Sic transit gloria mundi, but even after the pageantry is gone there is something worthy to remember about this one. On her 'Diamond Jubilee' I tried to express what it was.
On the Passing of Elizabeth II
Tolkien in his later years professed that he had become, in his political philosophy, either a monarchist or an anarchist. I am obviously not inclined to monarchy. Few among us living today can even rule himself: who among us is fit to rule another, let alone all others? The British would do well to cast off the monarchy rather than to go along with the farce of King Charles III (the first of whose name got himself killed by his own people, recall, though the second did fairly well), though perhaps for them there is something in Tolkien's wish, and they might yet hope for better kings again.
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6 comments:
I view today's monarchies in democratic nations (and I guess I'm thinking of the UK and Japan, though there are others) as historical artifacts, similar to Civil War re-enactor units. I'm kind of happy someone keeps the history alive without wishing I were part of it.
On the other hand, I am opposed to monarchs with real power, of course. My own political views are in a state of flux, but I certainly lean away from systems that greatly centralize power.
Charles III has received more military training than current plus recent US presidents Biden, Trump, and Bush ( II ) combined. Which is only to say slightly more than the Shrub, to whom the new king might most fairly be compared. Charles might also just as fairly be compared to Nathan Phillips, the "VietNam 'ERA' veteran" involved in the Nick Sandmann slanders. Which is only to say Charles served
during the early 1970s, while the Cold War in general and the VietNam war in particular was a daily concern of the world press, and the terrorist (organized crime) activities of the IRA were of at least local headlines.
I mention this only because I consider any authority with any executive powers ought to have felt at his literal fingertips the power and authority fraught in the trigger of a serious weapon of war.
I guess I'm a bit of a closet constitutional monarchist. I am in agreement with other observers that there is a particular utility in the division of the functions of Head of State and Head of Government between two different people. The duality of the President of the United States invites conflation such as we saw in Biden's speech on Thursday last where viewing his installation as temporary Head of Government as at least questionable, if not illegitimate, is taken as an affront to the permanent Institutions of the State. Democrat partisans are a lost cause but I think many in the muddled middle have difficulty in this discernement because of the duality, especially since the aggregation of power in the Executive since at least FDR in the 1930s, even stretching back to Wilson in the 1910s. I don't think a British PM could make a similar speech. At the current moment, Ms Truss has been appointed Head of Government after an election involving only a minuscule portion of the British population. Her service is assumed to be at the pleasure of both the Head of State and her party members. This points to the stability of the Head of State being a significant factor in providing a sense of national unity in a parliamentary system where the government is even more distinctly partisan than in the US system of division between executive and legislative branches. There has been a certain degree of national reverence in the United States for the Constitution and the Declaration that substituted for the national reverence for the person of the Head of State in a constitutional monarchy but the Left's attacks on our founding documents have pushed them even farther towards viewing the Presidency as a quasi-Imperial position.
The British monarchy is a lot like the nation's flag: it's a symbol 'round which the nation can rally in treacherous times.
Although the flag is a bit more stable than the seasons of monarchs.
It'll be interesting to see how the Climate King behaves. He does appear to hold grudges against family, though, bidding a son and daughter-in-law to fare well, overseas. And elevating his paramour and lately wife to an office to which his first wife might have ascended and to which his paramour was originally barred, with the original intent to elevate her to Princess Consort.
Eric Hines
Anarcho-monarchist is likely completely impractical - he was thinking of the entirely fictional lives of hobbits in the Shire, based on the farmers and small tradesmen around the Birmingham of his youth - loyal to the king and yet preferring to be left alone, but this was entirely a childhood fantasy. Those Birmingham locals were deeply embedded with the entire Empire and dependent upon that network for their "independent" lives, as most people who fancy themselves independent are.
Nonetheless, I think it perhaps the best aspirational approach to government, one we should always be trying to get to, however poorly. A monarch is now a symbol more of tradition, history, and even Burkean solidity. We won't get anywhere near the goal, and we likely should fear doing so. Yet it is the best direction to point to when setting out on any political journey. Much less can go wrong.
Charles does seem an unlucky name. In his place I might have thought seriously about changing it.
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