Laughter is the language of the soul. When I go outside, I don’t want to leave my soul at home.
“I am often described to my irritation as a ‘contrarian’ and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. It is actually a pity that our culture doesn’t have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word ‘dissident’ can’t be self-conferred because it is really a title of honour that has to be won or earned, while terms like ‘gadfly’ or ‘maverick’ are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard…. Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a ‘rebel’: it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that ‘questioning authority’ was part of a ‘phase’ through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones.” — Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir.
I have always hated being seen as a contrarian. To me, to call someone a contrarian is to accuse them of shallowness. It is to suggest that someone picks and chooses their opinions — based not on thoughtful deliberation or deeply rooted feeling — but does so simply to cause consternation among their neighbours and bring attention upon themselves.
For me, ego may be the propellor but conviction must always steer the ship. For a contrarian, it is the reverse.
I am writing this blog as I go through a period of introspective gloom. I was an elected councillor for four since until this May but stood down because, as this blog shows, I didn’t have temperament for it. I hope to one day go back into politics again, but I’ll likely fail to do so… as I’ll be haunted by my honesty and my time-capsule Twitter account.
I’ve been obsessed with politics since I was a teenager. I felt that formal politics was by far the most efficient way to make the world a better place — to achieve something, and to self-actualise, on this short time we have on this planet.
I wish I could sit down with my parents at the age of five and have a right proper sort out with them. I’d tell them, if things continue as they are, you’re going to create a profane young man with a wicked sense of humour and a love of irony. You’ll create someone impulsive, blasé towards authority, candid and obstinate. One day, this man will lament his make-up.
Over the last few days, me and my friends and family have been pinging around the best jokes and memes about the death of our monarch that we can find. My particular favourite jokes revolve around the idea of Diana confronting Queen Elizabeth in the afterlife. These jokes ironically riff on conspiracies around Diana’s death, play on their supposed personal animosity, and are overlaid by the absurdity of the afterlife itself. The joke is of course that Diana isn’t ragdolling Lizzy in heaven while Captain Tom cheers on.
Other favourite jokes poke fun at the sobriety, pomp and piousness on show — from Prince Charles just being absolutely buzzin’ to finally secure his job promotion, to Royal Protection Officers unsentimentally dispatching the Queen’s corgis. There is much joy to be found in taking the sacral - a new King being anointed to the throne — and comparing it to a football manager drinking a bud after winning promotion. Aptly, many jokes play on the idea that much of the sobriety we see is false and self-serving.
Limmy’s “she’s doonstairs” sketch has found a new lease of life in the death of Elizabeth II. Yet the humour in the sketch comes from the fact that nobody is ever actually in hell.
Committing someone to damnation for eternity because they wouldn’t believe in you or follow your rules, is as evil as it gets. After all, nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.
And if we knew hell did exist, there’s no way we’d ever want anyone to experience that no matter their wickedness in life. Nothing would justify such cruelty. Fundamentally, if we were certain hell existed, we wouldn’t joke about it. Jokes and mockery weaken our belief in the profound and sacral because our laughter highlights to others our lack of belief. Our ambivalence.
I am not a contrarian. Each of these jokes is a political statement. Sharing them, laughing at them, expresses my deep ambivalence towards the monarchy, and my distaste at what I see as gratuitous unearned privilege and wealth.
However, while our laughter is political, it is also innate and instinctive. To hide our laughter, is to hide who we are, on a political and a human level.
Thankfully, the monarchy have almost zero political power. If they did, I’d riot to remove them. The monarchy is an empty vessel in day-to-day British public life, but remains a powerful soft power tool internationally. Its emptiness, silence and vacuousness has helped it survive while the era of deference collapsed. Ask a person my age what they think of the Royal Family and you’ll get a shrug. Most are basically republicans ‘in spirit’ but know it’s meaningless to fight it because after all, our royalty don’t do anything.
I can marvel at the how The Firm and Queen Elizabeth reformed the monarchy to help it survive this new era and make people stop caring about them that much. You don’t get number one singles like God Save the Queen or albums called The Queen is Dead anymore, after all.
I can also be impressed at her ability to hold such high public approval rates, while the rest of her family are derided by the majority. Just because I am a republican, doesn’t mean I can’t admire certain aspects of her character and her career.
There is a place for republicanism in Anglosphere politics, if delivered with piety and respect and nothing else.
I can agree with much of Paul Keating’s thoughtful and moving reflections, but I also write pieces like this… As a society, we reject such complexity.
We reject the idea that someone could understand and appreciate how ‘Queen Elizabeth II assimilated a national consciousness reflecting every good instinct and custom of the British people’ while also chuckle at the absurdity of a meme drawing moral equivalence between our monarch and a martyred gorilla, killed for grabbing a small child in a zoo.
For some reason, we are happier with our politicians and public figures as Republicans-on-whatsapp and Royalists-on-Twitter. We claim we want honesty and authenticity from our public figures but as a society there is nothing we despise more.
I may be a republican but this blog isn’t about that. It’s about how we want our public figures to hide their human side, their sense of humour, and to hide their complexity. It’s my lament that I don’t want to hide who I am, and therefore cannot be who I want to be.
