“The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is ostensibly the focal point of all vision and all consciousness: But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.”
— Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle1
Some years ago I used to live opposite Spa Green Garden, on Rosebery Avenue. My bedroom window overlooked the War Memorial located on the southernmost edge of the square. I didn’t notice this monument until my first Remembrance Sunday in the flat, when I had no choice but to acknowledge its existence, thanks to a ceremony involving bag pipes, trumpets, and a robe-wearing dignitary laying a wreath.
This was the first time I witnessed this kind of event. And to my surprise, my first reaction was feeling moved by it. My second reaction was arresting my thoughts and questioning why I was moved by what was going in the square, since I don’t have any war dead to mourn. The answer is that I was moved because I was supposed to feel moved. Because the ceremony I was watching had been devised and perfected over centuries, in order to affect the audience in a specific way. It was a well-rehearsed and thoroughly-devised spectacle that under the guise of commemorating the war dead ultimately reaffirms a power that is both present and invisible.
Invisible because power is rarely explicitly alluded to in these rituals — it’s unnecessary to do so. The ritual just nods towards some of the many familiar points of reference and the audience will make the associations with power themselves. For the simple fact that the audience is well-rehearsed in the ritual too. Think of church goers and how they are trained to react to different moments of a mass.
And how they never stop thinking about the unlimited power of their god.
In Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict Anderson surveys the social construction of the idea of the nation. That the nation is a construct might seem obvious to some but for many the Nation (with capital N) is a fixed concept, its existence indubitable.
This construction of the nation (and associated nationalism) is a non-stop process that makes use of a wide array of tools: monuments, art, literature, films, education, the media, music, the family, the church, the monarchy, and so on2. And the repetition of rituals, of course. Remembrance Sunday is one of these rituals, one we experience every year, and that arrives earlier each time, as poppy-wearing takes over the British psyche by assault3. The Olympics, the World Cup, all of the ceremonies that mark this or that important date, the names of streets, singing an anthem, waving flags, and so on, all form part of the rituals that contribute to the production of the imagined community known as the nation too. But aside from the nation all of the above also contribute to the reproduction and normalisation of the power structures that run behind this imagined community.
There is no community without a hegemony pulling the strings. There is no hegemony without the hoarding of power.
I think of all this while I watch the world around me react to the death of a 21st century monarch.
It’s the only event that seems to be going on right now. We have now forgotten the war in Ukraine, the cost of living crisis, inflation, the fact that a Prime Minister was chosen by 80,000 or so members of the Conservative Party. We have forgotten everything and we must forget everything, so that we can mourn the dead monarch — we must mourn the dead monarch.
I see the real sadness of some of her subjects, leaving floral arrangements, cards, Paddington bears, broccoli, and even more bizarre offerings. I see both the imperial amnesia of some liberals and leftists who just happened to like the late monarch (the person, they explain), and the unapologetic celebration of the monarch and her empire by right-wingers4. And in the case of the actual Labour Party, I watch with disbelief as they welcome the new king. This is the celebration of an institution built on inequality, aristocratic privilege, colonialism, and the hereditary transfer of wealth from generation to generation, by a party —founded on socialist principles — that is supposed to represent working people.
But then the disbelief turns into understanding: everyone is after all performing the formalities of a ritual in which they have been indoctrinated. They are reacting like the believer reacts to this or that other well-studied part of the mass. Whoever wants to attend mass needs to obediently perform their part.
The ultimate prize to pay for not following the rules is excommunication.
Had the British invasions of the River Plate in 1806 and 1807 succeeded I would have perhaps learned the language needed to participate in the mass of the imagined community Britain. Because the invasions failed I can only watch from the sidelines. And I can’t stop watching.
The first thing that came to my mind when I found out about the death of a 21st century monarch, was “we live in historical times”. A dull-witted insight that studied closely betrays how strong the spectacle is, how successful it is in perfecting that separation between ourselves and ourselves. Times can be nothing but historical — the sense that history only happens when it happens to “remarkable” (powerful) people is part of the false consciousness in which we’ve been trained for years. Maybe then, I have naturalised part of the language. Maybe I’m on the road of joining the mass.
For now, “the Queen is dead, God save the King,” as the saying goes. Uttered without a break, the phrase reveals the cogs of the monarchic machine. It is an institution that transcends the monarch as human being and that is programmed to survive without a breath between naming the deceased and naming the successor. A pause, however short, would be an invitation to challenge this “natural” power5. Instead of a pause what we are offered is a mesmerising spectacle that admits no criticism6 and that is due to run until everyone has normalised the new monarch.
For some — the faithful believers — this will come as second nature. For the rest of us — devoid of options7 — it’s just a matter of time. It can’t be too long until the new season of The Crown, after all.
Translated by Ken Knabb.
Althusser would call these Ideological State Apparatuses. The problem with this denomination is that in many cases the ideology of power is divorced from that of the state, particularly today.
I swear I saw my first poppy in early August this year.
But that’s what they always do. At least they are coherent.
Nothing more reactionary than nominally “progressive” people saying “hey, this is not the moment to talk about the problem of the monarchy.” This is exactly the moment to talk about it! When are you going to do it otherwise? When they have all warmed up to the new monarch?
A culture obsessed with pedophiles willing to pay no mind to a sweatless prince who befriended sex-traffickers, who allegedly slept with an underage sex slave, and who paid a £12m out of court settlement in order to avoid facing the music.
Republicanism is unthinkable in UK macro-politics today. Not that republicanism is the panacea of all the world’s ills, that said.
“ the sense that history only happens when it happens to ‘remarkable’ (powerful) people is part of the false consciousness in which we’ve been trained for years.” Wow!
what’s that saying? If there was no god, we would invent one.
Something like that.
Haven’t been writing. Just in a stunned state ever since I returned to work/teaching in another false consciousness called “schooling” (which is not to say, I don’t love teaching). And every single one of your essays here pushes me to want to write, to respond, sometimes only as a reply here. thank you.