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 That Lenin’s dream metastasised into something comparable and has again been replaced by an authoritarian government is as interesting as it is tragic.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