Thank God for Elizabeth II, whose reign kept tyranny at bay
by Jordan Peterson, Telegraph:
Freedom under a symbolic monarch, guided by a distributed system of government, is a gift from Britain to the world.
There are only a few figures who are recognised nationally, and even fewer who are known internationally. But it’s a very small number – a handful – who are known by everyone, everywhere in the world. Fame, like everything else, comes in tiers, and the sky’s the limit.
Queen Elizabeth II was one such figure. American presidents sometimes come close, but none have been as enduringly popular or as instantly recognisable as the Queen. But Elizabeth II was far more than the world’s most famous woman. She was the defender of the most effective system of government that has yet been created: that of constitutional monarchy.
No system has proved as effective as a bulwark against tyranny. The United States has its solutions – dividing power between the judiciary, legislative, and executive branches – but none have proven as enduringly successful or popular as the model pioneered in Britain.
America’s tripartite division is, perhaps, insufficient: a fourth branch is necessary, for reasons that are psychological and social, simultaneously. Someone independent (and worthy) needs to carry the symbolic burden. It is for this reason that those who clamour for the dissolution of the great drama of the monarchy, so well played by the Commonwealth’s great former sovereign, risk destabilising the societies they purport to support.
Every country needs someone to shoulder the symbolic burden of the state. If that person is not a monarch, set up explicitly to manage that role, the responsibility (and temptation) tends to fall on the head of state, the leader of the executive branch.
Why is that a problem? Because the proclivity for pharaonic leadership makes itself manifest; because the temptation to dynasty re-emerges; because the role of president or prime minister (or dictator, for that matter) and, simultaneously, star is too much of a part for any one person to play without significant and often deadly moral hazard.
Read here (£)
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