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What is King Charles hiding? The Carolean age uses screens that conceal

Welcome to the age of mystery. (Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)

Welcome to the age of mystery. (Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)


May 8, 2023   7 mins

My first political memory was an epochal one: the fall of the Berlin Wall. The grainy footage of East and West Berliners in stone-washed denim, hammering at the graffitied concrete that had so long separated them, and pouring through breaches in Die Mauer to embrace one another, still chokes me up.

That astonishing moment stood, and still stands, as a governing metaphor for the age that followed: one which seemed to be all about breaking down walls, and opening everything up. Think of all the nice liberals celebrating “open” societies and tutting at “closed” ones; NGOs such as Open Democracy and Open Society; the respectively positive and negative connotations of “inclusion”, and “exclusion”. Opening, expanding, breaking down borders and boundaries is always better than the inverse. Isn’t it?

I wonder if the first British monarch to be crowned in more than seven decades will register on a similar level for my daughter. We’ll view it on a screen, captured by cameras, in full glare of public and mediated view. It’s a form of scrutiny that has been at the heart of disagreements within and about the Royals since Diana’s notorious interview with Martin Bashir: how open should this institution be? Should everything be on display?

At one pole, we find Diana’s younger son hard at work today, continuing her faith in the beneficial power of openness, with a memoir that includes (among other revelations) a startlingly open description of his frostbitten penis. But if Harry’s life to date has comprised a love/hate relationship with cameras and screens, Charles’ coronation today will centre on another, older form of screen: one whose role is not to reveal, but to conceal.

The most mysterious and sacred centre of Charles’ coronation is the Anointing. In this ceremony, which dates back to the Old Testament, Charles will remove his robes of state. Dressed in a simple white shirt, he will be anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury with oil of chrism, made on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives and blessed in a special ceremony by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The millions watching the Coronation won’t see any of this. Our screens will see only the anointing screen: an elaborate tapestry embroidered by the Royal School of Needlework, depicting every nation in the Commonwealth as leaves on a tree. Behind this, the Archbishop will pour the oil into an ornate silver-gilt spoon, the only surviving relic of the pre-Civil War coronation regalia, and anoint Charles on the hands, chest and head: a moment traditionally seen as between the sovereign and God, and thus closed to public view.

And in screening this moment from the view of public and cameras alike, Charles makes ceremonial acknowledgement of a truth with both personal and political significance, and profound countercultural power: that some things are not, and never will be, open to all.

In an age when the online competition for attention incentivises the disclosure of intimacies of every kind, from intense emotion to sexual transport and frostbitten genitalia, it’s easy to see how some might suggest Charles lean all the way into disclosure. But those most at ease in our digital-first culture already understand intuitively the two-sided nature of screens — and, in the age of large language models, the vital role played by the obscure, the gatekept, the subtextual and esoteric.

Perhaps in response to those who sympathise more with the Harry/Diana relationship to screens, Camilla, the Queen Consort, will be the first Royal ever anointed in view of the cameras. But despite brief speculation that Charles might do the same, he will have his moment with God on-screen, but screened. And in thus resisting the siren song of openness, Charles reveals himself not as a reactionary holdout, but strikingly in tune with the times.

For the Carolean age is already one of screens that conceal, as well as of screens that reveal. Our official culture still pays lip service to openness, whether of borders, gender categories, flows of capital, the political process, or whatever. But the contemporary macro- and micro-trend is not toward but away from openness. This has been especially marked since 2016, the year our Moral Betters became uncomfortably aware that getting everyone online meant getting everyone online – including people whose opinions they didn’t like. And this in turn raised questions about how ineluctable the march of democratic progress could be made to appear, when that march seemed to be at odds with electoral will.

It has tacitly always been the case that just because something is a majority view doesn’t mean it gets enacted. Capital punishment, for example, has been suspended in Britain since 1965, despite the fact that polls repeatedly show a majority of Britons would support execution for the worst crimes. But in 2016, the tension between progressives’ erstwhile faith that “digital democracy” would inevitably drive further openness and progress collided with the reality that most people, given an open opportunity to voice their opinions, don’t express the desire to live in a world of maximum openness after all. Quite the contrary: Brexit and the Orange Man revealed to our appalled Moral Betters that there is no axiomatic relationship whatsoever, between internet-enabled discursive openness and the overall progressive project.

Since that moment, the consensus has begun to shift. Before the fall of Die Mauer, tech optimists were already declaring that “Information wants to be free”. Today, though, promoters of the “open society” are more likely to tell you that what wants to be free — and must at all costs be contained — is misinformation. Accordingly, supporting “openness” now means censorship, and (notably since Covid) an increasingly muscular politics of attention, that seeks to manage what is more or less noticeable. With this, too, comes an increasingly (sorry) open acknowledgement that “democracy” in the age of mass digital communications doesn’t mean anything even remotely majoritarian, or even very strongly connected to what electorates say they want.

But along with this public turn toward a new regime of (at best) heavily qualified political openness has come a more private turn, away from the screen that reveals towards the one that conceals. Understandably so: Harry’s woes ought to make it clear to all of us that radical openness takes us nowhere very good or enriching. The perverse incentive toward ever-greater online self-disclosure, for example, whether by princes or regular celebrities, turns the world of letters into a pornography of the self. And this is in turn degrading what’s left of our cultural landscape into a parade of grotesques to be endlessly recycled by pattern-recognising machines.

Very little can be gleaned from this age of human centipede culture that feels nourishing, inspiring or truthful. And in response, new allusive and esoteric aesthetics are emerging from the bottom up. For it’s not just that, as Carl Schmitt once said, “the machine has no tradition”. The machine — the pattern-recognising one — also has no subtext. An AI has no interiority. With such a machine, there is only the screen that reveals.

Seeking, perhaps, to bring us up to this standard of radical transparency, the mercurial stuff of interiority itself is increasingly a matter for compulsory disclosure. In some circles, should I feel ambivalent about the social norms associated with my sex, I’m no longer allowed to keep this to myself (any more than I may conceal my deepest erotic fantasies) but must instead choose a set of pronouns that others will use to address or refer to me, that “aligns” these personal reflections with the way I appear in others’ speech.

Against this tyrannical and increasingly bot-generated anti-culture, those voices most able to distinguish themselves as human — and thus to survive as voices — will be those most skilled in working creatively with what’s not said. But this doesn’t just go for artists of allusions meme and Straussian esoterica. Looking around at those least deranged by the glare of total transparency, it’s clear that those best-placed to survive the digital revolution with a measure of sanity are those most deliberate about keeping themselves partly or wholly hidden from the networked eye of Sauron.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the online litany of inducements to “bare everything” (especially if you’re young, hot and female) has been paralleled by an offline proliferation of long-sleeved dresses, of a cut that a religious conservative might have worn 100 years ago without blushing. In an age of pervasive pornification and compulsory regime-endorsed taboo-smashing, sexual reticence – even repression – feels not just like the last hiding-place of eros but an act of political resistance. On the male side, we see a similar via negativa resistance to the economy of sexposure in the NoFap movement, in which (almost always) men support one another to beat porn addiction.

Hidden-ness also, often, has a more straightforwardly political purpose. For as the public regime of theoretical openness plus intensifying censorship has grown more palpable, so too nonstandard opinions have withdrawn from the once-mainstream presumption that all conversations can and should be conducted in the open. Real-world consequences for having the wrong opinion grow more palpable every year. Faced with this re-convergence of piety and power, frank and open discourse has retreated into a vast, hidden substrate of carefully gatekept group chats, convened on assorted encrypted messaging platforms. The embroidered screens are up; no one speaks frankly in public any more.

And even on the technological front, recognition is growing (at least among elites) that there can and should be limits to our openness. Many in Silicon Valley now screen their kids’ access to screens – a trend that’s prompted a new wave of ‘dumb phones’ with all the modern looks but no social media functionality, such as New Zealand’s BoringPhone or America’s Gabb.

Those who remain devoted to radical revelation may see this emerging 21st-century politics and aesthetics of hidden-ness as an unqualified disaster. I’m ambivalent about its manifestation at scale, within our ever more frankly post-democratic political process. I also find troubling the fact that this occlusion of power in practice operates in tandem with an official embrace of ever-more-oppressive technologies of total transparency, such as vaccine passports and the facial recognition technology being used to scan crowds tomorrow. But the re-emergence of regimes of the hidden also affords, perhaps, a possibility for cultural renewal, in the terrain (still mostly hidden, save to initiates) on the other side of total exposure.

So when King Charles III is anointed, on-screen yet behind a screen, we should rejoice in being excluded from that sacred moment, and in the defence Charles has offered on all our behalves of that which cannot be mediated. In holding out against total transparency Charles has taken up, for the 21st century, a role as profoundly important as that occupied by constitutional monarchs since the Glorious Revolution. For throughout modernity our kings and queens served as the kernel of authoritarianism that sustained democracy. And now, for post-modernity, Charles III stands for and sanctifies an irreplaceable, un-digitisable kernel of IRL that the virtual world can never represent or mediate, let alone replace.

We should follow his wise example. You may or may not like the exoteric Carolean aesthetic, with its vaguely garden-centre-meets-William-Morris vibe. But we should all embrace the esoteric one: Charles’ understated celebration of hidden-ness, today more than ever a vital precondition for cultural, artistic, creative and philosophical flourishing, under the tyranny of total digital disclosure.

All hail, then, to our new King, and to the Neo-Carolean aesthetic of occlusion. I will be celebrating IRL. Don’t expect me to post about it.


Mary Harrington is a contributing editor at UnHerd.

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Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

Great piece, thank you.

I may not always always agree with the author, especially about the nature of technology and the nature of information, but, by god the lady can write.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

A ridiculous article. The ‘Openness’ Industry is the most concealing of all. The Welcome Trust to the Woke NGOs to the whole University postmodern worms eating the heart of our culture – the Government, Finance, Social Media – ALL are 100% lies, Fakes – what they say is the opposite of that they do behind closed doors. Their purpose is diametrically opposed to that they state their goals are.

Anyway, Charles is a WEF Lizard King, so to think he is open is to misunderstand the very base truth of the human condition.

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

While I found this a fascinating read from MH, I fully sympathize with your critique here. But we are where we are, he is where he is (i.e. King Charles on his throne) and God is still omnipotent and over all.
Behind the pomp and ceremony, there was palpable spiritual power, whether the King discerned it or not. I understand now why Queen Elizabeth ll was locked into a life of service through the pledges she made to God at her coronation. As with Mary, mother of Jesus, God took a willing but fallible heart and fashioned it to His likeness. ER’s soft power’ was a manifestation of Holy Spirit. It is not surprising that so many found her so engaging and willingly engaged with her ‘enterprise’.
Now King Charles is a man like us, flawed and fallible. Thus I sense a renewed unction to engage more positively in his commission through a more determined response to Ephesians 4:1-4; to play an active part in enabling him to break the shackles of the tangled web of strange ideologies that appear to bind him. May God, indeed, save the King!

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

While I found this a fascinating read from MH, I fully sympathize with your critique here. But we are where we are, he is where he is (i.e. King Charles on his throne) and God is still omnipotent and over all.
Behind the pomp and ceremony, there was palpable spiritual power, whether the King discerned it or not. I understand now why Queen Elizabeth ll was locked into a life of service through the pledges she made to God at her coronation. As with Mary, mother of Jesus, God took a willing but fallible heart and fashioned it to His likeness. ER’s soft power’ was a manifestation of Holy Spirit. It is not surprising that so many found her so engaging and willingly engaged with her ‘enterprise’.
Now King Charles is a man like us, flawed and fallible. Thus I sense a renewed unction to engage more positively in his commission through a more determined response to Ephesians 4:1-4; to play an active part in enabling him to break the shackles of the tangled web of strange ideologies that appear to bind him. May God, indeed, save the King!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

A ridiculous article. The ‘Openness’ Industry is the most concealing of all. The Welcome Trust to the Woke NGOs to the whole University postmodern worms eating the heart of our culture – the Government, Finance, Social Media – ALL are 100% lies, Fakes – what they say is the opposite of that they do behind closed doors. Their purpose is diametrically opposed to that they state their goals are.

Anyway, Charles is a WEF Lizard King, so to think he is open is to misunderstand the very base truth of the human condition.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

Great piece, thank you.

I may not always always agree with the author, especially about the nature of technology and the nature of information, but, by god the lady can write.

Andrew Salkeld
Andrew Salkeld
1 year ago

What a wonderful piece of writing. It settles so much of the ambiguity in me concerning openness and privacy. In honouring the negative spaces, the shadows, the hidden, the protected, the works in progress, the quietness, the sublime, we will honour the process as much as we now honour or trash the outcome.

Andrew Salkeld
Andrew Salkeld
1 year ago

What a wonderful piece of writing. It settles so much of the ambiguity in me concerning openness and privacy. In honouring the negative spaces, the shadows, the hidden, the protected, the works in progress, the quietness, the sublime, we will honour the process as much as we now honour or trash the outcome.

Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
1 year ago

Very intriguing. Enjoyed this and got me thinking.
The Tech World, online world, needs the certainty of opinion that has led to the polarity and loss of nuance and grey areas as the middle ground is very difficult to compartmentalise and sell to.

Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
1 year ago

Very intriguing. Enjoyed this and got me thinking.
The Tech World, online world, needs the certainty of opinion that has led to the polarity and loss of nuance and grey areas as the middle ground is very difficult to compartmentalise and sell to.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

Perhaps we should remember that the ‘sacred moment’ of annointment was conducted by none other than Justin Welby, a churchman who lacks any aura of religious mystery having the air of an amiable apparatchik.
In fact, I wonder how many in today’s entire congregation actually believe in the supernatural elements of Christianity: the miracles, the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ or even the existence of the Biblical God. If you don’t believe those things there can be no ‘sacred’ moments – only socially useful moral codes, customs and rituals. And not forgetting the aesthetic appeal religious mystery holds for the creative classes.

