That headline isn’t mine. Rather, it was the name of a paper written by my father Michael Young and his colleague Edward Shills in 1953 about the Coronation of HRH Elizabeth II and published in an academic journal called Sociological Review. You can download it here – it’s terrific. Drawing on the work of Emile Durkheim, they argue that the Coronation was an affirmation of the moral values by which our society lives – an act of national communion. They summarise their hypothesis as follows:
A society is held together by its internal agreement about the sacredness of certain fundamental moral standards. In an inchoate, dimply perceived, and seldom explicit manner, the central author of an orderly society, whether it be secular or ecclesiastical, is acknowledged to be the avenue of communication with the realm of the sacred values. Within its society, popular constitutional monarchy enjoys almost universal recognition in this capacity, and it is therefore enabled to heighten the moral and civil sensibility of the society and to permeate it with symbols of those values to which the sensitivity responds. Intermittent rituals bring the society or varying sectors of it repeatedly into contact with this vessel of the sacred values. The Coronation provided at one time and for practically the entire society such an intensive contact with the sacred that we believe we are justified in interpreting it as we have done in this essay, as a great act of national communion.
Is that also true of the Coronation we witnessed today? The sacred symbols were all there – the Coronation Chair, commissioned by Edward I; the orb; the imperial state crown that includes a ruby Henry V wore at the Battle of Agincourt. But for the people watching it on television, did it feel as if they were making contact with a realm of sacred values? Did the ceremony embody the fundamental moral standards that characterise British society? Was it an act of national communion?
It is tempting to answer ‘no’ because the whole affair was so deeply rooted in Christianity, from the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the blasts of choral music, and we are a post-Christian society. A lot of the the commentary – I flitted back and forth between the BBC and GB News – focused on the way in which this Coronation ceremony had been updated compared with the last one, with peers representing the different faiths, a female bishop taking part, the address by our Hindu Prime Minister, etc. But the most striking thing about it was how little had changed since 1953. I kept an eye out for the intrusion of ‘woke’ elements, but I was disappointed – or, rather, pleasantly surprised. In essence, Charles’s kingly authority was conferred on him by God, as was explicit in the most mystical part of the ceremony when he was anointed with holy water standing behind a screen in his shirtsleeves. What sacred meaning could that possibly have for people who don’t believe in God?
But I think that’s based on a superficial understanding of the meaning of the ceremony. Shills and Young also describe the Britain of 1953 as a ‘post-Christian’ society and while there were many more church-goers back then, how many of them understood all the Christian elements in the Coronation? Indeed, the fact that much of it was incomprehensible – then, as now, many parts of the ceremony seemed completely bizarre, like the placing of a rod into the hands of the monarch – is part of what makes it so quintessentially British. That dimension of it was captured nicely by the Australian rock star Nick Cave, who was in attendance today. In his blog a few days ago, he included his response to various tetchy emails he’d received asking him why he was bothering to go:
I once met the late Queen at an event at Buckingham Palace for ‘Aspirational Australians living in the U.K.’ (or something like that). It was a mostly awkward affair, but the Queen herself, dressed in a salmon coloured twin-set, seemed almost extraterrestrial and was the most charismatic woman I have ever met. Maybe it was the lighting, but she actually glowed. As I told my mother – who was the same age as the Queen and, like the Queen, died in her nineties – about that day, her old eyes filled with tears. When I watched the Queen’s funeral on the television last year I found, to my bafflement, that I was weeping myself as the coffin was stripped of the crown, orb and sceptre and lowered through the floor of St. George’s Chapel. I guess what I am trying to say is that, beyond the interminable but necessary debates about the abolition of the monarchy, I hold an inexplicable emotional attachment to the Royals – the strangeness of them, the deeply eccentric nature of the whole affair that so perfectly reflects the unique weirdness of Britain itself. I’m just drawn to that kind of thing – the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe-inspiring.
