Thoughts After A Queen’s Death
Paradox, The Pipeline, and the Praxis
Abolish The Monarchy? And yet…
Anyone who knows me well will also know my feelings towards the royal funeral will be less than empathetic. As a wannabe anarchist (or if this fails, socialist; or if this fails, annoyance), the idea of a non-democratically appointed ruler of the people does not fill me with glee; and on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, I felt very little other than a reminder of the nations that have suffered injustice and genocide in her name. I do not give space to the suffering befalling these blessèd imperialists, but rather voices such as Muthoni Mathenge[1], who fought for independence and autonomy whilst watching her family perish, all for this very same Royal Family. I think of Ghana. I think of India, and Pakistan. Kenya, Nigeria. Aotearoa. Turtle Island. Whilst, during a cost of living crisis no less[2], tax payers money[3] is used to fund a coronation and funeral for a man & woman no one elected other than God Himself (through, naturally, the voices of mortal men who seemingly have forgotten any passage on “false idols”), no ounce of screen time is given to the thousands upon thousands who have already died, who will continue to die, for a British Empire only existing as a ghost in the halls of Westminster.
And yet…
Any POC, anarchist, queer, or mad pride individual reading that “and yet” will already be rolling their eyes so hurriedly they fall out and hurtle into the next room, but I am here to indulge a new perspective I am trying to nurture in these troubling times, one I know with many pitfalls. As therapists, we must remain without judgement in the therapeutic space; the death of the Queen and COVID cast a pall over many clients: not to speak of individual concerns (as this would broach confidentiality) but simply there are citizens of the nation of England grieving — it is so unavoidable as to be impossible not to mention in the wider-reaching context of therapeutic essayism. I cannot (and I fabricate this entirely) tell my clients to stop crying or comparing their troubles to the royals, simply out of my own abolitionist beliefs; it would be unethical. And yet, and yet, and yet — how do I manifest this almost paradoxical kindness with my clients, let alone in the world around me? I have no idea yet. But I believe it necessary.
The first paradox. Karl Popper:
Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.[4]
There is of course something missing from the above statement, even if I agree with it for the most part[5]. It is this simple and infuriating fact. People will do whatever the hell they like.
The Paradox of Human Empathy
As of late, my activist blood has been boiling, due to my own behaviour matching none of my beliefs. I go to church. I watch historical dramas about old English Queens (and feel sorry for them!). I even sat to watch the Queens funeral and, dare I say it, felt something. Any of my twitter followers will decry this, more than likely, as the milquetoast cowardice of the liberal. As evidenced by the Labour Party singing the National Anthem at their latest gathering (it has never happened before, and National anthems are Nationalist, quite overtly[6]) or trans-exclusionary radical feminists discovering their community is rife with Nazis[7], liberal belief systems are entrenched in civility before morality; even toying with such a philosophical foundation can be highly problematic, troubling, or downright dangerous. Online political theorists call this the “liberal to fascism pipeline”, so my confessions here I am not taking lightly.
What is fascinating, and perhaps the trigger for my shift in perspective, is how even the most ‘radical’[8] of celebrities were sending their condolences to the royal family. People who have fought against state-led poverty, starvation of the underclasses, unjust immigration law, and systemic racism[9] are all of a sudden behaving as civilly as possible[10], suspending their activism for a day of mourning. Why? As much as any anarchist can pronounce that The Queen is an unimportant mortal woman, and not a demi-goddess of Christian power, the current incarnation — like a holy spirit Time Lord, regenerating a long royal lineage going all the way back to the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)[11] — evidently has the power of her pomp, circumstance, ceremony, and position of authority to have a strong effect on the public than cannot be waved away as simple propaganda. She meant something to these people. The “people’s grandmother” may be sickening to those who have seen their very real grandmothers murdered in her name, but that doesn’t seem to change people’s minds at all.
Abigail Thorne, who spreads free philosophical investigation through their online platforms, addressed the paradoxical relationship with The Queen wonderfully in their video Why Does Britain Still Have a Queen?[12] She describes The Queen (hilariously, with some profanity) as follows:
Waifus do have to be fictional, at least according to the waifuism subreddit, and Elizabeth Windsor is a real woman, but the royals are surrounded by this mythos, by these constructed stories, and they are the figureheads of this imagined community of Britishness[13] so I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that the Queen is like the British State Waifu. […]. But my point is, a lot of people want to be associated with the royals: they wanna know them, they wanna know about them, they wanna be close to them, they wanna be *very* close to them because the royals have prestige. And prestige is desirable. They’re celebrities! And we love celebrities!
