The Queen as Pure Symbol of Order

And what that means in terms of the divided brain

I wasn’t going to say a word about The Queen. Surely, enough words have hemorrhaged about her reign, her life, and her personality. I could add little to that outpouring of grief. However. Unlike her, I changed. I do have something to add to the avalanche of Words About the Queen.

It is simply this: as a powerful symbol, she was never really a ‘person’; the words she spoke were not hers but those of the institution she embodied, and her ‘views’ were never on naked display. She simply WAS. Nothing that she did or said was in any sense ‘personal’, and all attempts to make her more modern were futile, never touching the core. In an age that no longer understands Symbols, only Brands, she was the living embodiment of Tradition, Religion, Duty. I have never been overly fond of these ideals, being a predominantly left-brain liberal all my life. I embraced change; she embraced tradition. As A.N. Wilson remarks in what is likely the best commentary in The Spectator, the Queen’s chief virtue was that she did not change. He quotes Larkin on the event of her Silver Jubilee, 1977:

In times when nothing stood But worsened, or grew strange, There was one constant good: She did not change.

And now, since becoming aware of what the divided brain has to do with public life (see previous post), I am compelled to see HRM as a perfect example of the right brain and its ability to see ‘the big picture’ while leaving the pesky details of managing relentless change to the left brain. I have not become a convert to the Monarchy, no. But I see its virtues clearly, and for the first time in my life. Maybe it’s a case of you never know what you got till it’s gone. I even framed a rather garish cartoon of her and hung it over my couch. My old left brain is paying homage to the right brain that I tend to neglect. It feels odd, but it is a fact I cannot ignore.

It's easy to turn HRM into a cartoon character. I often laughed at her outfits and wondered why she couldn’t be a bit more …with it. I get it, now. I didn’t comprehend that the Queen embodied a higher, timeless calling. It was never about being modern. It was the opposite. It’s a thoroughly antiquated role, one her son, King Charles III, is going to have trouble with. Full of opinions on everything, as we all are, Charles III is a predominantly left-brain sort. Lots of words there. I doubt he ever understood his stoic mother, grounded as she was in her symbolic role and her faith. She was absolutely perfect for that task since she did not suffer from his problem, a heroic ego given to flights of fancy ideals. At heart, as we all know, she was a canny country woman who loved her dogs and horses rather more than most, and not at all given to sentimentality. She had in abundance of what was once known as ‘Common Sense’. Also, an intuitive wit and natural warmth when she finally allowed herself to reveal it after Princess Margaret’s death.

But she never stepped outside the traditional, defined boundaries of her role. Anyone who has watched The Crown, surely the best piece of royal propaganda ever made, understands this. What we continue to struggle with is our left-brain confusion over her symbolic presence. Take the entire, over the top spectacle of mourning, lying in state and final internment that only makes sense as a symbol. If you take it as a modern event, it is ridiculous in its formality and archaic rituals. But that is the point. It is a reminder that there are eternal values, old and somewhat tarnished but still recognizable. That we are part of something beyond ourselves, even if we don’t believe in it any longer.

And in a society that has lost its moorings, this is comforting. We know we cannot live without something that binds us to our fellow man though we have lost the knack of faith. For The Queen, there was none of that confusion; in her her formal role as ‘Defender of the Faith’ and as an actual woman of faith, she was secure and grounded. Though you could argue that she didn’t do a particularly good job of ‘defending the faith’ for the rest of us. The Anglican Church is no longer what it was and continues to dwindle. Indeed, there is a crisis of meaning in the West that arguably began when we stopped believing in the legacy of Christianity. Nature abhors a vacuum, so we suffer from fake religions like Woke and Gender Wars, not to mention The Science. I would argue that this is not an improvement on Christianity. Which leaves us non believers lost. I think that a new faith is needed but I discern no visible signs of its coming. Reheated Communism or for that matter, Neo Fascism, won’t do. They are what they always were: Ersatz secular religions. The vacuum at the heart of our society remains.

The reason why Queen Elizabeth will be sorely missed is that she was the last remaining link to a tradition we no longer understand but still need. About that need we are at a loss for words; a typical sign that all of this is taking place in the realm of the right brain, which according to McGilchrist, has faith but no words.

And it is rather remarkable that an estimated 4.1 billion people will be watching her funeral on Monday, making it the single most watched event in human history. Are all these people monarchists? I doubt it.

Surely, the fact that more than half the human race is watching the funeral of a distant monarch on a small island nation no longer a great empire, is a signal and a sign that The Queen stood for much more than the office itself. She stood for order, predictability and, like it or not, the spiritual aspect of our lives. This moment of global grief is unprecedented and expresses a universal yearning for something we cannot even name, but recognize as profound order. HM embodied it.

Living as we do during one of the most dystopian and unpredictable eras since the French Revolution, a sense of profound disorder reigns. With the Queen’s passing, it threatens to overwhelm us. That is why we are grieving, watching her funeral and shedding tears.

RIP Elizabeth Regina.