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We are parading our virtue Collective communion has been emptied of meaning

Who is it for? (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Who is it for? (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)


June 9, 2022   6 mins

What are processions for? Last Thursday evening, around a thousand people of all ages gathered in my local market square, and processed across the playing fields to light a beacon in honour of the Platinum Jubilee. My daughter was near the front, in her Rainbows uniform, and took a turn carrying the flag for her troop.

In premodern England, processions were mostly connected to the liturgical calendar: events often both celebratory and of deep moral significance, marking saints’ days and Holy Week, accompanied with chanting, song or enactment of Bible stories. Perhaps the first monarch to use public spectacle as a political tool was our reigning Queen’s namesake, Elizabeth I, whose annual Queen’s Progress would see her take the whole court on the road over the summer, passing slowly and in great splendour through every part of her kingdom, where her subjects would put on pageants and feasts in her honour. She embarked on 23 in her 44 years as Queen, extending the glamour of her reign well beyond the narrow circle of her immediate court.

But what does a procession mean in the 21st Century? And who is it for? If Elizabeth I used pageantry to project her image and soft political power across her kingdom, the time between her reign and the arrival of her namesake, Elizabeth II, has delivered technologies that — in theory at least — render such efforts obsolete.

What’s the point of taking your entire court on the road, at vast effort and expense, when you can broadcast images of yourself everywhere with little to no effort? Meanwhile, for participants, the idea that your procession is being watched by journalists or TV cameras gives it a whole different set of meanings and potentials. No longer something you do with the other participants, it becomes something you do for an imagined audience, and whose meaning is outside the event itself.

If that sounds abstract, think about the idea of “peaceful protest”. This has been extensively used by progressive movements throughout the 20th Century, to effect political change with minimal violence by inspiring public sympathy for a cause. The Indian independence campaigner Mahatma Gandhi was a trailblazer in the format: between March and April 1930, he led a 240-mile march across India to collect salt from the coast, in protest against the 1882 Salt Act, a British colonial law which prohibited Indians from gathering or selling salt.

Gandhi was joined by thousands of his fellow-countrymen, some 60,000 of whom were arrested for their involvment. The march helped tilt public sympathy in favour of independence both on the subcontinent and – via newspaper reports – elsewhere in the world, and contributed to the movement for independence that came to fruition in 1948, four years before our reigning Elizabeth was crowned. Barely over a decade after that coronation, in 1963, Martin Luther King led some 250,000 sympathisers in another historic political procession in Washington, this time for racial equality: the scene of his “I Have A Dream” speech.

Both these peaceful mass protests changed the course of history. But their political force relied on the presence of journalists to report on them. Before the mass-media age – that is, well into the 18th Century – any crowd of people with a political grievance was less likely to be treated as a noble political protest than as an incipient riot, not least because in most cases that’s what it was. The 1381 Peasants’ Revolt didn’t sit about with placards waiting for the world to sympathise with their dislike of wage caps and the poll tax. They marched on London, where they massacred Flemish merchants and demolished John O’Gaunt’s palace.

By the same token, who cares about some people walking 240 miles to get salt, unless the world at large reads about it in the papers and understands the symbolic meaning? And as for 250,000 people gathering near the seat of government in a country of (then) 189 million people, unless the press is there to record the stirring speeches and report on its orderliness, that’s not a peaceful protest, it’s merely a public order problem. As it was, these events proved pivotal at a time when mass media was becoming increasingly important.

The digital age has changed the calculus again, though. On social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, you can get a sense of which ideas, causes or moods are swirling across the collective consciousness by seeing which hashtags are popular. Meanwhile, protests like those led by Gandhi and King have increasingly given way to something more nebulous and feel-good: the physical manifestation of a trending hashtag.

These such events may gesture at concrete political change but (like the clicktivism they mirror) often land instead on something far more nebulous: emotional gestures of “standing with” some oppressed group, or “raising awareness” of the most broad-brush issues, with very little in the way of concrete policy attached.

In this view, political voice isn’t something individual; it’s weilded collectively, by a swarm. That is: if you want to be heard, you need to make sure the imagined observer can see that there are lots of you. And to achieve that, you have to ensure the hashtag trends, and add your body to the physical swarm of people all gathered in one place to support that cause.

