Our takeaway is that tradition is nothing but wisdom that may or may not be applicable to the present circumstances. It is no less valid than our rationality and accepting tradition is a valid way of life. All I ask you to do is consider tradition no less inferior to what your brain comes up with, because I assure you, tradition itself is what the brains of many like us came up with.
Yes, I know the Queen died. Yes, I know some Indians celebrated. Yes, I know some Indians were sad. And of course, I do not care what happens to the Queen or who is affected by her. She is and her monarchy remains the relic of a dead era, presiding over a nation (when it can muster the will to call itself one, self-loathing scum that they are) that is a fraction of what it was and shall ever remain so. What I do care about is what she represented by virtue of who she was and the way she conducted her life. But before we get into that, we need to learn the premise of Western Liberal Thought which is freedom take to its limit. Western political thought has been dominated by the primacy of choice and the virtue of having a choice. This is undergirded by the belief that us choosing to do an act, lends that act by said volition a certain legitimacy. But the even larger point here is that we shall choose well, or in aggregate choose well. None of this is even remotely true or atleast unfalsifiable truth. We can and do make wrong decisions. Just because we made a decision, does not make said decision correct. We can be wrong in aggregates (communism and its adherents come to mind). The point is not that rationality is wrong or that we should deny humans the freedom to choose. But we can claim that this approach to the world is one amongst many, and like all others, it too has its flaws. Which brings us back to the Queen. The Queen never chose her life. She never negotiated which parts of royal life she would adhere to. Her consent to all this was not secured. It was all thrust upon her. She did not try to imprint herself on the role of Queen or try to be bigger than the institution itself. She accepted what she was given. She accepted that to be a Queen and an English Royal entailed some duties that could not be foregone. Her life was in essence a revolt against the modern Western Political Thought. And look where it brought her. Sure, her life was not free from tragedy, but it was free of personal scandal. Even the ones who criticize her, have to criticize the legacy she carries on rather herself personally. She seems to have lived a dignified, stoic life and accepted that United Kingdom shall forever more remain an insignificant speck compared to the giants in Asia. For a very large mass of humanity, the Queen is beloved. It is this that is called respecting tradition. It is this that is called knowing the wisdom of the ages and considering it as valid as your own intuition and rationality. It is tradition that by circumscribing your freedoms asks you to consider, that maybe the questions you are pondering over, have been pondered over and resolved satisfactorily by those that came before you. Maybe you do not know it all, maybe you will not choose right. Tradition asks us to recognize this fallibility in ourselves and orient ourselves according to accumulated wisdom. It is this tradition of dignified royalty that the Queen embraced. Compare this to the other royals that attempted to superimpose the rationality of Western Political Thought onto the royalty. Princess Diana, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are polar opposites to the dignified queen. They attempted to choose their way out of royalty. They bucked and snarled against the restraints royalty imposed on them and look where it got them. Personal tragedy, public ruin and no legacy beyond a few fawning New York Time op-eds. Undergirding this rebellion was the perennial Western Political Complaint against institutions, duty and responsibility, namely that you are asked to conform to ideals you do not consent to. Tradition imposes demands on us and restricts us. Tradition expects us to conform. But this is not idle conformity for the sake of conformity. That is the caricature the Left wants you to have from tradition. Our takeaway from this is that tradition is nothing but wisdom that may or may not be applicable to the present circumstances. It is no less valid than our rationality and accepting tradition is a valid way of life. All I ask you to do is consider tradition no less inferior to what your brain comes up with, because I assure you, tradition itself is what the brains of many like us came up with.
