I just spent a good chunk of this morning perusing an interesting blog I hadn't come across before, The Anti-Democracy Activist. While I don't endorse every viewpoint this writer expresses, there's much to agree with and his work is certainly worth reading.
Going back to my 2003 article "Two Kinds of Monarchists," I've long thought that monarchism comprises at least two distinct elements, which as an alternative to "neo" and "paleo" might be called "cuddly" ("OMG Prince George is so adorable!") and "non-cuddly" ("Thank God Franco won the Spanish Civil War!"). It has always been my position that both are necessary, and that monarchists drawn more to one side should not scorn the other. Without the former, monarchism loses its potential appeal to ordinary people; without the latter, it is impotent. This anti-democracy blog, and the neo-reactionary movement generally, are useful additions to the "non-cuddly" side, but that doesn't mean we have to stop appreciating things like charming photos of the Danish royal family.
However, a less complementary way to express the dichotomy is that perhaps there are two kinds of monarchists: those who think that republican scum like Peter Tatchell are wrong when they argue that even a symbolic constitutional monarchy is incompatible with the [democratic and egalitarian] prevailing values of our time, and those of us who think that (painful as it is to admit it) Tatchell and his allies are logically correct but the problem is with the prevailing values of our time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I think you've described not only the monarchist cause, but the Christian faith very nicely as well!
Jesus Christ is both the adorable Christ Child we see at Christmas, and the Bloody Sacrifice we see on the Cross on every Crucifix at Mass.
On the one hand, especially in this day and age of a deistic, plastic "pick your poison" attitude towards religion, we can't appreciate the Good News (its Truth and its exclusivity) without knowing the bad news first: life is inevitably full of evil (some of which is caused by us), suffering, and death, and nothing we can do will ever change that, and if we all got what we deserved, the only people who wouldn't roast in hell for all eternity would be those who died young enough not to be morally responsible for their actions, and even those wouldn't enjoy Heaven with their Maker.
On the other, because it's true that depending upon what you're against is Satanic and not Christian, and because God is not an abstract concept that can fit into our minds, we also need joy and awe and wonder and romance, the kind of thing we can experience but not quite put into words (at best we can approximate it in poetry, but even accurate prose wouldn't do the experience justice).
Because of this I'm coming to appreciate two books in the English language: "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding and "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame. Excellent examples of both, in my opinion.
Post a Comment