Man in hat sits on chair

Posted on 10/05/2023 by StephenJones.blog

JPM Daoist
Daoist ritual in the Jin ping mei: click here.

Like the Great Plague and the Cultural Revolution, the Coronation is history, whether we like it or not. My flimsy excuse for adding to the endless discussions is that it reminded me of China—the role of Daoist and Buddhist ritual in propping up the status quo, and the way that peasants too buy into the “imperial metaphor” (see also Catherine Bell on ritual, including state ritual). I can be mildly impressed by the opulence of grand Chinese or Ottoman ceremonies, but being English I have more of a right to query the validity of our own.

The Anglican Church—another irrelevance to a growing segment of the population—plays a major role in “legitimising” the charade of the Divine Right. Yet again Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind:

I didn’t know we ’ad a king—I thought we were an autonomous collective.

Awed deference is only to be expected from the BBC, toeing the Party line, but even on Channel 4 interviewees mustered platitudes, with Cathy Newman making a futile effort to feed them with alternative viewpoints. Nor could one expect usually sensible critics of irrational power like Justin Welby to demur. “Defender of all faiths” my arse. The only clue to God’s feelings on the matter came from the way it rained on the parade.

Still, nothing can detract from the sheer exhilaration of Zadok the Priest—tastefully reworked by Andrew Lloyd Webber in a benign gesture of inclusivity:

Zak the Used-Car Dealer and Nat the Bruiser (know wot I’m sayin’, right) bigged up Solly King of Da Hood, YO

"and with the ceremonial Whirling of the Plates successfully completed, Charles is now King of England" #Coronation pic.twitter.com/MgsxK2wK3H
— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) May 6, 2023

Meanwhile chez the Guardian-reading tofu-eating wokerati (and I confess to making a vegetarian mapo tofu the other day—soon to be grounds for detainment without trial), some articles played it safe (“Immaculately rehearsed, touching, and Shakespearean”, or this on ritual). Compared to 1953, ritual elements are well detailed here, with an outline here of economic differences and similarities (growth and living standards; quality of life; housing; technology; public finances).

1953

Coming back for more after the Queen’s funeral, many of the riff-raff, or “subjects” (including young and poor people) may have found the display of privilege utterly irrelevant, but others took time away from their “rather gratifying” food banks (apud The Haunted Pencil) to play their own dress-up with hats and bunting—Bread and Circuses.

After all, since Brexit we’re all rolling in money, eh? But the royals aren’t exactly short of a few bob—benefit claimants with the brass neck to go on about “service”. Service my arse. Bending over backwards to feign balance, another Guardian piece concluded

Whether multimillion-pound salaries and disdain for difficult questions can really unite and represent the values of a modern democracy remains to be seen.

Um, no it doesn’t. James Butler in the LRB saw right through the display. Yet among those whom the status quo benefits and harms, some support it, some resist; apathy too seems to cross class borders—I’d like to see figures broken down (“by age and sex”).

Taking the conservative viewpoint as read, I append a selection of further Guardian articles below. * One can always rely on Marina Hyde (losing it at “doubtless the world’s most important spoon”) and John Crace. And this teenage perspective is rather fine. There’s been ample coverage of “Commonwealth” perspectives too, such as Stephen Marche, Afua Hirsch, and David Olusoga, as well as Yasmin Poole on Channel 4.

Of course irony is a modern virtue, or vice, but when we study the grandeur of imperial Chinese ritual we rarely consider the perspectives of the lowly tofu-seller. In the words of Alan Bennett’s clergyman, Stuff This For A Lark. Private eye summed up my feelings: