The Redeeming Value of Monarchies?

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The Redeeming Value of Monarchies?

This week, like so many others in our world, I have read and digested a wide range of content about Queen Elizabeth. So, I have come to think more about monarchies than I typically do. And in light of that, I want to share a few thoughts about monarchies, in general, and Queen Elizabeth, in particular.

Let me start with some context.

First, I am neither, particularly in favor of or against monarchies. Their existence has typically not been front and center of my life, despite being raised in one of the world's current 43 countries with a monarch (Sweden).

Second, there are some obvious problems, significant ones, with the notion of a monarchy. Birthright to power is the very antithesis of democracy and history is notoriously filled with abuse of those rights. And it wasn't until the Enlightenment era, with its commitment to democracy, free speech, rational thought, and removal of monarchies altogether, or at least to most of their constitutional powers, that we saw the incredible progress in liberties, prosperity, and reduction in wars, poverty, and mortalities.

Third, precisely for the significant arguments AGAINST monarchies, it is worth reflecting on some of the beautiful and valuable aspects of them. After all, amongst a sea of criticism against the monarchy and the late Queen, there has also been an intensely emotional reaction from both her constituents and non-constituents alike in regard to her passing. That represents something powerful on a global social scale. I suspect that those positive attributes, whatever they may be, are probably a large part of why so many powerful ones have survived and continue to play such mythic roles in many people's lives. Since it also is the very intention of this newsletter to reflect and inspire ourselves to resist binary thinking and work harder to find what is good within something inherently bad, I thought examining the phenomenon of the modern monarchy could be a constructive exercise in just that.

There is much to admire about Queen Elizabeth. She represented aspects of leadership that we today seem to lust for. For one, a woman in power for 70 years. A respected Sovereign who lived through wars, and a wide span of ideological views, and recently welcomed her 15th Prime Minister. And all in service of a commonwealth she truly loved.

For me, I want to focus on 3 aspects of her reign that we in the Western world hopefully could mimic and seek some inspiration from. You will see quotes from a wonderful article written by Andrew Sullivan titled "An Idol, Not An Icon - the genius of a monarchy embedded in a democracy". I will link to it below. It moved me and inspired me to write this post.

1. Self-Restraint

We knew very little about Queen Elizabeth, a feat which seems nearly impossible given the magnitude and length of her scrutiny in the public eye. Like most humans, I am sure she had many thoughts of her own. But she didn't feel the need to make them public all the time. In today's society, powerfully amplified by instant media technologies and their heat-seeking algorithms, leaders are trigger-happy in sharing their expertise or opinion even on matters where they lack knowledge, power, or both.

Here is Andrew:

Narcissism is everywhere. Every feeling we have is bound to be expressed. Self-revelation, transparency, authenticity — these are our values. The idea that we are firstly humans with duties to others that will require and demand the suppression of our own needs and feelings seems archaic. Elizabeth kept it alive simply by example. With her death, it’s hard not to fear that so much she exemplified — restraint, duty, grace, reticence, persistence — are disappearing from the world. As long as she was there, they were at the center of an idea of Britishness that helped define the culture at its best. Perhaps the most famous woman in the world, she remained a sphinx, hard to decipher, impossible to label. She was not particularly beautiful or dashing or inspiring. She said nothing surprising. She was simply the Queen. She showed up. She got on with it. She was there. She was always there.

2. Purpose bigger than self

Most of our leaders have very explicit goals that are mainly about themselves. About being re-elected. About winning. About exiting a transaction. About making more money. None of these stated objectives are bad, per se, but they lack the necessary quality of attracting your people to join them since their objectives often are not sufficiently inclusive of others. Queen Elizabeth, and perhaps most monarchs, are not about any of those things. They exist, in their current definition, to serve their nation and promote the preservation and continuation of values and traditions that to a large extent form the basic connective tissue holding that nation together.

Here is Andrew:

The Crown represents something from the ancient past, a logically indefensible but emotionally salient symbol of something called a nation, something that gives its members meaning and happiness. However shitty the economy, or awful the prime minister, or ugly the discourse, the monarch is able to represent the nation all the time. In a living, breathing, mortal person.
The importance of this in a deeply polarized and ideological world, where fellow citizens have come to despise their opponents as enemies, is hard to measure. But it matters that divisive figures such as Boris Johnson or Margaret Thatcher were never required or expected to represent the entire nation. It matters that in times of profound acrimony, something unites.

3. Duration

We clearly live in a short-term world with long-term problems. It's an instaculture with expectations of immediate returns of happiness, satisfaction, and gratification. But every human knows, at least deep down, that the best things in life are relationships and experiences that have depth, meaning, and a form of patina to them. New is overrated. Connections take time to foster, judgment takes experiences to form, and joy often appears when looking back at what it took to get here.

70 years as the Queen is unimaginable. Perhaps even too long. It is certainly unique. But the quality of that sort of permanence in a rapidly accelerating world cannot be underestimated. While we certainly don't want politicians or CEOs to stay 70 years in their jobs, we would like to see an attitude commensurate with that time horizon. It would benefit us all.

Here is Andrew:

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. She was part of every family’s consciousness, woven into the stories of our lives, representing a continuity and stability over decades of massive change and dislocation. No American will ever experience that kind of comfort, that very human form of patriotism across the decades in one’s own life and then the centuries before.

I found reading and reflecting on the 70 years of Queen Elizabeth to be enlightening and helpful, as I so desperately am trying to make sense of the political chaos around us. The response from all over the world about her passing also suggests that there is something many people admire about Queen Elizabeth.

Again, I am not suggesting nor am I advocating bringing back kings and queens to countries that don't have them. What I am advocating is elevating our interest and curiosity for some of the illogical reasons for why we admire them and what it is in our institutions that we have lost over time.

A similar argument can be made about religions. There is much to say about them. Both good and bad. And without going into that debate, I believe there are redeeming values about religious observance that secularization has lost. Like weekly gatherings in your community, music, being inside powerful architecture, mediation, dedication to something beyond the self, etc.

Here is Andrew one last time:

You can make all sorts of solid arguments against a constitutional monarchy — but the point of monarchy is precisely that it is not the fruit of an argument. It is emphatically not an Enlightenment institution. It’s a primordial institution smuggled into a democratic system. It has nothing to do with merit and logic and everything to do with authority and mystery — two deeply human needs our modern world has trouble satisfying without danger.

If you want to read the full article by Andrew Sullivan you might have access to it here. Or you might have to subscribe to his newsletter, which is definitely something I recommend.

Well, that's all I've got. I surprised myself writing about monarchies and perhaps I surprised some of you. But bringing our collective attention to ideas we might not like, or have not sufficiently reflected upon, is the very reason I do this. So, hopefully, it got you thinking perhaps differently about it. Reading and reflecting on the Queen's reign certainly made me appreciate and think about monarchies differently.

The funeral will be held tomorrow at 11 am BST. Much of the world will reflect, remember and in their own ways show their respect. I know I will.

Have a great week!