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

The thing is you could ask the same question about many such previous congregations. In fact I’ll turn the question around- when was the last time at such an event that the congregation DID believe all those things ?

Last edited 1 year ago by Isabel Ward
N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

My point wasn’t about this congregation in particular but to question the validity (or honesty) of religious observance when the core supernatural elements have been discarded. Many Catholics, at least, retain a belief in those elements – and are derided as superstitious.

Paul Hellyer
Paul Hellyer
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

The whole ceremony was an imitation of the crowning by the Catholic Church before the reformation. The Church founded by by that serial adulterer and murderer Henry VIII is a man made religion built on the skeleton of the true Church which alone has the true priesthood.
The prayers of Mr Welby are not any better than the man in the street.

Neil Kemsley
Neil Kemsley
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul Hellyer

The prayers of The Archbishop are exactly what one would hope to find in a Christian bishop who has developed into his present archbishopric following his tremendous work for the Church and the people in Durham, Liverpool and Canterbury with great success. His support for the King is exactly what is required. God bless him.

Neil Kemsley
Neil Kemsley
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul Hellyer

The prayers of The Archbishop are exactly what one would hope to find in a Christian bishop who has developed into his present archbishopric following his tremendous work for the Church and the people in Durham, Liverpool and Canterbury with great success. His support for the King is exactly what is required. God bless him.

Paul Hellyer
Paul Hellyer
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

The whole ceremony was an imitation of the crowning by the Catholic Church before the reformation. The Church founded by by that serial adulterer and murderer Henry VIII is a man made religion built on the skeleton of the true Church which alone has the true priesthood.
The prayers of Mr Welby are not any better than the man in the street.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

I would say 1970s would be about the end of actual Christian beliefs being widely held.

By the 1960s the process of intentionally destroying the Western Family and Faith, and demographics, and thus the West, were well in hand. As Stalin had instituted exactly those policies of destroying Religion and Family – as Marx had advocated, as the Frankfurt School had set as Western Policy – and that was taken up by the ‘Liberal Left neo-Marxists who captured the Entertainment and Education Industries – and MSM – they killed the heart of the Westerners, and brought about mass athiesm exactly as they brought us single parenthood and divorce till only the minority of children grow up in a home with their biological parents.

Yes, Isable, I would say 1970 would be about right.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

My point wasn’t about this congregation in particular but to question the validity (or honesty) of religious observance when the core supernatural elements have been discarded. Many Catholics, at least, retain a belief in those elements – and are derided as superstitious.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago
Reply to  Isabel Ward

I would say 1970s would be about the end of actual Christian beliefs being widely held.

By the 1960s the process of intentionally destroying the Western Family and Faith, and demographics, and thus the West, were well in hand. As Stalin had instituted exactly those policies of destroying Religion and Family – as Marx had advocated, as the Frankfurt School had set as Western Policy – and that was taken up by the ‘Liberal Left neo-Marxists who captured the Entertainment and Education Industries – and MSM – they killed the heart of the Westerners, and brought about mass athiesm exactly as they brought us single parenthood and divorce till only the minority of children grow up in a home with their biological parents.

Yes, Isable, I would say 1970 would be about right.

Mary Jones
Mary Jones
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I don’t believe in ‘those things’ although I can respect the deeper symbolic meaning beneath SOME of the supernatural stories. For me the ‘sacred’ lies not with the supernatural, or with power bestowed by ordination or by anointing, or indeed by Coronation, but in the wonder of love in action as service, the wonder at the good that some humans can do, the wonder of nature, the diversity of life, the beauty and symbolism of the Olives taken from the Mount of Olive, and of the fragrance of the other essential oils. The ancient historical links that give anointing and coronation a meaning that the role to be undertaken is one that requires commitment, change, love. And maybe for me there is a hope that there might be a universal energy for creativity and love that holds the cosmos together. But then, I’m a wordy, sensitive, poetic optimist!!!

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Mary Jones

Very nicely put – and very romantic (in the philosophical sense). But, to labour the point: without the real authority of a divine creator of heaven and earth and those supernatural events all you have is ‘symbolic meaning’ and ‘faith’ (in what?).
Slightly more worrying – Ms Harrington seems to be savouring this sacred mystery as some sort of refined aesthetic experience. Only a few weeks ago arch-creative Nick Cave revealed his enthusiasm for Christianity in an interview with Freddie Sayers. Is religious mystery about to become the latest way of distinguishing sophisticates from the common herd?

Last edited 1 year ago by N Satori
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I hope not. Without humility it is hard to progress in the christian life.

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

God IS deeply mysterious. After 40 years of trying to unravel Him, he becomes only evermore unfathomable…. As my saintly father-in-law remarked in his 90s, after a lifetime of seeking (and you will find) “The more I learn about God, the more I realise I know nothing about him.” Therein lies humility and the capacity for unbridled service!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I hope not. Without humility it is hard to progress in the christian life.

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

God IS deeply mysterious. After 40 years of trying to unravel Him, he becomes only evermore unfathomable…. As my saintly father-in-law remarked in his 90s, after a lifetime of seeking (and you will find) “The more I learn about God, the more I realise I know nothing about him.” Therein lies humility and the capacity for unbridled service!

Michael O'Dell
Michael O'Dell
1 year ago
Reply to  Mary Jones

‘there might be a universal energy for creativity and love that holds the cosmos together. ‘
I’m not certain myself, but I wonder if that might be who or what God is.
I recall John Gray writing that secularism could never inspire something like the cathedral at Chartres.

Last edited 1 year ago by Michael O'Dell
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Mary Jones

Faith is the evidence of things not seen. The most common being in the word of God. I don’t know about the bread and the wine being miraculous in themselves but if taken by faith in the word of God it can be a profitable thing.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Mary Jones

Very nicely put – and very romantic (in the philosophical sense). But, to labour the point: without the real authority of a divine creator of heaven and earth and those supernatural events all you have is ‘symbolic meaning’ and ‘faith’ (in what?).
Slightly more worrying – Ms Harrington seems to be savouring this sacred mystery as some sort of refined aesthetic experience. Only a few weeks ago arch-creative Nick Cave revealed his enthusiasm for Christianity in an interview with Freddie Sayers. Is religious mystery about to become the latest way of distinguishing sophisticates from the common herd?

Last edited 1 year ago by N Satori
Michael O'Dell
Michael O'Dell
1 year ago
Reply to  Mary Jones

‘there might be a universal energy for creativity and love that holds the cosmos together. ‘
I’m not certain myself, but I wonder if that might be who or what God is.
I recall John Gray writing that secularism could never inspire something like the cathedral at Chartres.