Waifu here is meme-language shorthand for a parasocial relationship[14], mixed with a bit of hero worship, and mythologisation. The other sexual metaphor in the video (if you do watch it) is, as Thorne goes on to say, about believing you are a part of that mythology, and that it will pay off in the end. Or, if not to pay off in some substantial manner, to bring meaning to that parasocial relationship, to counteract the paradoxical image of an England going through a cost-of-living crisis, The Queen wearing a diamond of exceptional wealth[15], and the image of her as a kindly grandmother meeting Paddington for marmalade sandwiches. It is this, Thorne surmises, as to why even the most hardened radical activist is wishing The Firm condolences even if presented with the glaring facts that one of the reasons for poverty, exclusionary politics, and rising nationalism (if it was ever lowered) is the very woman they feel grief-stricken for. It is not a response of rationality, hubris, solidarity or logic, but one of pure emotion. Something we all know a thing or two about these recent years.
One Grief For Another
Dunbar’s Number[16] posits we can only sustain 150 relationships at maximum at a time. Research scientists (with some debate[17]) conclude the mind can only remember four things at a time, simultaneously. Combine this with mass atrocities and empathy fatigue, and natural disasters, catastrophic loss of life, it becomes almost impossible to process all this pain without tricks of neurology, psychology, spirituality and self[18]. As the eidetic memoriser may utilise grouping to help recall vast quantities of information, so might we use a totem, a nexus, a waifu, to navigate vast quantities of collective grief[19].
The concept has come under some intense critique, but the death of The Queen — a myth, as we’ve determined, to represent an entire nation[20] (rightly, or wrongly) — may well be acting as an anchorage point for displaced grief[21] the population has been unable to process due to the terrifying numbers, post-truth propaganda, anti-vaxx movements, and personal loss[22]. The critique, naturally, is that The Queen cannot possibly represent the collective loss of the people (as Emine Saner posited in the footnote: including George Floyd no less!) due to her already representing genocidal loss mentioned in my opening paragraphs. It would be crass, inhumane, and disrespectful to conflate the death of an unelected imperialist to the loss of those during COVID, hate crimes, police abuse — the list goes on. As said, the death of The Queen brought me closer to the ideas of those nations invented by the British Empire for personal gain, avenues of destruction and mass murder, rather than the loss of my loved ones, either in a very material death, or the slow loss of ability under Long COVID.
And yet!
Our ability to translate our grief into a more manageable format is not a rational one. Although The Enlightenment (another colonial expression) pedestalled rationality over any other kind of thinking, we must be mindful that irrational methodologies of thinking are equally (if not more) beneficial for us. Magical thinking, spirituality, religion, game theory, art — all of these are crucial to the human experience and yet none, perhaps, could be described as rational. Similarly, the utilisation of a totem, a fulcrum, for grief cannot be regarded as a rational one. I am sure many empiricists would argue grief alone is not rational, as atoms are simply atoms and cannot be mourned. A community welled up from the streets, forming The Queue (I await the film adaptation), where piece meal everyone passed into that legendary space[23] a little portion of their collective, national grief.
It is here I struggle. On the one hand I cannot deny that the Royal Family is an institution of immense destruction. Stolen wealth, murderous history, injustices of a scale unimaginable, all the while designed systemically to be a continuous spirit of The Empress, where the sins of the father are directly passed on to the next in line to the throne. It is in-built to the fabric of The Firm, spiritually and politically, that whatever came before them, whatever atrocities, are the responsibility of those who come next, whether personally accountable or not. On the other, I see churches coming together to feed the poor under the very same heraldic arms. A couple met and got married in that very same Queue. Although some needy were pushed to one side, another set of temporary needy were supported and loved and fed. Having a central point where our kindness could be orchestrated brought people together on a vast scale; perhaps not as vast as the media made out, but still of a quantity I do not believe can go unignored.
Anarchism[24] rejects any figurehead, as in the phrase “no gods, no masters”. But I wonder what could be navigated with a few mythologies of their own. I wonder what the left could achieve if they embraced a radical irrationality of heroes to worship, of Queens to mourn.
And yet…
The Pipeline & The Praxis
I joined a church. We did a little ceremony for The Queen. I wrote in a book of condolences for her. I lit a candle for her! It seemed the right thing to do, in that small portion of the universe, where I could embrace the idea, on samsara, maybe on the next go round, we’d all learn something from this chaos. In short, I embraced hope.