But the trouble with trending-hashtag approach to mass politics is that, much like hashtags themselves, such physical gatherings are markedly less connected with concrete political action than their 20th-Century forebears. Gandhi wanted an independent India; King wanted equal legal standing for all Americans regardless of skin colour. Both achieved their aim. But since the turn of the century and rise of the internet, this has steadily broken down: in 2003, a million Not In My Name marchers did nothing to deter Tony Blair from invading Iraq.

The 2017 Women’s March, meanwhile, took place across some 600 locations and 81 countries – itself impossible without social media – and had an estimated 3.2 million participants in the US alone, making it the largest single-day protest in US history. It was hailed as transformational; but it’s far less clear what the march as a whole was for, let alone what it achieved.

It swiftly became roiled by anti-semitism scandals, and saw participants falling away to more issue-specific campaigning. And if 3.2 million Americans in pink hats marched in outrage at the election of a pussy-grabber to the White House, it appears the weight of their numbers has had little impact on The Donald’s reported determination to have another crack at the US Presidency.

For what might such a swarm campaign do after its collective voice has been heard? This reflects, maybe, the parallel rise of an ecosystem one commentator has called the “NGOcracy”: a body of non-governmental agencies concerned with driving social change, in line with how they have chosen to interpret popular opinion as seen in trending-hashtags. That is: in the digital age the job of mass processions is simply to emote.

Processing alongside my flag-waving daughter on Thursday evening, though, I found myself wondering: is that all it can be — an emotional pressure-valve for a politically defanged public square whose claim to agency has been colonised by professionalised NGOs? One of the most striking criticisms I saw of the Jubilee celebration seemed to me to map nationwide Jubilee events, large and small, onto this social-media-age paradigm of hashtag activism. Based on the turnout of supporters at the Mall, this commentator suggested, the Queen is not popular nationwide. And, furthermore, anyone who really cared about the monarchy could easily make the journey into London to add their body to this single swarm in the Queen’s honour.

Implicitly, in this view, none of the local processions was meaningful unless it added to the royalist body-count visible in drone footage of Central London. But does this make sense? I struggle to imagine another cause that could turn out a thousand small-town citizens of Bedfordshire, of all ages, after dinner on a Thursday night. I also know that other processions of a similar kind took place all over the country. I imagine very few of them were filmed by drone, so their body-count couldn’t be evaluated by media commentators for trending-hashtag status.

Does it follow that each of these events was meaningless? Only if you believe that the value of a gathering, event or procession lies in its ability to make a contribution to the trending-hashtag emotional life of the nation as a whole. But what I found hopeful and heart-warming about my modest local celebration was the reminder that great swathes of the country really don’t care much about what’s happening on the internet.

For me this was salutary. Especially in the face of in-person interactions mostly banned or tightly constrained during lockdown, and ever more of our public life accordingly forced online, it can feel difficult to escape an increasingly noisy, divisive and overheated digital public discourse. And it’s this discourse that prefers to emote en masse, whether online or in the real world, via the kind of hashtag-protest we saw in the Women’s March. Last Thursday reminded me that away from all the shouting, plenty of communities still gather with and for one another, and with only the faintest of nods to the noisy and increasingly self-absorbed parallel universe of digital-era mass politics.

It’s too early to tell whether such events will persist once Her Majesty is gone, and with her, our last national tether to the 20th Century. As for those ritual moments of collective moral communion that are all we have left of the political protests of yore, perhaps we need to stop thinking of them as protests. Instead, we can call them what they are: liturgical events more akin to the medieval processions that pre-dated Elizabeth I than anything between her age and Tony Blair. Religious gatherings, in praise of new (or perhaps long-forgotten) gods whose outlines we’re only just starting to discern.


Mary Harrington is a contributing editor at UnHerd.

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Richard Craven
Richard Craven
2 years ago

The people in the photo illustrating this article are not parading their virtue. They are grasping an all too rare opportunity to show some pride in their country without being hectored by the woke scum.

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Craven
James Sinclair
James Sinclair
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

Exactly. And there are significant differences between parading, gathering, protesting, spectating etc…..

Geoffrey Hicking
Geoffrey Hicking
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

Is there anything wrong with parading one’s patriotism as opposed to showing it? Not all spectacle is bad.

A guardsman on parade (as seen last week) is hardly a bad thing.