Last edited 1 year ago by Michael O'Dell
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Mary Jones

Faith is the evidence of things not seen. The most common being in the word of God. I don’t know about the bread and the wine being miraculous in themselves but if taken by faith in the word of God it can be a profitable thing.

Karen Jemmett
Karen Jemmett
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Without sounding blandly simplistic, I’ve interpreted this weekend’s ritualistic shananigans as a buffer against the wider institutional rebuild that must come next. The current scepticism over AI is merely a symptom of the same damage limitation exercise already underway. Put simply, if the manually input intelligence is flawed or unreliable in the first place, then how can we trust an AI system not to turn on us all? Having just laboured through Lionel Striver’s astonishing, blow by blow vision of the future (written some 8 years ago now), The Mandibles talks us through the inevitable consequences of a full-fledged institutional reset. And if clinging to a few scraps of Ermine and a medieval glitter ball in the meantime is comforting to some, why spoil the party, huh?

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

This is a rather jaundiced response. Do you think God needs our informed participation, complete understanding or even our belief to work his particular brand of ‘magic’ through such a carefully choreographed event as the coronation? Man did his bit through the pomp and ceremony but the breath of God was evident, despite all the human limitations on view.
As for Archbishop Welby, God will work through whomever he chooses to fulfill his purposes. Likewise King Charles. Was Saul not transformed after his anointing (1 Samuel 10:9)? King David, fallen and fallible like us, was nevertheless a ‘man after God’s own heart’ from his annointing. Grace is powerful. Give God some room.
We continue to elect to abide by a kingly succession with its manifold faults and difficulties (see 1 Samuel 8). Let’s trust God is still able to facilitate good governance through this traditional office of Constitutional Monarch (caveat) with our assistance (Ephesians 4:1-4). Heavens above! Would we rather endure a President?
While our new King honours the pledges he made before God, he has my full support. My homage, however, is solely for the King of kings.

Isabel Ward
Isabel Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

The thing is you could ask the same question about many such previous congregations. In fact I’ll turn the question around- when was the last time at such an event that the congregation DID believe all those things ?

Last edited 1 year ago by Isabel Ward
Mary Jones
Mary Jones
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I don’t believe in ‘those things’ although I can respect the deeper symbolic meaning beneath SOME of the supernatural stories. For me the ‘sacred’ lies not with the supernatural, or with power bestowed by ordination or by anointing, or indeed by Coronation, but in the wonder of love in action as service, the wonder at the good that some humans can do, the wonder of nature, the diversity of life, the beauty and symbolism of the Olives taken from the Mount of Olive, and of the fragrance of the other essential oils. The ancient historical links that give anointing and coronation a meaning that the role to be undertaken is one that requires commitment, change, love. And maybe for me there is a hope that there might be a universal energy for creativity and love that holds the cosmos together. But then, I’m a wordy, sensitive, poetic optimist!!!

Karen Jemmett
Karen Jemmett
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Without sounding blandly simplistic, I’ve interpreted this weekend’s ritualistic shananigans as a buffer against the wider institutional rebuild that must come next. The current scepticism over AI is merely a symptom of the same damage limitation exercise already underway. Put simply, if the manually input intelligence is flawed or unreliable in the first place, then how can we trust an AI system not to turn on us all? Having just laboured through Lionel Striver’s astonishing, blow by blow vision of the future (written some 8 years ago now), The Mandibles talks us through the inevitable consequences of a full-fledged institutional reset. And if clinging to a few scraps of Ermine and a medieval glitter ball in the meantime is comforting to some, why spoil the party, huh?

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

This is a rather jaundiced response. Do you think God needs our informed participation, complete understanding or even our belief to work his particular brand of ‘magic’ through such a carefully choreographed event as the coronation? Man did his bit through the pomp and ceremony but the breath of God was evident, despite all the human limitations on view.
As for Archbishop Welby, God will work through whomever he chooses to fulfill his purposes. Likewise King Charles. Was Saul not transformed after his anointing (1 Samuel 10:9)? King David, fallen and fallible like us, was nevertheless a ‘man after God’s own heart’ from his annointing. Grace is powerful. Give God some room.
We continue to elect to abide by a kingly succession with its manifold faults and difficulties (see 1 Samuel 8). Let’s trust God is still able to facilitate good governance through this traditional office of Constitutional Monarch (caveat) with our assistance (Ephesians 4:1-4). Heavens above! Would we rather endure a President?
While our new King honours the pledges he made before God, he has my full support. My homage, however, is solely for the King of kings.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

Perhaps we should remember that the ‘sacred moment’ of annointment was conducted by none other than Justin Welby, a churchman who lacks any aura of religious mystery having the air of an amiable apparatchik.
In fact, I wonder how many in today’s entire congregation actually believe in the supernatural elements of Christianity: the miracles, the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ or even the existence of the Biblical God. If you don’t believe those things there can be no ‘sacred’ moments – only socially useful moral codes, customs and rituals. And not forgetting the aesthetic appeal religious mystery holds for the creative classes.

Alan B
Alan B
1 year ago

Properly understood, “fear of God” is the alternative to “fear of everyone else”

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Alan B

Exactly. The fear of God is also the beginning of wisdom according to the word of God.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Alan B

Exactly. The fear of God is also the beginning of wisdom according to the word of God.

Alan B
Alan B
1 year ago

Properly understood, “fear of God” is the alternative to “fear of everyone else”

Chris Emmett
Chris Emmett
1 year ago

What a marvellous article. Thank you so much. It is reassuring to know that people in Silicon Valley and young people such as you are now recognising openess which may harmful, privacy, and the damage that too much access to harmful content can do.
We, the so called grown ups did not appreciate how dangerous the movement from real life to a virtual one would be nor how access to all and everything could harm us. We are learning fast but may never be able to forgive ourselves for not acting sooner. Your writing style is so very good. More please!

Chris Emmett
Chris Emmett
1 year ago

What a marvellous article. Thank you so much. It is reassuring to know that people in Silicon Valley and young people such as you are now recognising openess which may harmful, privacy, and the damage that too much access to harmful content can do.
We, the so called grown ups did not appreciate how dangerous the movement from real life to a virtual one would be nor how access to all and everything could harm us. We are learning fast but may never be able to forgive ourselves for not acting sooner. Your writing style is so very good. More please!

Steve Hoffman
Steve Hoffman
1 year ago
Reply to  Bernard Hill

Thank you from those of us who are not completely with modern terminology.

Steve Hoffman
Steve Hoffman
1 year ago
Reply to  Bernard Hill

Thank you from those of us who are not completely with modern terminology.

F Hugh Eveleigh
F Hugh Eveleigh
1 year ago

What a joy to read this. The lady writes truths that some might find disagreeable but I find they are needed more and more. The anointing was when a tear or two fell – a pivotal and invisible moment. Wonderful.

