Princess Diana broke the mould - but did the Royal Family learn the lessons?
What happened with the Sussexes has made people question whether the royals really did learn from the fallout from her divorce, the public outrage after her death and the accusations that the Royal Family was out of touch.
Twenty-five years on, it is still impossible to imagine how two boys were woken up and told their mother had died in that car crash.
A heartbreaking family tragedy that rapidly became a moment of global mourning. An anniversary the world still talks about today.
Absurdly sentimental guff of course. Diana's death never was a moment of 'global mourning', whatever that means. Yet her status as saintly victim of an out of touch Royal Family seems to have become the good citizen's standard narrative, so maybe the guff is aimed at them. Yet as Edward Fitzgibbon says in in a not entirely unrelated TCW piece.
How ‘being a good citizen’ could kill civilisation
EVEN a casual perusal of the social and political history of Europe, particularly since the Second World War, will reveal a phenomenon of such importance that it is difficult to overstate its potential to make civilisation unsustainable.
I refer to the creeping tide of moral relativism and left-wing social deconstructionism, which could be defined as ‘my truth is whatever I want it to be’. There are no facts, only opinions and feelings.
6 comments:
Diana's death was the beginning of 'feelings' trumping all else.
Maybe we should take a fact, dress it up and then gush about it in a feelings way ... then people might heed it.
"Twenty-five years on, it is still impossible to imagine how two boys were woken up and told their mother had died in that car crash."
It's not impossible, but it is emotionally very painful for us to imagine, if indeed we want to. But the same might be said of many situations - horrible human losses that are recorded in the papers almost every day, and which most of us have at least some personal experience of. The problem with the Diana story is not that it is uniquely emotionally affecting, but that we focus on it at all.
I remember those days.
There was no respect shown for the quiet dignity of the royal family.
Just the braying of calculating manipulators in government and media.
The mountains of rotting flowers were not a suitable memorial for a well loved but flawed woman, who had been manipulated all her life by cunning media, calculating family and false friends. Even in death the manipulation went on.
The cherry, or stinking turd, on top was Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, guided by his Iago to thrust himself into family grief and use the occasion to magnify his political position
The undignified shows of public grief were similar to the extreme emotion displayed at 1960s pop concerts.
Oh, look at me. See how upset I am about this total stranger. Is the camera on me?
She should have worn her seat belt. I suppose it's rude to wonder why she didn't.
Wiggia - I still remember being surprised at the public reaction and that huge pile of flowers.
James - good idea but it may not work as well if the fact is actually true.
Sam - that's it. Tragedies happen all the time, but the media choose a few for various reasons and somehow it downgrades all the others.
Doonhamer - I agree - there was no respect shown for the quiet dignity of the royal family. The entire episode was horribly undignified as if we have generally forgotten what dignity is.
dearieme - rude but relevant I suspect.
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