Last edited 2 years ago by Geoffrey Hicking
Richard Craven
Richard Craven
2 years ago

I completely agree, nothing whatsoever is wrong with parading one’s patriotism, and guardsmen on parade is a very good thing. I was only saying that the people in the photo illustrating this article aren’t parading their virtue as is implied by the article’s title.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

I skipped the whole thing, but some YouTubes popped up while I was doing my exercises and I will say that the Lloyd Webber segment that I watched looked pretty woke to me. Not really representative of the demographic. Although the orchestra looked totally white, so also not representative.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
2 years ago

I haven’t been a tv watcher since ditching my Licence in 2008, so you have the advantage over me. Anyway, I’m sure you’re right about Lloyd Webber. I was really just referring to the people in the photo at the top of this article.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

You don’t need a TV licence to watch YouTube surely. Anyway, just don’t pay it. National broadcasters need to be ditched.

Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
2 years ago

“I struggle to imagine another cause that could turn out a thousand small-town citizens of Bedfordshire, of all ages, after dinner on a Thursday night”.

Well, on the evening of 15 April 2020 *ten* thousand of those very such citizens turned up to watch Luton Town beat Nottingham Forest one nil! That was a Friday, mind.

And there’s the point: football is a spectacle but it is also about belonging. People go to watch Luton on wet weekday evening not just for the”entertainment” provided by watching twenty-two moderately talented young men run around a big lawn contesting the possession of an inflated spherical object but to commune for a couple of hours with like-minded folk with a common interest. In the same way, all the blue and yellow flags, the face masks worn out of “compassion”, the rainbows in windows, the “thank you NHS’s”, the virtue signalling pronouns in email signatures: they all signify people reaching for a sense of belonging in an irreligious age of unprecedented social mobility and uprootedness. We have a desire to feel part of something that is bigger than oneself, but our post-modern society generally fails to deliver it (notwithstanding the temporary respite provided every other week or so by Luton Town and other such outfits). It’s no wonder that football surged in popularity in the early Blair era, as the globalist revolution started to take off.

At least the monarchy fosters, for now, a shared sense of national belonging: that, like with the football, whatever our politics, religious persuasions, or stations in life we can all come together and cheer on the same “team” precisely because it represents all of us and therefore no one of us in particular. It’s not clear whether a Charles III, whose politics are clear for anyone to see, would be able to do that. And that makes us vulnerable – if we lose our sense of national sense of belonging, pride in our national institutions and our national identity we may find ourselves prey to radicalised globalists offering a chimerical materialist paradise on earth, for which we will pay a dreadful toll.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
2 years ago

I liked this article alot – I like how Mary manages to find a different angle on almost any issue. Her articles are the ones that most frequently get me thinking.
The Jubilee gatherings/parties/parades at the weekend were quite a heartening spectacle: people kept apart for months during the pandemic finally being able to come together and show national pride – something that has also taken a real battering over the last few years for one reason or another.
The Royals are the screen onto which national pride and character is projected – the public figures acting out the next chapter in the national story (for monarchists at least) and reflecting the image of the country back to its people in real time. These parades might be seen as the latest reiteration of the public’s belief in that story, their willingness to be a part of it and their acknowledgement that this is “still them”.**
On the other hand, the events might just represent a mindless repetition of behaviour and rituals learned from previous generations which now lack meaning or representative value. They’re carried on because of personal attachment and respect for the Queen as a person rather than any real belief in the institution or the identity it symbolises. We’ll only see what lies beneath when Her Majesty is no longer with us. There will certainly be a period of deep contemplation about who and what Britain is after she dies…and the answers will inevitably determine the future of the monarchy.
However, I believe the future of the monarchy is stronger and more assured than it seems. Even though you might say it is undemocratic, unearned privilege, anachronistic, archaic etc. (and you wouldn’t be wrong in that), it is still an immensely powerful story. And stories move people! Even if the majority start to turn up their noses at the monarchy – you’ve still got to present an alternative story which is powerful enough to shift people onto a whole new trajectory – with new rituals, customs and symbols. I just don’t see that coming from the professionally joyless republican camp right now.
** In that way, it is a shame that things didn’t work out with Harry & Meghan, as her presence would have allowed ethnic minorities to also “see themselves” reflected in the institution. Alas, they made the decision to leave – which is to be respected by the public and they must take the full responsibility for the consequences. Nothing can be forced and it is clear that how they wish to lead their lives is incompatible with Royal life: service, not self.