F Hugh Eveleigh
F Hugh Eveleigh
1 year ago

What a joy to read this. The lady writes truths that some might find disagreeable but I find they are needed more and more. The anointing was when a tear or two fell – a pivotal and invisible moment. Wonderful.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

The essay that selects an observation and uses that as a metaphor to illuminate something else is not at all new. Perhaps one of the best is Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’ (36). MH’s trade-piece does seem to be this form of analogism, but I always get a slight sense she’s trying too hard and the point she is trying to make could be more clearly distilled. Wrapping a point in more clothing than it needs risks suffocating it’s essence…doesn’t it?
A nub of the Article – that there should be limits to what we share via social media because maintaining privacy and control cannot be maintained once online, and that a reduction in control over personal information is a predictor of worse mental health. It may feel to the young, and possibly naïve, that the social media sharer will find understanding from like-minded people in cyberspace. The reality is that they are just as likely to find voyeurs, bullies, and predators. And furthermore once shared, they cannot control the spread of the information. It is this loss of control over privacy that can lead to depression or worse. Too much sharing causes psychological harm. Yes Mary we agree.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

“Yes Mary we agree”(?!)
You’ve slipped into schoolmaster mode again Watson.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Well done NC at the back of the Class. Always gratifying when a pupil shows they are paying attention.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Well done NC at the back of the Class. Always gratifying when a pupil shows they are paying attention.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

“Yes Mary we agree”(?!)
You’ve slipped into schoolmaster mode again Watson.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

The essay that selects an observation and uses that as a metaphor to illuminate something else is not at all new. Perhaps one of the best is Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’ (36). MH’s trade-piece does seem to be this form of analogism, but I always get a slight sense she’s trying too hard and the point she is trying to make could be more clearly distilled. Wrapping a point in more clothing than it needs risks suffocating it’s essence…doesn’t it?
A nub of the Article – that there should be limits to what we share via social media because maintaining privacy and control cannot be maintained once online, and that a reduction in control over personal information is a predictor of worse mental health. It may feel to the young, and possibly naïve, that the social media sharer will find understanding from like-minded people in cyberspace. The reality is that they are just as likely to find voyeurs, bullies, and predators. And furthermore once shared, they cannot control the spread of the information. It is this loss of control over privacy that can lead to depression or worse. Too much sharing causes psychological harm. Yes Mary we agree.

Tom Smith
Tom Smith
1 year ago

I’d like to somehow make my comment convoluted and sound intellectual but this article is complete drivel…..

Andrew Halliday
Andrew Halliday
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

I agree

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago

Sorry Andrew but this was the only way to get my comment on.
Some things are private but some things should be exposed if one is trying to deceive the populace. For instance what I do in the bedroom with my wife is private. Nobody has a right to know that. If the government are lying about some things then that ought to be exposed. One expects government to be more open than they are at present. I have a sense that there is a lot of skullduggery going on behind closed doors. True some things should be private especially in time of war but lies and trickery should be exposed for the good of the country.

Last edited 1 year ago by Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago

Sorry Andrew but this was the only way to get my comment on.
Some things are private but some things should be exposed if one is trying to deceive the populace. For instance what I do in the bedroom with my wife is private. Nobody has a right to know that. If the government are lying about some things then that ought to be exposed. One expects government to be more open than they are at present. I have a sense that there is a lot of skullduggery going on behind closed doors. True some things should be private especially in time of war but lies and trickery should be exposed for the good of the country.

Last edited 1 year ago by Tony Conrad
Phil Rees
Phil Rees
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

But very well written drivel!

Last edited 1 year ago by Phil Rees
stephen archer
stephen archer
1 year ago
Reply to  Phil Rees

I don’t think it’s drivel, Phil. It’s just like an assault course in written english. You need to be totally fluent in all aspects of the language and clear the hurdles which she has meticulously created and then find your way through the maze of adjectives and phrases which lie in wait if you manage to get past the first two paragraphs. Even the comments are not easy to digest. I’ve not managed to make it through any one of her essays. It must be a reflection on my intellect and not a positive one. I’m more at home with binary or hexadecimal.

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago
Reply to  stephen archer

Utter bollox.

Stoater D
Stoater D
1 year ago
Reply to  stephen archer

Utter bollox.

stephen archer
stephen archer
1 year ago
Reply to  Phil Rees

I don’t think it’s drivel, Phil. It’s just like an assault course in written english. You need to be totally fluent in all aspects of the language and clear the hurdles which she has meticulously created and then find your way through the maze of adjectives and phrases which lie in wait if you manage to get past the first two paragraphs. Even the comments are not easy to digest. I’ve not managed to make it through any one of her essays. It must be a reflection on my intellect and not a positive one. I’m more at home with binary or hexadecimal.

Roger Sponge
Roger Sponge
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

You don’t say why!

Richard Pearse
Richard Pearse
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

I strongly disagree. This article (as in most all of Mary’s) starts with a concrete fact (private – ie non-public – anointing of a King before God) and then zooms out to a current social context.

I think her acumen is gradually approaching – though not quite there – that of great modern social thinkers (Christopher Lasch, Phillip Rief, Thomas Taylor).

This article illustrates how the “Fall of public Man” has led to the rise of narcissism cum solipsism, where all must be bared and all discourse cheapened by the likes of Harry’s frostbitten p•••is. All the while, the elite’s need to introduce NewSpeak and memory-hole inconvenient arguments have completely distorted “public” discourse and rendered it dangerous to those who don’t tow the Woke Line. Consequently, those with “inconvenient” arguments have been driven to gatekept (“closed”) arenas.

Similarly, complete openness to “if it feels good do it” sex, has cheapened sex, and made something like mild repression (or withdrawal from the field) a better option. Certain things are private by nature and should remain so, in order that we may flourish as human beings.

The argument in this Article required effort to follow, but it was there and worthwhile to penetrate and profound in places – not drivel.

Carl Horowitz
Carl Horowitz
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Pearse

Within recognized boundaries, there is nothing wrong with feeling good about one’s self. I’ve read Lasch, MacIntyre, Rieff, Etzioni and other anti-individualists. I’m not that impressed.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Pearse

Agreed. Some of us had to read it twice, but that just added to the experience. Harrington is a gem with a pen; just don’t ask her to write an epitaph or a haiku.

Carl Horowitz
Carl Horowitz
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Pearse

Within recognized boundaries, there is nothing wrong with feeling good about one’s self. I’ve read Lasch, MacIntyre, Rieff, Etzioni and other anti-individualists. I’m not that impressed.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Pearse

Agreed. Some of us had to read it twice, but that just added to the experience. Harrington is a gem with a pen; just don’t ask her to write an epitaph or a haiku.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

Obviously, you are not among those many male commentators who clearly have a crush on Ms Harrington. They’re the chaps who trip over themselves in a rush to praise every piece she writes. For example, Richard Pearse’s comment below – I think he’d give her the Nobel Prize if he could!

Last edited 1 year ago by N Satori
b blimbax
b blimbax
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

You’ve managed to make a catty remark about Mr Pearse without saying anything at all about Ms Harrington’s article. There should be some sort of award for that.

Last edited 1 year ago by b blimbax
N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  b blimbax

Fair enough, but I was actually interested in the BTL response to so many of Ms Harrington’s articles rather than the piece itself.

b blimbax
b blimbax
1 year ago
Reply to  b blimbax

We can call it the “Catty Comment Award.”

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  b blimbax

Fair enough, but I was actually interested in the BTL response to so many of Ms Harrington’s articles rather than the piece itself.

b blimbax
b blimbax
1 year ago
Reply to  b blimbax

We can call it the “Catty Comment Award.”

b blimbax
b blimbax
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

You’ve managed to make a catty remark about Mr Pearse without saying anything at all about Ms Harrington’s article. There should be some sort of award for that.

Last edited 1 year ago by b blimbax
Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

A prescient article, reminding us of what we have lost, using the anointment as an example: the part of our humanity that would express sacredness, mystery, privacy, worship, wonder and authenticity. The echo chamber has never been greater and invites a devastating backlash.

Andrew Halliday
Andrew Halliday
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

I agree

Phil Rees
Phil Rees
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

But very well written drivel!

Last edited 1 year ago by Phil Rees
Roger Sponge
Roger Sponge
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

You don’t say why!

Richard Pearse
Richard Pearse
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

I strongly disagree. This article (as in most all of Mary’s) starts with a concrete fact (private – ie non-public – anointing of a King before God) and then zooms out to a current social context.

I think her acumen is gradually approaching – though not quite there – that of great modern social thinkers (Christopher Lasch, Phillip Rief, Thomas Taylor).

This article illustrates how the “Fall of public Man” has led to the rise of narcissism cum solipsism, where all must be bared and all discourse cheapened by the likes of Harry’s frostbitten p•••is. All the while, the elite’s need to introduce NewSpeak and memory-hole inconvenient arguments have completely distorted “public” discourse and rendered it dangerous to those who don’t tow the Woke Line. Consequently, those with “inconvenient” arguments have been driven to gatekept (“closed”) arenas.

Similarly, complete openness to “if it feels good do it” sex, has cheapened sex, and made something like mild repression (or withdrawal from the field) a better option. Certain things are private by nature and should remain so, in order that we may flourish as human beings.

The argument in this Article required effort to follow, but it was there and worthwhile to penetrate and profound in places – not drivel.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

Obviously, you are not among those many male commentators who clearly have a crush on Ms Harrington. They’re the chaps who trip over themselves in a rush to praise every piece she writes. For example, Richard Pearse’s comment below – I think he’d give her the Nobel Prize if he could!

Last edited 1 year ago by N Satori
Vici C
Vici C
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Smith

A prescient article, reminding us of what we have lost, using the anointment as an example: the part of our humanity that would express sacredness, mystery, privacy, worship, wonder and authenticity. The echo chamber has never been greater and invites a devastating backlash.

Tom Smith
Tom Smith
1 year ago

I’d like to somehow make my comment convoluted and sound intellectual but this article is complete drivel…..

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago

In hiddenness lies mystery and in mystery lies fascination and wonder – both of which are enriching and exciting experiences. We need more of these instead of having constant TMI.
It also goes for our bodies. I am still of the opinion that the scene in 1994’s remake of Pride & Prejudice where Lizzy meets Mr. Darcy in his wet clothes after he goes swimming in a lake is still one of THE most sexy things to have been committed to film. And they’re wearing billowing 19th clothes! Not so much as a bra strap in sight! It’s ALL about what you’re not seeing, and also about what’s NOT being said.
The part of the Coronation where Charles was concealed for his moment with God was truly powerful. That beautiful Handel music with words used at Coronations right back to 953 A.D….no social media post, no tacky “tell-all” interview and no descriptions of frostbitten privates are ever going to equal the power of that ritual.
Bring on the age of mystery, screens and hiddenness.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago

In hiddenness lies mystery and in mystery lies fascination and wonder – both of which are enriching and exciting experiences. We need more of these instead of having constant TMI.
It also goes for our bodies. I am still of the opinion that the scene in 1994’s remake of Pride & Prejudice where Lizzy meets Mr. Darcy in his wet clothes after he goes swimming in a lake is still one of THE most sexy things to have been committed to film. And they’re wearing billowing 19th clothes! Not so much as a bra strap in sight! It’s ALL about what you’re not seeing, and also about what’s NOT being said.
The part of the Coronation where Charles was concealed for his moment with God was truly powerful. That beautiful Handel music with words used at Coronations right back to 953 A.D….no social media post, no tacky “tell-all” interview and no descriptions of frostbitten privates are ever going to equal the power of that ritual.
Bring on the age of mystery, screens and hiddenness.

Steven Campbell
Steven Campbell
1 year ago

It’s fascinating to read and observe the reactions to the ceremony, the tradition, the appropriateness, the implications and so forth of the British and Commonwealth press, pundits and commentators regarding the crowning of Charles III. All the family drama seems to have been put on hold for a bit as they all line up to be accepted, except a certain American whose name escapes me.
I studied English History in Jesuit school so have a certain take on the Monarchy that leads me to believe that Charles is an unfortunate name to have for success.
Who knows how all this will turn out. I doubt a long and prosperous reign and just from my jaded Texas perspective I’d suggest Charles abdicate in favor of the Princess of Wales, what’s not to like.

Steven Campbell
Steven Campbell
1 year ago

It’s fascinating to read and observe the reactions to the ceremony, the tradition, the appropriateness, the implications and so forth of the British and Commonwealth press, pundits and commentators regarding the crowning of Charles III. All the family drama seems to have been put on hold for a bit as they all line up to be accepted, except a certain American whose name escapes me.
I studied English History in Jesuit school so have a certain take on the Monarchy that leads me to believe that Charles is an unfortunate name to have for success.
Who knows how all this will turn out. I doubt a long and prosperous reign and just from my jaded Texas perspective I’d suggest Charles abdicate in favor of the Princess of Wales, what’s not to like.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

Quite of few of the contributors on this blog would probably have preferred a coronation at the intra M25 golf club or masonic lodge, over a tincture schooner of sweet sherry, and a solemn promise to find lots of new things to ban, whilst prostrating themselves to a new nanny state litany read eout by a local ” slister”….

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

Quite of few of the contributors on this blog would probably have preferred a coronation at the intra M25 golf club or masonic lodge, over a tincture schooner of sweet sherry, and a solemn promise to find lots of new things to ban, whilst prostrating themselves to a new nanny state litany read eout by a local ” slister”….

Micheal MacGabhann
Micheal MacGabhann
1 year ago

The article does meet the standard needed for digital-first journalism.

Roger Sponge
Roger Sponge
1 year ago

Why?

Roger Sponge
Roger Sponge
1 year ago

Why?

Micheal MacGabhann
Micheal MacGabhann
1 year ago

The article does meet the standard needed for digital-first journalism.