The people I talk to there were grieving the loss of their royal; even though I committed to singing one verse of God Save the King, he did not feel like my King even if those around me in the congregation certainly did feel that way. We then moved on to discuss an apple pressing event, and the Harvest Festival where we will try and help those in need. The vicar who came spoke of his own church (he was covering as our vicar went touring with his band), and how they run an event feeding the local area with toast, chatter, community. The paradox of my CofE — created so a man could marry another, only to behead them later: a lineage of abuse — remembering a royal I have so adamantly opposed online, versus the kindness and generosity of the people right in front of me was jarring. Twitter often pronounces “touch grass”, a reminder that the online sphere, the theoretical, is not like the real world (whatever that may mean); there is a gulf between theory and praxis, between political macro-scale empathy and the work to be done by your physical, local community[25].
In therapy, we know that a client will not benefit from the counselling relationship if, quite simply, they do not want it. If they feel they don’t need counselling, or feel forced into that environment, they will gain nothing from it. Counselling is not about offering advice, but guidance towards the self-actualisation of the client; it has to come from within the client, nurtured by the counsellor, but the power is with who we work with. This translates to political opinions as well; one cannot teach a transphobe about chest binders[26], a Nazi about Jewish identity, a royalist about parasocial relationships, unless they are open to such advice, guidance and education. In short, we cannot force our opinions on others. It simply won’t stick, or more drastically, make sense.
In my church, it would be simply irrational (in the negative) to try and stop an entire service for The Queen in the hopes of advancing a political discourse. The praxis of good anarchism is sharing resources, building community, and doing so without state-backing; my church are doing all of these things. We can argue the Church itself is the power in charge of these proceedings, but in my experience it is simply a vessel; I see no direct funding, orders, or demands from powers on high, simply a building where people come together to drink tea, eat homemade flapjack, and support one another. If the time is right, opening a debate as to the nature of the country at large might be fruitful, but the time has so far not felt right. This is something indescribable; you simply know when the door has been left open enough to start such discourse.
The struggle I face is the paradox of The Pipeline and The Praxis. We know that being too tolerant leaves that same door ajar for fascist ideologies and genocide apologism. We also know that what is important in the world is less to do with what we say[27] but what we do[28]. My writing in the condolence book may feel like anti-activism, a rewiring of my sense of self that moves me further away from the common causes of abolition, but it does not impact[29] what good-will I can attempt to offer the world. As Jodorowsky said, “I want to change the world. And I cannot, but I can start to change it. And I cannot change myself, but I can start to change myself.”[30]There is a limitation to the control we can place on the world around us; as zen teaches, we have no control at all, not even over the self. As counselling taught me, most suffering comes from that inability to accept we cannot control something. I say again, “no gods, no masters” — nothing to control.
Unless I completely give myself over to the chaos of the world[31], I am bequeathed — willingly or otherwise — to the systems of oppression I am privileged by every day. The ability to use The Queen as an avenue for my grief, for my understanding of this nation, of my place within it, is a privilege awarded to men like myself: cishet and white, with a roof over my head. Although I am impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, I can ignore it temporarily by watching The White Queen or The Spanish Princess on Amazon Prime. I can enjoy the community of my church for the same reasons. My village activism is going to be different from an urban one; and once more, this is because the village may well be ostensibly designed and built by more cishet white individuals. If I was Ghanaian, Kenyan, Pakistani, my relationship to this collective grief would be very different, one I cannot completely comprehend, understand, or empathise with from my post-imperial position. I am very lucky.
To deny those around me the chance to channel their grief and understanding over political clout seems insensitive, a throwing the baby out with the bath water. But not addressing it with my peers who are unaware (perhaps) of the atrocities committed by The Queen seems equally insensitive to those mourning their grandparents and parents murdered under her heraldic arms. Both things are existing simultaneously. This is the paradox of The Pipeline and The Praxis.
There must be space to discuss these things, whilst not impacting the good work already being done. We must unravel the systems of oppression around us, without falling into traps of liberal nonaction[32]. We must give space for opinions unlike our own, without ignoring the facts and relinquishing space for those impacted by the very same evils. As a counsellor, taught to hold space for all points of view, I am uncertain how to proceed with this knowledge. And so I share it here, for discussion, debate, and perhaps space to hold grief once more.
