Canada's Monarchy

Traditions are important.  They make people feel, collectively, a part of something significant.  We are imbued, as human being, with the need to feel ourselves important by virtue of membership in a group.  Primally, a clan, where numbers aided preservation of the species.  Alone, humans were vulnerable; in a group, a clan, a tribe, there was assurance of others who would come to the aid of one in need.

That dependence on being part of a social order that guaranteed recognition and safety lives on as it must, since it is part of our human identity, ingrained in our subconscious, an inherited need and emotion that cannot be denied - but for those of fiercely independent thought for whom such needs are seen as trivial and unnecessary.  The less socially dependent among us.

So the occasion of Her Majesty Elizabeth II's jubilee celebration, is one that has universal appeal among Commonwealth countries, and most particularly Canada, recognized as a senior such country among its peers.  There are groups of grumbling anti-Monarchists everywhere; in Australia, New Zealand, and in Canada.  For that matter, they exist in Britain, Scotland, Ireland and Wales as well.

But by and large the people of Britain are soundly wedded to their royalty.  It represents a hereditary tradition and a heritage that is of inestimable value to a people who adore their history.  People everywhere, in fact, are fascinated with celebrity.  And members of any royal family represent celebrity.  There exists about them an aura of specialness, even other-worldliness.

In fact, in many ways royal families are very like the ancient notion of the gods that look down paternalistically upon humankind.  Those same gods that the ancient Greeks - including their deep-thinking and still-hugely-admired-and-respected philosophers made obeisance to.  Human beings seem to need someone or some vision or some faith to venerate.

To uplift our own lives of struggle, and to give us reason to believe that those on high are benevolently inclined toward us, and will use their powerful auspices to our benefit.  Largely, when it comes to royal families of the present era, this is true, although it was not always so.  And, if one really gives it some thought, there is much about royalty that resembles the panoply of ancient gods.

To whom were attributed the strange and awesome occurrences in nature; the very essence of things natural; the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars.  The elements of wind, rain, the Earth that renders to its creatures life itself.  The Greek/Roman gods, much like the Egyptian and others before them, were given human attributes; from their physical appearance to their emotions.

The gods may have been immortal, but they also exhibited all manner of very mortal emotions and the sins that accompany them.  Including sexual desire for mere mortals.  The issue of which were heroes, giants and semi-immortals.  Much like the royal families of today whose all-too-human foibles demonstrate their very humanity.