LCarey Rowland
LCarey Rowland
1 year ago

God save the King, encrypted behind the Screen.
May the contemporary iteration of Orange revolution someday include the red-headed spare-child whose prodigal life reminds us that not all who wander are lost.
God save the Spare! for God has his eye on the spares, all of us.

Gerald Gleeson
Gerald Gleeson
1 year ago

A difficult essay that will require closer reading about the general issue of hiddenness and disclosure etc. But on the specific issue of the King’s anointing, I think there is a different question to be addressed – as to why this particular event should be relatively hidden. What does this say about the place of religious faith within the coronation liturgy, and within contemporary society more generally. The anointing is a kind of sacramental action, by contrast to prayers or even physical gestures such as kissing the Bible. Is it that the Protestantism of the monarchy is uncomfortable with this relic of Catholic sacramentality? Is it that such a sacramental action would be misunderstood by, or too challenging for, a largely secular culture? Is the screening of the anointing meant to conceal or leave ambiguous whatever the King’s religious beliefs are? And many more questions besides.

Paul Hellyer
Paul Hellyer
1 year ago
Reply to  Gerald Gleeson

The whole ceremony was an imitation of the crowning by the Catholic Church before the reformation. The Church founded by by that serial adulterer and murderer Henry VIII is a man made religion built on the skeleton of the true Church which alone has the true priesthood.
The prayers of Mr Welby are not any better than the man in the street.

Paul Hellyer
Paul Hellyer
1 year ago
Reply to  Gerald Gleeson

The whole ceremony was an imitation of the crowning by the Catholic Church before the reformation. The Church founded by by that serial adulterer and murderer Henry VIII is a man made religion built on the skeleton of the true Church which alone has the true priesthood.
The prayers of Mr Welby are not any better than the man in the street.

Gerald Gleeson
Gerald Gleeson
1 year ago

A difficult essay that will require closer reading about the general issue of hiddenness and disclosure etc. But on the specific issue of the King’s anointing, I think there is a different question to be addressed – as to why this particular event should be relatively hidden. What does this say about the place of religious faith within the coronation liturgy, and within contemporary society more generally. The anointing is a kind of sacramental action, by contrast to prayers or even physical gestures such as kissing the Bible. Is it that the Protestantism of the monarchy is uncomfortable with this relic of Catholic sacramentality? Is it that such a sacramental action would be misunderstood by, or too challenging for, a largely secular culture? Is the screening of the anointing meant to conceal or leave ambiguous whatever the King’s religious beliefs are? And many more questions besides.

George Sheerin
George Sheerin
1 year ago

Very enjoyable piece. I note that, in all the hagiographies written in the run up eg Jonathon Dimbleby in the Times no mention is made of Charles long devotion to, and promotion of, the looney mad bad and dangerous Homeopathy alternative medicine industry recently denounced by the NHS and scientific research.
Charles must be the most polished holder of the title the Third the monarchy has ever endured!

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Reply to  George Sheerin

You can’t polish a Third.

Sue Ward
Sue Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

But you can roll him in glitter.

John Dawson
John Dawson
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

But he didn’t get a Third, it was a Desmond!

Last edited 1 year ago by John Dawson
Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Reply to  John Dawson

I have no plans to mess with Charles’s TuTu.
And yes, he had another woman, but that was all a long time ago.

https://youtu.be/MetJEXcXkYQ

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Reply to  John Dawson

I have no plans to mess with Charles’s TuTu.
And yes, he had another woman, but that was all a long time ago.

https://youtu.be/MetJEXcXkYQ

Sue Ward
Sue Ward
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

But you can roll him in glitter.

John Dawson
John Dawson
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

But he didn’t get a Third, it was a Desmond!

Last edited 1 year ago by John Dawson
Simon Simple
Simon Simple
1 year ago
Reply to  George Sheerin

Homeopathy looks positively benign when compared to The Science and the refusal to address the frankly frightening data available and/or censored, on the Covid vaccines.

George Sheerin
George Sheerin
1 year ago
Reply to  Simon Simple

I meant to make the connection with things
hidden, as has been Charles promotion of Homeopathy, a thoroughly fraudulent industry. Science following scientific method of trial and error and testing by peers, and always refusing to be absolutely certain, should not be confused with political and industrial misuse of the method eg to produce horrible weapons, poisons and viruses ..” The Science ” is a horrible term first promulgated by politicians and their managers and now sadly by conspiracy theorists, I’m with you re all the politicking and lies around Covid, but did chose vaccination as the least worst course of action.

George Sheerin
George Sheerin
1 year ago
Reply to  Simon Simple

I meant to make the connection with things
hidden, as has been Charles promotion of Homeopathy, a thoroughly fraudulent industry. Science following scientific method of trial and error and testing by peers, and always refusing to be absolutely certain, should not be confused with political and industrial misuse of the method eg to produce horrible weapons, poisons and viruses ..” The Science ” is a horrible term first promulgated by politicians and their managers and now sadly by conspiracy theorists, I’m with you re all the politicking and lies around Covid, but did chose vaccination as the least worst course of action.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Reply to  George Sheerin

You can’t polish a Third.

Simon Simple
Simon Simple
1 year ago
Reply to  George Sheerin

Homeopathy looks positively benign when compared to The Science and the refusal to address the frankly frightening data available and/or censored, on the Covid vaccines.

George Sheerin
George Sheerin
1 year ago

Very enjoyable piece. I note that, in all the hagiographies written in the run up eg Jonathon Dimbleby in the Times no mention is made of Charles long devotion to, and promotion of, the looney mad bad and dangerous Homeopathy alternative medicine industry recently denounced by the NHS and scientific research.
Charles must be the most polished holder of the title the Third the monarchy has ever endured!

Romi Elnagar
Romi Elnagar
1 year ago

The coronation was more boring than watching grass grow. I DID think the crown was too big on “Queen” Camilla’s head (both metaphorically as well as in actuality). The only incentive to watching two adulterers crowned was the possibility of something interesting happening in the third row. I rather wish Prince Harry had gotten up and walked out before his stepmother was crowned, but at least he made a quick exit and back to ordinary reality after the show was over. Good on him!
The entire monarchy is rotten to the core, and only he and his mom are (or were, of course, in Diana’s case) the decent ones in that bunch. I was GLAD he was open in SPARE about that family, whose manners are anything but “royal,” and–as they say–sunlight is the best disinfectant. King Charles could have been gracious and invited H to take part on the balcony at Buckingham Palace afterwards, but then, that would have required more graciousness and more serene majesty than one can evidently expect of Brits, or at least their monarchs. There is indeed something to be said for discretion being the better part of valor, but since H had already proved that in Afghanistan, and far beyond anything the rest of the RF could muster, I don’t think any more could have been, or SHOULD HAVE BEEN expected of him.
If the curtains are drawn, we are ALWAYS entitled to ask: why? what are they HIDING?

P.S. I have always thought that the reason QE didn’t abdicate in favor of her son when she got to be old was because she could see what a complete and utter, p***y-whipped, fool he is. I guess that’s one piece of Her Majesty’s discretion that is truly unfortunate, but then, we will never know, will we?

Last edited 1 year ago by Romi Elnagar
Romi Elnagar
Romi Elnagar
1 year ago

The coronation was more boring than watching grass grow. I DID think the crown was too big on “Queen” Camilla’s head (both metaphorically as well as in actuality). The only incentive to watching two adulterers crowned was the possibility of something interesting happening in the third row. I rather wish Prince Harry had gotten up and walked out before his stepmother was crowned, but at least he made a quick exit and back to ordinary reality after the show was over. Good on him!
The entire monarchy is rotten to the core, and only he and his mom are (or were, of course, in Diana’s case) the decent ones in that bunch. I was GLAD he was open in SPARE about that family, whose manners are anything but “royal,” and–as they say–sunlight is the best disinfectant. King Charles could have been gracious and invited H to take part on the balcony at Buckingham Palace afterwards, but then, that would have required more graciousness and more serene majesty than one can evidently expect of Brits, or at least their monarchs. There is indeed something to be said for discretion being the better part of valor, but since H had already proved that in Afghanistan, and far beyond anything the rest of the RF could muster, I don’t think any more could have been, or SHOULD HAVE BEEN expected of him.
If the curtains are drawn, we are ALWAYS entitled to ask: why? what are they HIDING?

P.S. I have always thought that the reason QE didn’t abdicate in favor of her son when she got to be old was because she could see what a complete and utter, p***y-whipped, fool he is. I guess that’s one piece of Her Majesty’s discretion that is truly unfortunate, but then, we will never know, will we?

Last edited 1 year ago by Romi Elnagar
John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago

If you want to ‘challenge the herd with new and bold thinking’ then endless pseudo intellectual articles in the style of a Poundland Daily Mail about a Coronation that most people are indifferent to is surely not the best way to achieve it.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

“… then endless pseudo intellectual articles in the style of a Poundland Daily Mail.”
But, John? Your own comment manages to be both “pseudo intellectual” and very childish.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Why, Polly, exactly. Explain, please?

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

Work it out for yourself.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

Work it out for yourself.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

When Charles, a 74 year old privileged white man, became head of the firm following the death of his mother he had an opportunity to reflect the times we live in, the current state of the country and the increasing ambivalence most people feel about the monarchy. He chose, though, to go with the Ruritanian pomp and pageantry we’ll see today. Yes, people will watch, but in the same way as they’ll watch the Eurovision Song Contest, as a pretty meaningless reality TV show.

Unherd has run a series of articles desperately trying to give some kind of meaning to all of this. But it is increasingly a soap opera, which the Daily Mail and their ilk love (which is why ‘Harry and Meghan’ are the pantomime villains; I read that the Daily Express had 44 articles on their website all variations on how utterly awful they were) because it sells newspapers, it’s clickbait. It’s also why you have legions of ‘royal experts’, pontificating grandly.

I expected better of Unherd but if you want to wave your tiny flag and gasp at the ‘Spoon of Solace’ then go for it….

Roger Sponge
Roger Sponge
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

The country has always been “in a state”.

Paul K
Paul K
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

‘a 74 year old privileged white man’

This line alone tells us all we need to know here.
Alas for you, most of the country is not actually ‘indifferent’ to what is happening today. And neither are you. The fact that you’re here pontificating grandly about the skin colour of the head of state of a country in nothern Europe mean you have already lost the argument you tried to start.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul K

So what do you think he is? Not privileged? Not 74? Not white? Not a man? It’s just a description, stop trying to make it do so much heavy lifting. Plus, I’m not trying to start an argument just making a comment on the article.

And you need to look at the polls or maybe go out now and again if you think the nation is a hotbed of monarchist fervour. It’s not. I also strongly suggest very few people would lose an argument to you if this is really the best you can do.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul K

So what do you think he is? Not privileged? Not 74? Not white? Not a man? It’s just a description, stop trying to make it do so much heavy lifting. Plus, I’m not trying to start an argument just making a comment on the article.

And you need to look at the polls or maybe go out now and again if you think the nation is a hotbed of monarchist fervour. It’s not. I also strongly suggest very few people would lose an argument to you if this is really the best you can do.

Romi Elnagar
Romi Elnagar
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

Well said!

Roger Sponge
Roger Sponge
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

The country has always been “in a state”.

Paul K
Paul K
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

‘a 74 year old privileged white man’

This line alone tells us all we need to know here.
Alas for you, most of the country is not actually ‘indifferent’ to what is happening today. And neither are you. The fact that you’re here pontificating grandly about the skin colour of the head of state of a country in nothern Europe mean you have already lost the argument you tried to start.

Romi Elnagar
Romi Elnagar
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

Well said!

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Why, Polly, exactly. Explain, please?

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

When Charles, a 74 year old privileged white man, became head of the firm following the death of his mother he had an opportunity to reflect the times we live in, the current state of the country and the increasing ambivalence most people feel about the monarchy. He chose, though, to go with the Ruritanian pomp and pageantry we’ll see today. Yes, people will watch, but in the same way as they’ll watch the Eurovision Song Contest, as a pretty meaningless reality TV show.

Unherd has run a series of articles desperately trying to give some kind of meaning to all of this. But it is increasingly a soap opera, which the Daily Mail and their ilk love (which is why ‘Harry and Meghan’ are the pantomime villains; I read that the Daily Express had 44 articles on their website all variations on how utterly awful they were) because it sells newspapers, it’s clickbait. It’s also why you have legions of ‘royal experts’, pontificating grandly.

I expected better of Unherd but if you want to wave your tiny flag and gasp at the ‘Spoon of Solace’ then go for it….

Simon Simple
Simon Simple
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

On my travels today delivering packages, I can assure you the areas I visited are mostly NOT indifferent. The number of street parties surprised me. In fact I wonder how many were actually sanctioned by the Council. So many roads were blocked off with cars etc and no official signs and my company sat nat proved useless in predicting which roads were closed. BUT it was great to see. I may not agree with Charles’ views, but I do agree with a Monarchy – Long Live The King!

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

“… then endless pseudo intellectual articles in the style of a Poundland Daily Mail.”
But, John? Your own comment manages to be both “pseudo intellectual” and very childish.

Simon Simple
Simon Simple
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

On my travels today delivering packages, I can assure you the areas I visited are mostly NOT indifferent. The number of street parties surprised me. In fact I wonder how many were actually sanctioned by the Council. So many roads were blocked off with cars etc and no official signs and my company sat nat proved useless in predicting which roads were closed. BUT it was great to see. I may not agree with Charles’ views, but I do agree with a Monarchy – Long Live The King!

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago

If you want to ‘challenge the herd with new and bold thinking’ then endless pseudo intellectual articles in the style of a Poundland Daily Mail about a Coronation that most people are indifferent to is surely not the best way to achieve it.