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COMMENTARY
February 8, 2012
Noble example
Hereditary offices have never appealed to the vain, or power-hungry. Having been excluded by birth from the trappings, they rail against them. Paradoxically, they attribute more value to the baubles than the office holders themselves, who are acquainted with the burden of duty. "It must be nice" to be the Queen, they imagine; or lord of any other manor. Not only the mace and the jewels, the pomp, but the circumstances: to have the entire population, of manor or country, compelled to honour you, as you ride by in your phaeton, or take your place on the dais.Congruent trappings are retained in every republican order. Concessions may be made to democratic opinion, and politicians dress down in moments when the "optics" begin to cloy, but under no circumstances can the republican luminary part with the sublimity of "hail to the chief." As Paul Valéry said, "Power without abuse loses its charm." Those who inherited had no choice in the matter. Each was born into his station and, while he might take some gratuitous pride in his status, he can never imagine that it was achieved through his own merits. No one contrives the circumstances of his birth, or any significant part of his own identity. The vain imagine that they have somehow "made" themselves, and attribute to merit what they have by grace or luck. But the most brilliant investor may be ruined by an incalculable turn of chance; the stupid plodder may get rich by the same. "Love doesn't care." Our ancestors, who lived closer to the bone, understood these things. The sane no more worship intelligence, than muscle. From the human vantage these are accidents of nature, and fate is a fickle mistress. Wisdom never required advantages; and as the wise old Greeks understood, "genius is what you make of what you have." They were not whiners. The nobility will occupy their stations well or poorly, just as our soldiers will stand, or run. Training comes into this, or "breeding," as much for a person as for a horse. The idea that persons bred to high stations are less qualified to hold them, than those who are slavering for power, is a piece of nonsense that can be made plausible only to the vanity of a mob. On Monday, we began to celebrate, or to snub, the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen of Canada. It is the second since Confederation, and gives us cause to look back upon 1952, and 1897, to see where we have come. That would be helpful, to those who live too much in the degenerate present; or worse, indulge the conceited nihilism of living in a future that has less substance than laughing gas. Has the Queen made no difference? To my mind, if it were only to fill the highest office of our State, and thereby exclude self-seeking politicians, she had done a tremendous service. It is no criticism that she has not done what she is constrained by law from doing. Queen Elizabeth has done a truly magnificent job of what she was actually assigned, and it is worth knowing that her many prime ministers have agreed (with no exceptions of which I am aware, British or Commonwealth). She has been, in person, a useful, wise, and extremely well-informed background counsel. More than one prime minister has recalled his embarrassment, to find she had read legislation he had only glanced at, and could correct him on the details. It was typical of her, after getting to church on Sunday, with the unbending Prince Philip, partly on foot in conditions of ice and snow that grounded most flights at Heathrow, to say she was re-dedicating herself to her people and her duties. To be steadfast, unfaltering, through 60 years, even in a world going to Hell in a fast car: that is an accomplishment as great as any statesman's, and more valuable. I think of her from 1981, when she was riding her horse, "Burmese," outside Buckingham Palace. (That mare, from Saskatchewan, trained in the RCMP stables, here in Ottawa.) Six gunshots rang out from the crowd - blanks, but no one could know at the time - and the horse was startled. Elizabeth controlled her, then continued riding as if nothing had happened. And - by her example - so did the entire retinue, falling in behind her. To lead by example, and not by pleading or force: that is the requirement of nobility. To embody duty, not ignoble swagger. Anyone with a modicum of nobility in his own soul, knows this. Those who know nothing, sneer. Canada's anchoring traditions descend from the pre-Canadian past. Our Constitution is not something for the republican puppies to play with, while they pull our country apart. We desperately need to restore the example of nobility to our public life, and the ceremonial that embodies continuity. The last thing we need is to lift that anchor, amid our contemporary shoals. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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