Against the Puritans: A response to ‘The Right Report’

Those puritans who occupy both sides of the political aisle, who hope not just to keep us under the thumb of a crumbling status quo but to force us to pay joyful respect to them as they do it, vampirically suck the little happiness found in British politics for the public. It's time to fight against the puritans.

1

The sound of a royal reporter squealing out hollow praise to a militaristic icon of the last few decades has serenaded the ears of the British public ever since the announcement of the death of Prince Philip. Legions of mindless correspondents of the mainstream media paying tribute to a man who for decades held unmandated constitutional power in the name of an outdated feudal system of government which most sane nations had swept away with the fiery slam of an enlightenment guillotine.

But they weren’t really paying tribute to him.

The real Philip, like Michael Jackson, was deformed, abused, and stripped of his very humanity in the name of a grotesquely authoritarian public spectacle. His childhood was to be sacrificed, his right to love and experience the world was to be sacrificed. His passions, his imperfections, his frivolity, his identity meant nothing but a burden to the public who just wanted to see him cut ribbons and make toasts with an unphased smile. His job was to appease the public, it was his duty, his obligation, he had no choice. And for what?

The life of Prince Philip was a tragedy and there is nothing more apt on his death than to laugh at its dark absurdity. To, in the middle of a societal downturn, find solace in the realisation that in the end, no matter how many stolen jewels he was covered in or constitutional powers are given to him or soldiers pledging their lives in his name, the barriers between us and him are artificial. There is no divine mandate, the only thing separating you from them is luck.

Those who proclaim hatred on the part of the Twitter comedians who laugh at the depressing feudal relic’s passing, are the same cannibalistic vultures who tore him apart bit by bit in the name of a sycophantic nationalistic duty. Those tabloid pundits who at the threat of political reform sacrificed a human being to the ruthless scrutiny of the corporate media in the name of public spectacle now dutifully inform Britain’s young people of their rudeness and impoliteness as they stand over the grave of a man they tore apart. Don’t listen to the puritans.

2

William Hallowell’s article: ‘Prince Philip's death has been overridden and undermined’ begins with a reference to the death of the rapper DMX and a bizarre confusion, which continues throughout the article, surrounding young people’s taking more notice in the death of the aforementioned rapper than Prince Phillip (I guess he hasn’t heard ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’). This confusion comes at the heart of Hallowell’s perspective and plagues his entire article, his general message being, young people, uneducated and buffoonish find more pleasure in mindless entertainment than they do mindless exaltation of monarchs. Well…yes, and?

“…but why is it that the death of a rapper draws more attention of the young people of Britain than the death of a member of the Royal Family?”

To answer Hallowell’s question, it’s because they are young people, and young people, for the most part, have yet to be feverishly indoctrinated into the British national obsession with an obedience to naturally, divinely mandated hierarchies. They tend to ask questions like: “Wait. Why does that man get unelected constitutional power?”.

The sentiment echoed by this article is revoltingly puritanical and seeks to denounce the playful mindless fun experienced by listening to DMX song and replace it with the national spectacle of a natural hierarchy. It is deeply reminiscent of paranoid, censor-hungry, Christian mothers during the ‘Satanic Panic’, in which in violation of the American first amendment, millions clamored for the censorship and banning of songs that discussed or mentioned the devil. They were to replace it with another form of natural, divinely mandated hierarchy: organised religion.

3

Stupid, playful, comedy, such as the kind found in making jokes out of the death of a member of the royal family, as ‘impolite’ as it may seem, is one of the foundations of British civil liberties. If we can’t publish vulgar cartoons about religious figures or burn a British flag or make a bad heavy metal album with Satan on the cover or (god forbid) joke about a dead prince, then what does it mean to live in a free country? What did it mean to fight off the Nazis (a war that Philip fought in)? What did it mean to overthrow the tyrant, King Charles, in the English Revolution? What did it mean to win the right to vote and the eight-hour workday?

Poking fun at historical taboos is what keeps our democracy alive, it's what preserves our spirit of opposition and it is dearly lacking in a culture drained of its edge. The puritans will try to tell you that the things you enjoy, the things you use to distract yourself from the system of lifeless, existential monotony that they propose, are not just disagreeable but morally reprehensible. You should feel guilty because of that CD you bought or that food you ate or that show you watch or that joke you made, it comes from all sides of the political aisle and it's all just as dangerous. If this mindset once again consumes popular culture, free expression and authenticity will be gravely threatened.

Don’t listen to the puritans.