The Last Queen

Queen Elizabeth’s death earlier this year marked the end of the long tradition of European monarchy in Europe.

She wasn’t just the Queen of the United Kingdom, she was, in a sense, really the last monarch from Europe that was treated like a monarch.Sure, some European countries have Kings and Queens, but no one really knows who they are. And they mostly act as symbolic figures. They are mostly whimsical figures.

Or they abdicate the throne for petty corruption charges. Something unthinkable in times past.

Or the examples of Prince HarryandPrincess Mako of Japan leaving the Royal family to marry people in the United States and live there as a well off commoner.These aren’t really royal figures.

There’s no resemblance to previous monarchs and the people who occupy the role of Kings and Queens in today’s world. These are celebrity brand ambassadors for countries at this point. They might not even be recognized by a few of their fellow countrymen.Queen Elizabeth’s death marks the latest step away from divinely ordained monarchy, towards something else. No longer sacred. No longer a real figurehead.

The Difference with Elizabeth

There was something different about Elizabeth II. Millions treated her with a hint of the divine right of kings, a woman who lived above interviews. Why was this?I think for a few reasons.For one, Queen Elizabeth came of age simultaneously with the 20th century media monoculture. The 20th century was a closed media ecosystem. Think of how you listened to music in the 20th century.

Most people just listened to what was on the radio. The radio had a few dozen stations and played songs based on genre. But who did they play? They played bands that were on major record labels. Record companies paid the radio stations (payola) to play the songs of bands they wanted to promote. The radio stations were fine with it. It was a top-down system. The record label and the stations would curate for the listener a “canon” of certain bands, and then slowly over time introduce newer ones. So you never had to really look for new music, it was always there.Music was in a physical format in the 20th century, it was expensive. I remember CDs with 12 songs costing over 20 dollars.

Music was rare, in a sense. But music on the radio was free. So after you listened to the song on the radio, you would buy the record and see the band in concert. Everyone makes money in this scenario, although, it costs you a lot of money. Take this system and scale it up to hundreds of millions, even billions of people and you have the 20th century media monoculture. Bands got fabulously wealthy. Acts like the Rolling Stones are billionaires. Even bands that were one hit wonders made enough money to live off of the rest of their lives, especially with touring. The system was closed. Everyone in the modern world was in sync.

This system did not just apply to music, it also applied to film and television. 30-50 million people a week watched shows like Friends, Seinfeld, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Survivor. This is what you talked about with people. It was on at the same time and on the same day of the week. This created a unified culture we all engaged with, scaled up. Celebrities became iconic figures. Flush with hundreds of millions of dollars. Rich beyond belief. But supply was restricted. There was only a few hundred celebrities in the 20th century media monoculture. A few hundred individuals who were promoted by the film industry, the tv industry and the music industry to be household names.

The Queen rode this short lived media phenomenon. There were only a few hundred famous people in the world, and one of them was her.About 15-20 years ago American society transitioned to another system, the de-centralized media ecosystem. This shift started very gradually and eventually accelerated to where we are today. It started out with Youtube and google and then eventually smart phones and other platforms like facebook, instagram, twitter, twitch and now tiktok.

In response to this stratification, big industries started coming out with their own streaming services and content. Today you have netflix, disney, hulu, and countless other media properties. They each have their own original content. It’s all divided and dispersed into thousands of entities. We are living in a decentralized age now. Your neighbor is consuming different media than you.Sure, there is still a monoculture. It’s smaller than it used to be, in a way. There is superhero movies and music played on the radio. But now there are other options people are gravitating too.

For most things, America exports its culture to the world and doesn’t import much of the world’s culture. It’s an asymmetry. However, America’s fascination with the Queen of England was an exception to this rule. This 20th century American media broadcasted her to the entire world.The institution of the Monarchy itself has continued to be popular with Britons over a certain age, but sees a big decline in younger people. People who grew up in a radically different media environment.

King Charles

This is the end of something which began on Christmas Day in 508, with the baptism of Clovis, which was the start of European Kingship. The story of a once Germanic warrior aristocracy that conquered and ruled Europe for over a thousand years, after the barbarian invasions that finished off the Roman Empire. Their demise from Paris to St Petersburg — as a sociology, as a political faith, as a simple fact — has been the story of modernity.

In Defense of Modern Monarchy

Monarchies seem antiquated these days. Even Constitutional monarchies. Is there a defense of them?

Peter Hitchens: