Windsor(or whatever last name he might be using) as a positive "symbol of living continuity" requires eyes I don't have. A negative one, yes.
Whenever I think of the difficulties our democracy is having, whether it's an inability to provide basic healthcare or housing to our citizens or threats of continued insurrection, I can see, at least, that we an improved system over a monarchy.
These non-working people with unearned privilege contribute nothing positive.
I'm a proud, small "d" democrat.
This would be a great time for the Brits to come together and abolish this useless institution.
Britain was once called “the empire upon which the sun never sets.” Now it’s just another empire upon which the sun never rises, but its vestigial royalty with all its pomp and circumstance is a link to their past glory.
We’re now the latest superpower in the process of being undone by our own hubris. But with no royalty, to what can we turn for consolation and a reminder of our glory days? ExxonMobil? The GOP?
The monarchial system is a vestige of human's barbaric past. The King was the most brutal, yet most wily member of the tribe. The patriarch who dominated, with fear and favor, and held on to power by force and political savvy. His heir, the first born son, inherited the power but only if he could equal his father's legacy of cleverness and fear.
Our (d)emocracy is structured much the same way, somewhat less bloodthirsty, only differentiated by one small thing: the novel idea of all the people electing their rulers. This idea is about 2500 years old, but has yet to be instituted worldwide, proof of the persistence of Regressive impulses.
The other idea implemented was "united" states. Apparently we now have to imagine that coming apart as well, which will turn this continent into warring fiefdoms.
As a boy I watched on TV the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II with my grandfather and English grandmother. Later my grandfather and I assembled the model of the coronation carriage, The Gold State Coach, which set on a prominent place in the bookcase. I remember the family dinners where they discussed the state of the British Empire and its importance to the world. Almost 70 years have past since then, that generation is now dead and I am an old man, but the feelings of the world towards Queen Elizabeth II and the British monarchy remain strong around the world as it assumes a "soft power" constitutionally limited role in British political life and within the United Kingdom.
Exactly what is the significance today - continuity without a violent revolution, atonement for the past colonial abuses, and soft power of tradition by example. Somehow London has become a multiracial diverse thriving city by welcoming citizens from across the Commonwealth. Perhaps some of you readers may see it as example that could be for our society. I for one see value in a figurehead of state, so with that I say:
God Save the King!
For Trump perhaps it's "Never explain. Always complain".
Eminently appropriate to feature the Sphinx in this connection, in that it signifies both the all-time champ in hereditary monarchies and Diana's folly in placing her safety in the hands of the playboy son of an Egyptian merchant.
Britain hasn't really been a proper monarchy since 1688. Still, the institution spawned easily the most influential single culture the world has ever known, with Shakespeare, Newton and Churchill just a few of Britain's many all-world, all-time luminaries. Even today the monarchy and its traditions contribute far, far more via tourism dollars alone than it costs the people. Money for starters...
Britain should be applauded for how it has preserved it monarchy, if for no other reason than historic preservation. It has many uses, such as the tourism noted, but for anyone interested in history, it is a singular and magnificent treasure. All the others are gone, which is fine...but not the last one.
On Cayman Brac, an island of 2,000 people, 1,500 lined up and shook William’s hand. When one of the royals got married a couple of years ago, government was closed. It was declared a holiday. In some parts of the world, especially The Cayman Islands, the royals count. Check out the Cayman Compass and you will see what the front page story is, the queen’s death.
“God save the Queen. The fascist regime.” -The Sex Pistols
“Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth II. Send her victorious”. John Lydon, yesterday.
From political commentator Ed Driscoll on Instapundit:
“It’s probably the most punk rock thing ever to act like an adult over the Queen’s passing, when academics and talk show hosts are using her death as a platform for cliched rants about racism and colonialism”.
Or for ahistorical, anachronistic moralizing. Across globe and time, the limits of conquest and control have been dictated by technology, weaponry, climate, and discipline, not a given topdog’s badness.
"All the others are gone" is not accurate.
Mean Mr. Mustard
His sister Pam works in a shop
She never stops, she's a go-getter
Takes him out to look at the Queen
Only place that he's ever been
Always shouts out something obscene
Such a dirty old man
---The Beatles
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