The real question about the monarchs

Comment published on New York Times blog in response to news article, “Prince Harry’s memoir alleges physical attack by William, according to report,” January 5, 2023:

It will be curious if these sordid events among England's born celebrities, the royal family, hastens the end of the monarchy. For that question is not about persons but institutions, and whether it is better for a modern European nation to cling to medieval governmental traditions that empower an aristocracy and monarchy, while maintaining a liberal representative democracy that is nonetheless, visibly and palpably, not a republic. I wonder this as an American curious less of the royals than the furious chatter about them.

Few questioned the monarchy under Elizabeth, because she was so adept at managing her appearance, making her an icon of good sense, of reserve and propriety. The media never quite threw her off balance, but the other royals have been far less fortunate. All the sordid tales a curious public could perversely enjoy about them!

The tabloid media culture was larger than Charles and the others. It is part of a deformed public sphere in which people with authority are judged morally to find scandalous transgressions. We do this with our politicians and public-figure artists.

A monarchy of spectacle and ceremony is not thereby irrelevant to the character of society and state, for spectacle and rituals of glory are forms of power. Stars behaving well or badly are part of the package.

The real question is not about the vices of present and future kings, but the forms of power that suit the affairs proper to a republic, the res publicae.