Sorry, but . . . Time to Say Goodbye to the British Monarchy
I have a feeling this will not be one of my most popular blogs, but I’ve got to say it: It’s time to end the British monarchy, and now is the perfect time.
We have just witnessed the remarkable 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II. She reigned longer than most people have lived. And she did it with dignity and quiet strength, no matter what calamity the world brought upon us.
While I understand the desire for many Brits to hold onto tradition, I never quite understood the infatuation many Americans have for the monarchy. Didn’t we create our own country to escape the monarchy?
“Appeal to tradition” is one of the most common fallacies used to justify continuing a practice that is no longer useful and possibly harmful. It was used as an excuse to continue slavery. It was used more recently to define marriage as between a man and a woman. And it is used as an excuse to hold onto the anachronistic British monarchy.
Forbes puts the late Queen’s net worth at about $500 million. And, of course, the family gets to live in Buckingham Palace, perhaps the world’s fanciest parsonage. That’s a lot of money to spend for someone to issue dry proclamations every once in a while or to visit hospitals occasionally or to wave or even shake hands with the hoi polloi. Many of us do such things for free, on top of our 9 to 5 jobs.
Now, I’m not saying being a Royal is a blast. Being part of the royal family is its own prison, in a sense. Maybe there was a time when a middle-aged Elizabeth, perhaps as an empty-nester, wanted to go out to a local pub and throw back a few pints of Guinness and tell dirty jokes with the patrons. No can do. (Although protocol didn’t seem to inhibit her son Andrew too much.)
I get that there is fun in the drama of having a royal family, and we eat it up with such addictive fluff as The Crown and other shows and movies. I was right there rooting for rebellious Diana and then mourned with the world for a week after her tragic death, and still wonder about the conspiracies surrounding her death. Nearly a hundred years ago, the world was scandalized by King Edward’s abdication of the throne to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson. And today, some are shocked by Prince Harry’s decision to walk away from it all with his wife Meghan.
And . . . so what? I can’t bring myself to embrace these folks who just happen to be born into royalty and take it on as a lifetime role — a longer role than any Supreme Court justice enjoys.
If we revere them merely because of what they are born into, we may as well revere the neighborhood blue-collar worker, born into poverty but doing the best he or she can.
Back in the ’50s and ’60s, there was a television game show called Queen for a Day. A woman was interviewed on a variety of topics. If she won, she was given a throne, a crown, and a handful of prizes, one of which was having someone else do the housework.
And all along, we’ve had The Miss America Pageant. For this contest, beauty counts, but so does the talent and the interview. In recent years, the pageant has lost some of its luster (and viewers), as many have realized that we’ve moved on and these shows no longer represent our values.
And yet, both Queen for a Day and Miss America were, at the very least, competitions. These women weren’t just handed things, they had to earn their prizes.
Can we agree that the British monarchy has outlasted its usefulness?
Since the beginning of the 20th Century, countries as diverse as Turkey, Bulgaria, Italy, Russia, Portugal, Nepal, and Greece have abolished their monarchies. Do we miss them?
Elizabeth II was thrust into the role as a young woman and she performed it with near perfection. Though she had no political power, she was more or less a well-paid ambassador who was a steady and comforting presence through the decades.
Why not end the monarchy on a high note? Does anyone believe King Charles III will perform his duties as well? Or even his successor, William? Outside of the luck of their birth, would these boring people rise to anything higher than a bookstore manager in real life? (Sorry, bookstore managers — I’ve always wanted to be one myself!)
Change is hard. We like to hold onto that comfortable rock for as long as we can. It turns out that that rock — whether royalty or MAGA — isn’t all that solid, and our view of the past through rose-colored glasses isn’t really as wonderful as we thought it was if we have the courage to replace the rose-colored glasses with prescriptive lenses.
Let’s move forward. Let’s say goodbye to the monarchy and other things that are no longer useful.
