Is the King Dead or Does He Surf?

This is my second piece in a short series, following on from the last post 'Waves';

A famous phrase is, 'The King is Dead, long live the King', announcing the passing of a monarch and the succession to the throne of another. The phrase implies that an individual ruler is of course mortal but that the institution they represent is intended to long outlast them, they are merely the current representative of a monarchy. That such institutions often last significant periods of time is an interesting fact. The British monarchy, for example, has endured for centuries through great social tumult.

It may also be the case that even if a regime is deposed a similar social set up can re-form in its place:

I recently watched ‘The Death of Stalin’ by Armando Iannucci. It was a rather refreshing mix of ‘In the Thick of It’ style satire and quite poignant observations on power and the tragicomic history of Russia. Its release coincides with the centenary of the Russian revolution. A strikingly important event in world history. Even Marx himself observed that the Russians always seemed to go for the most extreme available doctrine. There are always contingencies in such matters though, had the Mensheviks not walked out during the October Revolution history may have turned out differently.

The U.S.S.R. of course came apart at the seams in 1989, a lumbering behemoth that finally ran out of steam and, groaning, crashed to the earth like some titanic tree. An autocratic empire that long ago had lost the plot of its original goals, staggered into senility and eventually collapsed. Taken in isolation, this empire would be an interesting historical artefact. However, when situated in the wider arc of Russian history it appears less unique. The initial revolution was a rebellion against an autocratic and unaccountable Tsar, who presided over a sclerotic and discontented empire. That Lenin’s dream metastasised into something comparable and has again been replaced by an authoritarian government is as interesting as it is tragic.

Reflecting on some of the themes in my last post, Waves, I am not one well qualified enough to pronounces that this is or is not due to some innate or inevitable cycle in Russian history. It may be more a series of waves of populism that fell on the same shores producing similar results. The likelihood of other European nations squabbling like cats in a sack on a regular basis also unfortunately appears to be just as high. I hold out some hope that this may not be the case and I am certainly no historical determinist. The role of non-violent resistance as pioneered by Ghandi, Martin Luther King and others is a powerful example of the ability of groups of concerned individuals to change the world. Indeed, to quote Margaret Mead, it is the only thing that ever does!

The interplay between the great trends of history, the agency of groups and individuals and the myriad other factors which affects how societies change over time are most likely impossible to disentangle. What can be said with some degree of certainty is that some things appear more likely than others and some trends look likely to crash onto shores as large waves. I have noted before and it has been cogently argued elsewhere that the United States may be in a similar position to the U.S.S.R. in the late 1980s, except with an Orangutan at the helm, rather than the relatively dignified figure of Mikhail Gorbachev. We shall have to see whether this comes to pass along with whether European nations re-commence with arguing or if the hydra of authoritarianism snakes out more widely into the world than at present. 

One of the major features of the oscillation of social waves is that those at the top of a social system are very good at preserving their status, even if the system superficially changes; kings, or more accurately, monarchies clearly know how to surf the social waves. What is unique about the present day and modern information technology is that the majority of us, not just a tiny minority, can have some understanding of the nature of some of these waves. We should of course use these insights to do what we can to hold the powerful to account & avoid some of the worse political possibilities and at the very least we can also learn to surf.

Image credited to wikipedia

Waves

I recently read a book called 'At the Existentialist Cafe' by Sarah Bakewell which I highly recommend, one of the best books I have read in years. It is an exquisite overview of an intellectual movement giving both a biographical narrative of the main thinkers and the development of the main ideas. I have tried to infuse some of the main themes into my daily life and writing; I try at least once a week to take a step back from daily life's chatter, find a nice cafe and stop and see what is in front of me. To write about what I am surrounded by and in the process of observing, reflect.

Today, the clouds are whipping overhead as I sit outside a Swedish cafe at the head of the Union Canal in Edinburgh. I can see water glistening in the early evening light. Plants flow in the wind, people bustle, children chatter, pigeons coo and here I sit and write. As I sit in the evening light and drink my coffee I don't want to get comfortable, I want to get raw and thoughtful.

I look over my scrawled notes from my last cafe outing, I had managed to get out of bed early and get to an open day of the Edinburgh University Anatomy Museum. It was one of those easy to miss one off outings that left me with some lasting impressions. The waves on the water on the canal reminded me of other, much more important waves.

The museum display was a glorious pokey mix of comparative anatomy, the story of how the study of anatomy has developed at the University of Edinburgh and wider social and medical history. It showed a grappling for greater understanding amongst all of the all too human dramas, misunderstandings and skulduggery of the 19th century. From executing people with mental health problems and then dissecting them to going round the world and shooting whatever rare exotic wildlife took an explorer's fancy and pickling it. There were death masks and skeletons of famous people, some good like Robert Owen and some infamous like Burke & Hare. There were also the cadavers of various beasts and fowl including those of human ancestors and our various primate cousins.

I was struck by how much we have learned, amongst all the curios was an urge for greater understanding, our understanding of phenomena rolling in like waves, one crashing in over the next. One such early medical example of which was the discipline of phrenology; it was an honest first attempt to understand human personality without ascribing the cause to supernatural causes. As knowledge developed of the nature of the human body and mind the lack of evidence for its assertions became clear and it was superseded and denounced as pseudoscience.

The development and change in the nature of institutions and the material conditions in which people live has been as profound as the advances in the nature of our understanding of biology. Edinburgh University started off as an institution that received patronage and validation from royalty and aristocracy, it of course in turn helped to preserve the status of such institutions with its prestige as a centre of learning but it has become so much more than that, a worldwide research institute, which, like so many other universities, has greatly added to our understanding of the world.

One of the most beautiful descriptions in 'At the Existentialist Cafe' was that of consciousness as being like a furl in a rug, a fold in reality. We have a much more accurate understanding of the details of how the systems of life operate but we still have many unanswered questions about the nature of life and consciousness. There is something transcendentally beautiful about the reality of being in the world, that we are, and then we are not.

Human skulls were laid out in cabinets in the exhibits, from otherworldly foetal skulls to the wizened fragile face of old age. I got a palpable sense of the sheer suffering and hardship of the lives of our ancestors, from the skull of a 14 year old boy who had been executed to stooped little skeletons of adults aged before their time. There was also a memorial book dedicated to all those who had donated their bodies to anatomy which I found truly moving. A humanistic show of thanks to the gift of others to enable the greater understanding of all.

I subscribe to the worthy goals of humanism to improve human knowledge and well-being though I think people make an unfortunate intellectual error when they assume progress is some sort of natural law, an inevitable, unstoppable wave. History may well have its own cycles and waves that may mean much of what we have discovered over the past few centuries goes the way of the Library of Alexandria, licked clean of memory by flames.

This is, however, not to denigrate or dismiss the valiant efforts or suffering of our ancestors making it possible for us to live our modern lives of comparative luxury, quite the opposite. Life is a wave that can roll slowly up the beach and dissipate its energy or hit a rock almost immediately but what I am most moved by is that there are waves at all. Coming from an existentialist perspective has helped me to appreciate each day, to learn, live, love and be kind. I will do my little bit to try and make the world a better place, and if that is only for its own sake, all the better.