Nathan T. Dean is a writer, artist, trainee counsellor, practicing chaos witch, and founder of Ollamh Counselling.
All of these essays are part of an evolving documentation. Ideas the author may have now may shift in the future. This is the lot of the therapist, who must continuously explore their empathy in radical ways as the environment around them shifts. If you find anything in these documents you find offensive, please contact the author at ollamhcounselling@gmail.com. Without discussion, correction, and open discourse, we cannot benefit our clients as effectively as we might.
[1] https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1532314079628517377
[2] I find terminology such as this problematic. A “cost of living crisis” implies it is some natural disaster, unavoidable, the will of the fates. But it is an environment constructed by those in power, who have all the tools at their disposal to change it for the better. Reading anything from the Peace & Justice Project or anarchist thinkers will show how simple it might be to change our world for the better: every day those in power do nothing. It is not a crisis. It is a decision. See also: can’t pay, won’t pay, don’t pay — all very different, and which term is chosen determines where the onus falls. Us or them. The poor or the state.
[3] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/breaking-down-the-cost-of-queen-elizabeth-iis-funeral/3870845/
[4] Popper, Karl (2012) [1945]. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Routledge. p. 581. ISBN 9781136700323.
[5] Notions of “law” and “rationality” often rub me up the wrong way, but that for another time.
[6] https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1573596129555619840
[7] https://www.teenvogue.com/story/nyt-transphobia-july-oped
[8] I put this in inverted commas as the true radicals are not going to be found within the commonplace systems of media and fame. Perhaps not even in therapy, no matter how much R D Laing I read.
[9] Note The Queen wouldn’t hire any POC in positions of authority in her castles. See: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/02/buckingham-palace-banned-ethnic-minorities-from-office-roles-papers-reveal
[10] Bringing out the big guns again, civility is not a positive term here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1345996698326331392
[11] https://www.history.com/news/is-queen-elizabeth-related-to-the-prophet-muhammad
[12] TW: Strong language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2W7P3wGBI8
[13] See Michael de Freitas’ thoughts in Adam Curtis’ Can’t Get You Out of My Head
[14] https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-parasocial-relationship-5210770
[15] https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/great-star-of-africa-diamond-intl-lgs/index.html
[16] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191001-dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships
[17] https://www.livescience.com/2493-mind-limit-4.html
[18] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-people-can-you-remember/
[19] https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/19/how-collective-grief-around-queens-death-will-impact-mental-health-17401152/
[20] In my magickal notes, part inspired by Richard Rohr’s work on Christ, I have determined three layers to an individual. The material, the political, the spiritual. In the case of our recently departed royal, we have Elizabeth Windsor, the very human mortal woman, Queen Elizabeth II, the figurehead of a political nation state, and The Queen, the spiritual, humbling, communal waifu of Thorne’s analysis.
[21] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/18/it-puts-you-in-touch-with-your-own-losses-the-power-of-collective-grief-from-the-queen-to-george-floyd-to-covid
[22] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/archbishop-of-canterbury-echoes-queens-covid-message-saying-well-meet-again/ar-AA11ZJgU
[23] My partner has been showing me Starz dramas about the Royal Lineage, and I must say it is fascinating learning all of those old queens, kings, royals, knights Elizabeth II has been buried with. I hate the sentence “whatever you think of X” but, whatever you think of The Queen, the historical bringing-togetherness is truly astounding.
[24] An-archon, without ruler.
[25] No judgement here at all, but this exchange is indicative of the two perspectives on this matter. As I’ll paraphrase Kwame Ture, nonviolence only succeeds if the enemy has a conscience, and is non-violent also. Where is the space for what I am discussing when people are killing your family? I have no answers. https://twitter.com/Arbeit_Fish/status/1577577283702984704
[26] https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/09/26/mermaids-the-telegraph-investigation-puberty-blockers-breast-binder/
[27] Or even write, right here!
[28] In Christian talk, this is called orthodoxy (say) vs orthopraxy (do).
[29] This is of course the crux of the debate
[30] https://vmagazine.com/article/alejandro-jodorowsky-opens-up-about-albina-and-the-dog-men/
[31] TW: strong language http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/exor.html
[32] The work of Richard Rohr and The Centre for Action and Contemplation are acting as my mediator, currently, between, shall we call it, church and state. His deconstruction of Christ as a force of good is exceptional, and should make even the most hardened nontheist anarchist happy. See: https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/richard-rohr-reorders-the-universe