Things I took from watching ‘The Crown’. 

Privilege is not necessarily a better way of life. You might be inclined to think that being born into royalty or class privilege is something to be looked up to and revered with a jealous fascination. Almost akin to celebrity status where the participants must actually do something to gain their status. With royalty, the main achievement for the role is simply birth. 

If you have ever imagined winning the lottery and the life it may bring you. You may find certain aspects of your life would change for the better in the short term or indeed indefinitely. You may never have to worry about a mortgage again or any financial burden for that matter. You may get to live in a plush house and drive an expensive car and attend exclusive events. It all sounds grand and wonderful, but that is not what life is entirely made up of. You can still feel pain through privilege.  

If you have cancer, can the money take it away? More recently, if you have contracted COVID-19 and suffer badly or see a loved one suffering, can the privilege and wealth stop the suffering. Does privilege love a child more growing up?  Does privilege help a loveless marriage?  Does the attention hide the loneliness? It is easy to hide in privilege, behind the advantages but it is not necessarily a better or happier way of life. 

All men and women are created equally, are they not? If Diana chose a different path the year she met Charles, she might never have become the Princess of Wales we knew. She might have just worked a regular job somewhere and had a regular family. If Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle, Sarah Ferguson, had not been or chosen at the right place at the right time, they would not have benefited from the Duchess, Princess etc. titles that earn them a current lifestyle and privilege, for better or worse. Going back even further, if the Norman invasion of 1066 was unsuccessful and William the Conqueror did not depose the monarch at the time, then none of the current family members would have the Royal decree. It would be an entirely different family adorning the Royal balcony. Certainly not chosen by God then arguably but by who won a big fight that day 1000 years ago! A Royal family or monarchy is surely an outdated, unjust and unnecessary institution at this stage. Many have rightly fallen over the centuries to modern evolved thinking. The English institution has evolved a world class expertise in survival at all costs regardless of who suffers or dies! There is no one of more importance than the firm and you will suffer surely if you test that theory. Duty will always trump personal suffering, trump kindness, trump compassion, trump humanity. This duty destroys family’s but keeps outdated powerful and wealthy institutions alive and all to the applause of the people.  

Does it really make sense for a nation to be paying out tens and tens of millions of pounds every year to keep one extended family in extravagant palaces, houses, cars and estates? It would seem ridiculous on paper. It goes without saying how welcoming that money and attention would be for the underprivileged who live in such a different world as we all do as oppose to a royal world where you need someone to help you dress, answer your phone, wash, get yourself into bed, open your own curtains or any number of jobs up to 1000 of the Queen’s staff & servants do daily.  

A cult couldn’t run itself as well or manipulate so many into believing the necessity of this ineffective empire. The French storming the Bastille over 230 years ago led the way in bringing their monarchy down to human level. What would be the equivalent today? I wonder? 

These very distinct classes in society can be very self-serving and unjust. There can be an arrogance and disdain created by the apparent betterment of one class over the other. An indifference to any suffering or injustice of one class over another and a distance and belittlement created between people essentially. People are born in each country to the same laws. It is relatively naive to think of a united and equal in all regard’s society, but we don’t help ourselves by creating distinct classes that are unashamedly advertised as being better than another. 

The bemusing longevity of the Royal popularity can in modern society be very thankful for our also bemusing, nonsensical obsession with all thing’s celebrity. We hold these people up like gods amongst men and feign at their every movement. Our idealization of them is mentally damaging to ourselves as we believe their existence to be without fault or sorrow in their perfect lives and the perfect feed from their social media accounts. We wish we were them; we wish we had their lives, and the current generation of Royals enjoy this level of obsession as well. There is no room in modern observations for the unhappiness these celebrities might on occasion feel. Maybe even a bit of depression at times, God forbid, or anger, hatred, jealousy, self-loading, insecurity, fear, surely not, as an admission of that would make them out to be, well, human! Just like the rest of us. So, when you mix a Royal elitism with an obsession of their every move, you end up with an unhealthy multi-tiered, unequal and dysfunctional society where we are fodder for Facebook posts, celebrity Instagram’s and insane tabloid headlines, where the accomplishments and inspiring traits of our so-called heroes are slim to none. Yet we feed them with a relentless number of clicks and chase them brainlessly, making an embarrassment of ourselves and our supposed evolution. But it keeps the folk on the Royal balcony waving to the fools, in fact, I sometimes imagine that is what they are saying to each other through long aching smiles ‘Just keep smiling and wave to the fools, keep waving, it will be over soon’. 

My better half tells me I should just watch the show and enjoy it for what it is and not read too much into it! You never know, she could be right.     ‘Just keep smiling……’