skimming the existence meniscus

[nyarhotep]

quiet weekend, all told. saw The Queen with Maestra - good piece of cinema ESPECIALLY if you're an anglophile (not that i am, particularly). though i'm sure the movie took liberties, i never realized how distraught Britain was with the death of Diana; the movie suggested this was a national catastrophe, one which had the power of potentially

Comments

[somerled]

I think in the UK the monarch is head of the church about like she might be head of the national bridge association or certain university colleges: not functionally speaking a theocracy. But you know that, so I'm not sure what you're meaning with the instability of theocracies. I agree true theocracy is unstable beneath its veneer, but constitutional monarchy tends to be extraordinarily robust.

Having a monarch means the space a dictator might take is occupied, and removing the monarch from government means that the monarch herself cannot assume power; the civil service can simply pocket veto her edicts. A republic achieves the same thing by splitting the lawmakers from the administration.

[nyarhotep]

i get edgy whenever religion plays any part in government since, it seems, one of the prime premises of religion seems to be entitlement. that is, this group (because of tribal, regional, or arbitrary rational) are superior than that group. for example, Royals are Chosen By God to be Royals. end of line. ¿how do you argue with that? more to the point, ¿what do you do when common sense, equality, and the public need contradict Theocratic Decree? i grant you, having individual or individuals who personify the State, some kind of Figurehead, is usually a good thing. however, as soon as those Icons become people, you get problems. as is suggested by this movie

[arghreality]

Man, no monarchy was going to be toppled with Diana's death. That was not going to happen. It was just an annoying overblown display of public grief, a grief which necessarily had its origin in the media (as our only experience of diana was through the media) and so was pretty much a simulacra of grief. The only people that strongly felt something about the issue were either over 50 or lived by themselves in a flat and didnt go out much.

[nyarhotep]

alright, that contextualizes the movie's bias. one of its prime premises was that Diana's death was a watershed moment for the Monarchy: either the Royals get wise to the "new" involvement media and public sentiment plays in government or they start filing for unemployment. however, you're saying it was just yellow media, which i'm more likely to believe. the Royals seem to be more mascots or cult-icons than Heads of State - this, in my republican Manifest Destiny eyes

though, i did come away with the sense the Royals really have no concept what century they're living in. "out of touch" seems too kind a descriptor - "schizophrenic" seems closer