So, that is part of its meaning – for many, the Coronation embodied the uniqueness of our country. Not an affirmation of our sacred values, perhaps, but a celebration of our eccentricity, our oddness. Some people dislike the Royal Family and point to its vast wealth, as well as the cost of staging events like this (£250 million). Couldn’t that money be better spent helping the disadvantaged? But most Britons have a strong attachment to the monarchy and I suspect that’s partly because no other country can put on a show like this. For better or worse, this is what we’re famous for, this is why millions of tourists come to Britain every year to see the Royal Palaces and hope to catch a glimpse of the occupants.
There’s also the fact that the Royals are a family, something that’s central to the institution’s meaning for many people. Shills and Young cite Bagehot’s explanation of how the actions of a retired widow and unemployed youth (Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales) become of such importance: they are members of a family and, as such, they are relatable for the mass of ordinary Britons. To be sure, some members of the Firm in attendance today were conspicuous by their black sheep status, but it was the web of family relationships surrounding Charles that provided some of the most touching moments, such as when his son William helped dress him after he’d been anointed. What Shills and Young say about this aspect of the 1953 Coronation could equally have been said about today’s:
The family, despite the ravages of urban life and despite those who allege that it is in dissolution, remains one of the most sinewy of institutions. The family tie is regarded as sacred, even by those who would, or do, shirk the diffuse obligations it imposes. The Coronation, like any other great occasion which in some manner touches the sense of the sacred, brings vitality into family relationships. The Coronation, much like Christmas, was a time for drawing closer the bonds of the family, for reasserting its solidarity and for reemphasising the values of the family – generosity, loyalty, love – which are at the same time the fundamental values necessary for the well-being of the larger society. When listening to the radio, looking at the television, walking the streets to look at the decorations, the unit was the family, and neither mother nor father were far away when their children sat down for cakes and ice cream at one of the thousands of street and village parties held that week. Prominent in the crowds were parents holding small children on their shoulders and carrying even smaller ones in cradles. In all towns over the country, prams were pushed great distances to bring into contact with the symbols of the great event infants who could see or appreciate little. It was as if people recognised that the most elementary unit for entry into communion with the sacred was the family, not the individual.
So, yes, it was a deeply odd occasion and it probably meant a little less to today’s Britons than the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth did 70 years ago. But the revelation for me today was how meaningful it all was, how much of a connection there still is between the British people and their monarch, how little disenchantment there is with the symbols and rituals of a dying religion, as well as the great outpouring of affection from ordinary people, not just towards this jug-eared 74 year-old and his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren, but towards each other. Britain did not feel like a country gradually succumbing to strife and division today, but a strong nation, still quietly patriotic, still with a high degree of social solidarity, still capable of renewal.
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It is a stupid word anyway. The Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa mentioned it in one of his films. A twig is easily broken but many twigs together are hard to break.That is the meaning of the bound branches. Like a family and Japanese ‘fascism’ has always had a family feel. I would rather live under a Shogunate than live under the WEF. Safetyism becomes such a habit. The emasculation of a population is easier then you think because you are pushing at an open door,.If you want to keep a young lad strong and vital then you need to put him through his paces.
Well this ought to please Nazi Faeser. The intimidation appears to be working as not everyone wants to gamble with their family’s safety. Nice bit of projection from the Leftard government and their bitches, the MSM, here too;
”A successful entrepreneur who was running for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in district elections says he is withdrawing his candidacy due to serious threats to his family.
The 40-year-old Matthias Beerbaum cited “threats against and danger to” his family, although he did not give specific details surrounding the potential threat. He said the decision was not easy for him, but he did not want to deal with endangering his family.
“This should not happen in a democracy,” he announced in a press release on Thursday evening last week.