Jon Hawksley
Jon Hawksley
2 years ago

Another interesting article. I think there is an innate desire to be part of a community in person and the Internet has diminished the opportunity by connecting people further afield at the expense of knowing your neighbours. The Jubilee was a catalyst. The Queen smiles, which brings people together, and does nothing but pageantry, which limits putting people off, so a sense of belonging is easy for all but the most diehard republicans.

William Simonds
William Simonds
2 years ago

But what I found hopeful and heart-warming about my modest local celebration was the reminder that great swathes of the country really don’t care much about what’s happening on the internet….Last Thursday reminded me that away from all the shouting, plenty of communities still gather with and for one another, and with only the faintest of nods to the noisy and increasingly self-absorbed parallel universe of digital-era mass politics.”
It has been my experience that the “great swathes” are becoming greater. There are more and more people who are choosing to not live their lives on the internet…rather they are choosing to only make forays with military precision into the ether to get a necessary piece of news or information and leaving the vast majority of the rest of it alone.
The internet is, as Mary says, becoming more and more self-absorbed. We Americans have frequently called the area in Washington, D.C. inside the “beltway” an echo chamber, oblivious to all but its own noise. But with the exodus of many from the portions of the internet devoted to social postings and “influencing”, it seems that term is now applicable to more and more of the internet. It is become self-serving.
I and others seem to be doing our own “swarm campaigning” by not joining in to the cacophony. Perhaps John Galt wasn’t so much the example of a physical exit from odious ideology as an electronic one.

Rick Frazier
Rick Frazier
2 years ago

“We Americans have frequently called the area in Washington, D.C. inside the “beltway” an echo chamber, oblivious to all but its own noise.” Or 26 square miles surrounded by reality.

Russell Hamilton
Russell Hamilton
2 years ago

in 1948, four years before our reigning Elizabeth was crowned. Barely over a decade after that coronation, in 1963″

Mary made this claim in her previous article and I commented that I thought the coronation was in 1953. I see Mary is determined to change history and move the coronation to 1952, but I have consulted Wikipedia and can report that though she was proclaimed Queen in 1952, she was crowned in June 1953.

Michael J
Michael J
2 years ago

Agreed. Trending hashtags are not a barometer of the nation’s opinion. Firstly, the people on Twitter are not representative of the majority of the public. The blue ticks on Twitter are mostly made up of our woke managerial classes and they use it as a place to congregate and mobilise their forces.
Secondly, the “current thing” protests are usually top down not bottom up movements. Twitter is completely astroturfed and backed by huge financial and corporate interests. The lack of focus or any real goal is because anyone that supports these trending hashtags is merely a conformist seeking social acceptance; they are shills for status quo power rather than the radical activists they think they are.
Which is why, in contrast to the more local celebrations run by the public, the main Platinum Jubilee celebrations in London run by the BBC and others turned into celebrations of our elite’s pet projects of diversity and multiculturalism and we were subjected to preaching on climate change.
Look at the difference in treatment of BLM marches and anti-lockdown marches in the media in 2020 for another example.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael J

Twitter is completely astroturfed
Apologies in advance for this: but it can’t be long before one of our intrepid travellers into space aboard the Space Station or other vehicle is deemed to be an astroterf…

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
2 years ago

As an American I was happy to see so many of y’all come out for the Queen. The political and anthropological implications aren’t nearly as meaningful to me as the simple, face-to-face sociaizing. And the silly hats. Such things don’t often happen around here.
But two points:
The hashtagging and meme-ing usually turn out to be completely forgetable. Kid’s stuff.
And, I went to many anti-war protests when Vietnam was the issue. When all was said and done, I’m pretty sure that our efforts just extended the misery, probably for years. The other side just dug in their heels. In some ways it was the beginning of the mess we’re in, now.
You remember what’s his name’s line about “…the best laid plans of mice and men…”.

Andrew Raiment
Andrew Raiment
2 years ago

It’s always a pleasure to read such fine writing.

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago

“We are parading our virtue”, really? Our vanity more like.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago

Interesting article, thank you.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
2 years ago

Please could as many people as possible take a moment to flag the comment by the spammer Anita Knight.

rob monks
rob monks
2 years ago

An interesting piece

rob monks
rob monks
2 years ago

a good piece. the digitial world is like a parallel world which does not necessarily reflect many people who don’t engage with it intensely
 plenty of communities still gather with and for one another, and with only the faintest of nods to the noisy and increasingly self-absorbed parallel universe of digital-era mass politics.