On Queen Elizabeth

Andrew Sullivan, a Britisher-turned-American, wrote this excellent piece upon the passing away of Queen Elizabeth (QE II, from here on). I am no fan of monarchies, and hold the view that Sullivan perfectly captures in this line:

“It’s a primordial institution smuggled into a democratic system. It has nothing to do with merit…”

 

And yet, I found Sullivan’s tribute/commentary on QE II brilliant:

“Elizabeth Windsor was tasked as a twenty-something with a job that required her to say or do nothing that could be misconstrued, controversial, or even interestingly human — for the rest of her life.”

Boy, did she pull it off, he says later:

“Perhaps the most famous woman in the world, she remained a sphinx, hard to decipher, impossible to label.”

And:

“Whatever else happened to the other royals, she stayed the same. And whatever else happened in Britain — from the end of Empire to Brexit — she stayed the same. This is an achievement of nearly inhuman proportions, requiring discipline beyond most mortals.”

 

No, he reminds us, it’s not as if people raised in the royal family could all maintain that (in)famous stiff upper lip:

“The immense difficulty of this is proven by the failure of almost every other member of her family — including her husband — to pull it off. We know her son King Charles III’s views on a host of different subjects, many admirable, some cringe-inducing. We know so much of the psychological struggles of Diana; the reactionary outbursts of Philip; the trauma of Harry; the depravity of Andrew; the agonies of Margaret. We still know nothing like that about the Queen. Because whatever else her life was about, it was not about her.”

 

But that sounds like an uber-repressed person - how can that be admirable?

“Part of the hard-to-explain grief I feel today is related to how staggeringly rare that level of self-restraint is today. Narcissism is everywhere. Every feeling we have is bound to be expressed. Self-revelation, transparency, authenticity — these are our values.”

 

He then contrasts her with the other famous royal of our era:

“(Elizabeth) was an icon, but not an idol. An idol requires the vivid expression of virtues, personality, style. Diana was an idol — fusing a compelling and vulnerable temperament with Hollywood glamor. And Diana, of course, was in her time loved far more intensely than her mother-in-law; connected emotionally with ordinary people like a rockstar…”

 

Sullivan says that “You can make all sorts of solid arguments against a constitutional monarchy”, but humans also seem to want “authority and mystery”. He quotes CS Lewis on the topic:

“Where men are forbidden to honor a king, they honor millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”

 

Our rulers, the political class, have always been polarizing figures, not just in recent times but throughout political history:

“Margaret Thatcher were never required or expected to represent the entire nation.”

In a world full of so many divisive figures, he says “something unites” – and the monarchy is one such thing in Britain.