Mark- Ottawa

Hey friends,

I'm posting the below entry here because, although some less interesting version of it will go up on the PIP website, I really wrote it with all of you in mind. Yes, it is about the monarchy. No, I don't actually think that the monarchy is any good. But being around parliament (just like King's) has the tendency to make you think that traditions that seem stupid might actually be worth a damn. this is my Hegelian way of trying to understand why it might be. so enjoy!



Monarchy Malarky



“I have a considerable regard for The Queen and the monarchy although I’m a New Democrat and a socialist. I think that the monarchy has validity at a time when everything else is flying off in all directions […] I admire her stubborn refusal to break down and take the easy way, to conform with the constantly changing public image of how our leaders should act.”

—Farley Mowat

As images of William and Kate flickered across the television, squeals of delight and agony were heard throughout my office.

“They’re sooooo cute!” said somebody.

“Get rid of them!” roared a voice.

“Come on, they’re fun!” pleaded a third.

And off we went. We had tumbled into the oldest of traps, the most nagging of Canadian preoccupations: Monarchy, yay or nay? Keep it or scrap it?

What an interesting choice.

I say “interesting choice” because, as everyone knows, there was quite a long time when most of those ruled by monarchs did not have much of a choice in the matter at all. The King was it. He was nation, he was the government and he was the sovereign. That’s quite the word, “Sovereign.” Sends chills down your spine and makes you want to kneel right down, doesn’t it?

In the case of the Brits (and thus, in some tenuous way, for Canadians also), the Magna Carta in 1215 was the first step in what we often call a process of democratization. For the first time, limits were put on the powers of the King.

Parliament as we know it is the fruit of this long process. In the British context, the House of Lords (the progenitor of our Senate) served as a chamber in which nobles could come together to scrutinize the way that the King was spending their money. The House of Commons, in turn, sprung up as a mechanism for directly elected Members to represent the interests of the broader (non-sovereign and non-aristocratic) public. The King remained the absolute and the nobles remained the elites, but for the first time “the people” (that slippery and oft-neglected gaggle) had a seat at the table.

This original formation is retained throughout our legislative process, but perhaps most notably in nomenclature, where the Queen is still the ‘Crown,’ the Senate remains the ‘upper’ House and the Commons is still stuck with being the ‘lower’; constitutionally, the commoners are below the elites and both the Commons and the Senate are below the Crown.













...

But wait, if we have been democratizing ourselves, why do we still have a monarch at all?

Perhaps I can answer your question with one of my own. Have you watched Question Period recently?

Talking about the cunning of reason in History (and not at all talking about Parliamentary Democracy) the great German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel said this:

“Particular interests contend with one another, and some are destroyed in the process. But it is from this very conflict and destruction of particular things that the universal emerges, and it remains unscathed itself. For it is not the universal Idea which enters into opposition, conflict, and danger; it keeps itself in the background, untouched, and unharmed, and sends forth the particular interests of passion to fight and wear themselves out in its stead.” (Introduction to the Philosophy of History)

So perhaps the idea is something like this: the House of Commons and the Senate are, together, the mind of the Crown. They are the externalized thought process of a single individual.

And, frankly, how could it be otherwise? How could a single person ever grasp the issues and contradictions of an entire nation state? How could one man or woman create law (a power once reserved only for the gods themselves!) without some serious council and at least a few meetings. And that is, in some sense, the meaning of the institution that we call Parliament: a place for the particular things to come into conflict, destroy themselves, and allow the national idea to emerge unscathed.

Personal attacks might be launched, letterhead will be improperly used, scandals will rage and governments will certainly rise and fall. But, come crisis or vices, the original and absolute presence of the monarchy will stand as a human unity of a country’s many divisions. The Queen of Canada remains (or perhaps has the potential to finally become) a powerful emblem that we can share. And make no mistake, she is our Queen as much as she is anybody’s. She even said so.

…

Hmmm. That all came out quite forcefully. Come to think of it, I don’t recall even liking the monarchy at all last week.

I suppose that I have watched politicians tear into each other for long enough (and I have sensed Parliament disappearing into the abyss known as election for a sufficient number of months) that, perhaps, I just want something to hold onto. And perhaps the Queen is it.

But, on second thought, maybe the Maple Leaf will do.

Anyway, whatever else might come to pass, I can hope for only one thing. This is a hope that I have held in my heart for a long time and it is one that I shared with my office as images of the royal wedding danced in their heads: if we do keep the monarchy, I really, really, hope that it is not based on the highly tenuous claim that they are, in the words of many, “sooooo cute.” Because they aren’t.

And that’s not what monarchy is for.





(Oh, and the Governor General is good too. Maybe. I don't know.)