On September 8^th this year, members of the British Royal Family marked the one year anniversary since the death of Queen Elizabeth II. King Charles, Queen Camilla, and Balmoral Estate staff attended a service at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, while five hundred miles away, Prince William and Catherine mourned the anniversary in St. David’s Cathedral in Wales.

This event helped to demonstrate what the Royal Family has become in the twenty-first century. A future-blind institution, doomed to forever look backwards, grateful that it is still seen as a defining mark of British tradition. While the public mandate for the preservation of the monarchy remains high, the older members can at least be assured that provided they can continue to act their roles, their remaining years will be in luxury and privilege; as they do not know anything else, this must be a great comfort to them.

I have always found there to be something simply weird about the Royal Family.

Looking from the people upwards, why would there remain a high level of public consent or indifference to preserving the same family in this role, indefinitely? Indeed, the Royal Family appears to be a perverted social experiment, similar in plot to the Truman Show. Are the British people curious to see what these homegrown puppets will do within the confines of the institution and its strange, disassociated relationship with parliament? Do they revel in watching what happens to other members of the Royal Family, relegated to the sidelines of the accession to the throne? The Mountbatten-Windsors are not allowed to be a normal family, and so all of the resultant neuroses goes on public display for our enjoyment.

To consent to retaining the Royal Family is to admit a level of indifference about holding the Mountbatten-Windsors in this role for the rest of existence. Is it not worth examining the sociological and psychological ramifications on the subjects of this experiment? Is the Mountbatten-Windsor line just a long drawn out version of the Stanford Prison Experiment? If in enterprise and leadership we merit the role of competition to bring out the best in candidates, there can be no competition when everything is fixed and pre-determined.

A common defence of the Royal Family is to refer to its value as a symbol. Citizens of a country tend to like a sense of national identity and may even be willing to adopt national symbols without much questioning. If supporters of the monarchy are projecting everything they want the monarchy to mean onto the institution and its resident sinecures then the Royal Family simply becomes the embodiment of British wishful thinking, and there may be an argument that this is necessary to maintain social cohesion.

This means, for many, that the Royal Family is not a pragmatic and legitimate arm of government, but a religion. When they are seen as a force for good, that they are more than the sum of their parts, that the indiscretions of a few do not mar the overall aesthetic, when not caring what they do but simply knowing that they are there is more important, then it has become a religion. Indeed, the British Royal Family may have been substituted as a faith-based system in the face of declining church attendance.

The need for tradition, national identity, and symbology are the hallmarks of all major religions. This is further played up in the public roles and speeches from the Royal Family. During King Charles’s memorial speech, he spoke of his mother’s devoted service [to the British people], and how he was grateful of all the love and support as he tried to be of the utmost service to everyone. I cannot guess as to the sincerity behind this public display of humble-ism, but it appears necessary to continue to convince the British public that the Royal Family suffers to serve but is happy to perform its duty. Historically, this is enough to melt the hearts of the religiously inclined, but everyone else is trying to reconcile the immense public and private wealth with the woe-is-me tone of these speeches.

The association of serving the British people is further reinforced by the constant involvement with charities and causes. In fact, this is where most of the time goes for serving Royals.

It is perhaps worth noting here, that although charities and causes are necessary and good, for a section of government they are not the hardened geopolitical tasks of top diplomats; economic negotiations or prisoner of war or hostage negotiations, or the tasks of rebuilding a decaying and crumbling infrastructure. They lend their celebrity to good causes, with the aid of Palace talent agents that continually look for opportunities to market them. Their skillset is knowing how to raise money without giving much of their own.

There is bitter irony with the involvement of the Royal Family as patrons of charities. The wellbeing, lifestyle, and health of the Royal Family are subsidized with immense public funding. This makes the British people patrons of the charity afforded to the maintenance of the Royal Family. Should you find yourself suffering as a member of this family, barring any scandalous behavior, you should find yourself supported in a life of luxury for the rest of your days.

On the anniversary of her death, the BBC published an article that included a table of statistics, presumably to demonstrate some kind of value to her seventy year reign. This table teaches us that she lived through fifteen prime ministers and fourteen presidents, but just like anyone else her age. There is no meaning to these statistics alone, but as with all faith based reverences, it is left up to the imagination of the followers. She visited over a hundred countries as head of state, because she was privileged to do so and could leave anything government-related to parliament. One and a half million people attended one of her garden parties; is this because she owned a garden that could accommodate one and a half million people? Did she know all of them? Does throwing a party make you inherently good? Her seventy year reign appears to be marked by statistics that do not really mean anything.

There is a distinct absence in the Royal Family of attributes that we find in public leaders and heroes. None of the immediate Royal Family have PhDs, MDs, or are thought leaders or intellectuals. None of them have led teams of research into curing disease. None of them have rescued British soldiers from behind enemy lines. None of them have brokered a peace treaty. Their apolitical nature renders them incapable and impotent to meaningfully critique social and economic injustice in Britain. This is also true about most Britons, but this means there is nothing all that special about the Royal Family, which given who they are, maybe there should be?

If the last mainstay of the monarchy’s relevance is the need of the British to believe in them as a core part of their national identity, then the Royal Family is really going to struggle as the generations advance. World War Two provided the Royal Family with an opportunity to help people retain a sense of national identity in the face of depression, destruction, and death. This trickled down with the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, and she herself trained with the military as a mechanic and driver. However, now there is no threat of invasion and the extent of cruelty and subjugation in former British colonies is becoming widely known. The symbolism that they are renowned for is starting to work against them, and so it requires even more faith to remain devoted.

Charles is just hoping he has fifteen more years.

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