The threats against his family come at a time when the media and the government have compared the AfD to the Nazi party and claimed the party is “anti-democratic.” Many within the left-liberal ruling coalition are now calling for a complete ban on the opposition party due to its popularity in the polls. At the same time, the country’s far-left interior minister, Nancy Faeser, has called to shut down bank accounts for those who donate to “extremist” right-wing parties and, in conjunction with the federal police and the Office of the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), plans to initiate a series of new laws to target the opposition.”
https://rmx.news/germany/this-shouldnt-happen-in-a-democracy-afd-politician-withdraws-from-election-race-after-threats-to-his-family/
Filthy communist bitch. Doing her party duty. We arenliving in a re-comnunising Europe. Very dangerous times
Nationalism is a blunt and clumsy tool but given the nastiness of the refinement of the system it is simply the only thing left. We all sit back and experience ourselves growing poorer. We got used to that in 2008 and now we are told to get used to successive waves of it. We have British families who are living on the streets or who can’t afford to live. How much longer do you think that you can keep up the spiel? That we are the country with the best of everything? They always go too far. We are a sick and demoralised population but they are really taking the Mick now and I sense that people are beginning to ken it. Even the huge white clots in the venous and arterial system – this is becoming mainstream.
In the UK I believe we had a coup executed so perfectly that nobody noticed. Kwarteng was removed and Hunt, his economic opposite installed, and then Truss was removed and a WEF puppet moved into place. All carried out by a bit of hedge fund market manipulation.It is beyond me that hardly anbyody bats an eyelid at this.
Eugyppius’s analysis is a good read but it only really holds if you believe that governments and not corporations/banks wield the ultimate control. I’m with Simon Elmer and Agamben. It’s the return of fascism, Mussolini style.
I think this explanatory approach is far too complicated. Faeser’s plans aren’t referred to as fascist by our so-called “anglo-saxon friends & allies” because of something they are but because of something she is, namely, German, be it in name only and probably very much against her will. Everybody who was born after 1945, more so if he was born in global Anglo-Saxia (whatever became of the Normannic conquerors we don’t know) was brought up on a constant ideological and cultural diet of “Nazi Stuff” were evil German Nazis are always getting beaten by the anglo-saxian knights in their shining armour fighting for all that is good, just and beautiful in the world¹. On top of that comes the political sphere where “Nazis” are still everyone’s most beloved universal villain, not the least of a certain state in the middle-east which will take German money with one hand and conduct anti-German propaganda campaigns with the other.
The long and short of that is that, for the typical Anglo-Saxian, Germans simply equals Nazis and things will likely remain in this way for at least some time to come. Hence, when Faeser clumsily imitates the US democrats, eg, believing in the panacea of tightening weapon law to solve all interesting social ills, that’s obviously evil and since she’s German, this proves that she’s Nazi. And that’s all.
Da drüben hassen sie uns und dagegen gibt es, wenn man nicht verächtlich sein will, nur ein Mittel: Furchtbar zu sein.
[Jünger, „Feuer und Blut“]
¹ This propaganda campaign has been running since 1914, originally using Huns instead of Nazis as the latter term didn’t yet exist at that time. Its substance hasn’t changed.
Boring twaddle.
I’m sorry if I failed to enterain you. This might have been caused by me not trying.
“for the typical Anglo-Saxian, Germans simply equals Nazis” – This is not true.
I don’t know how representative this school of thought is, however, the Mogwai-text above which starts with Nazi Faeser is a nice example of it. Faeser is a SPD-politician, ie, the from the original socialist German party and her political goals are closely aligned with those the US democrats. This means she’s a dedicated antifascist and antinationalist and isn’t exactly friendlyly (?) disposed towards Germans she basically considers the enemy. Yet, she’s being labelled as Nazi. As this certainly cannot be because of her politics, her German heritage would seem to be the reason for it.
Hitler was a leftist, he adhered to 8 out of 10 points of Marx communist manifesto dropping only the property theft and inheritance theft parts of the manifesto. There is no such thing as the far right, this would be a society with no state, rather communism and racism are two sects within the left that seek to entirely dictate citizens lives. Socialists need to own Auschwitz as much they own Stalin’s great terror.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/hitler-and-the-socialist-dream-1186455.html
Out of my head, I can immediately tell that he also certainly didn’t plan to collectivize farming in order to turn a bunch of family-run, relatively small agricultural businesses into large units of industrialized agricultural production in order to eliminate the difference between urban and rural areas. He was in favour of the exact opposite of that.
In order to address the remainder of this load of tosh (the article, there are some remarkable phantasists on the current political right), it’s sufficient to say that Hitler denounced Marxism in the strongest terms in Mein Kampf as he believed it to be the final stage of the Jewish world conspiracy for total domination of the world by Jews and effective elimination of the German race.
It’s not tosh read the article. You’ve bought a left/right paradigm that makes no sense. If the left see the answer as being the state, and right the answer self reliance. How can far right be the complete control by the state? That’s a philosophical contradiction in terms. The other clue is Hitler called himself a socialist, but according to you apparently he wasn’t.
You are also ignorant as well rude. The Reichsnährstand had legal authority over farming with price controls, and conducted command and control policy over farming determining what seeds were sown, fixing prices, overseeing all production. You know rather like erm a command and control economy. That policy led to food shortages as early as 1936.
The origin of the political terms left and right was the sitting order in revolutionary national assembly of France. On the left sat the people who were in favour of a democractic republic and on the right, the more conservative ones who wanted to keep a constitutional monarchy. 20 century American neoliberals with their weird ideas about ‘statism’ weren’t represented because this ideology didn’t exist yet.
BTW, it’s rude to comment on other people instead of their opinions. The latter is just critcism.
Don’t be so rude then. I’m perfectly aware of the origin of left thanks. In practical terms how left and right manifest themselves is exactly as I describe. It’s perfectly obvious fascism is a leftist philosophy, it’s just communism with slightly less theft of property.
I wasn’t commenting on you. And referring to an article written by someone else which starts with an obviously invented quote — the one about Hitler having learnt a lot by reading Marx which makes no sense at all as Marx published tomes about economic theory and not revolutionary politics, that would have been Lenin – as tosh is entirely appropriate, because it is tosh.
In practical terms, the neoliberals are targetting conservative voters and hence, they seek to label their theories about radical change of society as right and everyone who opposes them as left. This makes no historical sense and hence, it’s best ignored. Especially since it has a decidedly Marxist tinge to it as they’re really aiming for the Marxist Paradise regained! state of a state-less society of autonomous communities.
Communism just with private property is contradictio in adiecto (English contradiction in terms) because the abolishment of private property is the very core principle of communism. Without it, it isn’t communism.
Touching moment not long ago when my new twenty-something son-in-law, who I think is a wonderful boy, reacted to something I mentioned (probably too casually) about Hitler being fundamentally a leftist with “Wait, no that’s wrong – I did this in my A-levels – he was an extreme right-winger.”. Bless.
https://youtu.be/hTXSKaogA2c?si=fKsKfgzTZj1GzTNz
The MET up to no good again with one of their dubious “officers” making up their own laws.
Frightening stuff.
No, no, no. Hitler was a radical Marxist. Nazis were socialists. Its in the darn name of their parry. They didn’t come up with their name as a joke. A true far right would be extreme free enterprise people who would almost want no government interference in anyone’s life at all.
Comkuniam and Nazism were both branches of leftism. Hitler controlled industry and people’s lives by implementing controlling policies and laws. He behaved almost exactly like communists did and do – control people and things by making more and more constricting laws against whatever they do not want or like. This is why the left always throws around their interpretation of the nazis as far right, fascists. To sow confusion in our minds.
See this article from the Independent, back when it was somewhat open minded and unleftist.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/hitler-and-the-socialist-dream-1186455.html
And this excellent video from Tik
https://youtu.be/0q16cq25SCY?si=Keun2_sxKXDQLzJ0
I generally agree with Eugyppius, but in this case I think he has confused two separate ideas. Perhaps this comes from his German viewpoint.
Fascism is the concept that the State should rule, in cooperation with privately owned and run businesses. Mussolini’s Italy was fascist.
Wartime Germany, on the other hand, was Nazi, or National Socialist. National Socialism is similar to fascism, but not the same.
It seems to me that Nazism is more collectivist than fascism. It desires complete suppression of individuality so that all individuals become part of the State, whereas fascism envisages more a complete cooperation of individuals so that they are all aligned in the same direction.