1947: Prince Philip
April 22, 2021
By AHNZ
On 21 November 1947, from 11pm until 1am the following morning, New Zealand State radio relayed the royal wedding of Philip Mountbatten to Elizabeth Windsor. Mountbatten was now part of Windsor Inc. and as such now on the scene as part of New Zealand history.
Philip visited New Zealand many times and lived to a ripe old age of 99 before disqualifying for a 100th birthday congratulations letter from his Queen by dying in April 2021.
Born in 1921, the Dutch/Greek Royal was one fair and square within what in America is called the Greatest Generation. This was an heroic generation of civically-minded Westerners who left a big mark on the world and fought the Second World War. They didn’t necessarily do good but they impacted greatly and heroically their civic space for the values they held: Charles Bronson, JFK, Don Bradman, Pol Pot, Castro, Mandela, Turing, Ceausescu, Disney, Dr Seuss, Kissinger, Orwell, Milton Friedman, Malcom X, Johnny Carson, Isaac Asimov, Charlton Heston, John Glenn, Mel Brooks, Mugabe, Arthur C Clarke. In New Zealand, Kenneth Cumberland, William Pickering, Charles Upham, Rob Muldoon, Ed Hillary, Keith Sinclair, Norm Kirk, Robin Cooke, J.K Baxter, Patricia Bartlett.
At Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme in 2006. “Young people are the same as they always were. Just as ignorant.”
To a Scottish driving instructor, 1999: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”
“I declare this thing open, whatever it is.” (on a visit to Canada in 1969)
I don’t think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.
When a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.
“If you stay here much longer, you’ll go home with slitty eyes.” (a trip to China in 1986)
“Do you still throw spears at each other” (Australia, 2002)
Prince Philip was cut from that sort of cloth which goes a ways to explaining why his sense of humor struck recent generations as out of time and Politically Incorrect. But wait, there’s more. The man is a living fossil record of rarefied whimsy that briefly had a moment of reward and acceptance in some uber-upper-class titled subcultural group of in-bred blue-blooded brats during some 1930s summer-shortage-of-snuff crisis. You either need a flux capacitor and a sociology degree in English literature to find his jokes funny (or else to be the Queen of England, I suppose.)
The intended audience for his kind of jokes went extinct a long long time ago. In his prime Philip was very very popular. So popular, in fact, that he appears to be responsible for an enormous boom in the world supply of people called Philip. As the above graph shows, Philip’s entry into top slot in our Commonwealth world coincides with an assent of his namesakes that is only now returning to its baseline level. As we would expect, the late 1950s and early 1960s were the high point and after that along came the Swinging Sixties to steal the ‘crown’ from Windsor Inc.
An Anarchist Case for New Zealand Monarchy
I hope that something better comes along, as I’ve written before, because New Zealand having a Queen or a King is not the ideal solution. It’s just that it’s better than all the rest, especially practically speaking. There is a huge sector of our population who still need to be governed by a Boss if they’re not to fly apart. They want a sort of slavery and there are people prepared to give it to them and who are we to try to break the two groups up? Answer: Anarchists. But if you’re going to do that you’d better have a rehabilitation plan in place. Releasing battery chickens into the wild (“You’re free, return to nature!!”) may feel good in the moment but with no survival skills those hens will shortly be killed and eaten by the wild.
Consider the masses of consumers who keep Women’s magazines afloat by keeping up with a largely made-up drama about what the Royals are up to now. Who is fighting who, who said what, who has had enough of him or her or that? There is a huge library of books about it, there are TV shows, there is memorabilia. There is endless talkback radio and social media and workplace chatter. Have you ever contemplated how many millions of people and how many billions of dollars are tied up in this industry? How gullible these people are. How small their lives are that they need to get their thrills by following celebrities and crave the latest photo or scandal? How factional. How impressionable. Hold that in your mind.
Now remember that these people exist, en mass. Remember, they can vote. They drive cars, they have money, can take to the streets. But they don’t. Their concentration and interest is conveniently absorbed and neutralised by powerless Royals. The Queen’s great burden is to do nothing per se except to be a massive power sink, a dignified blank personality for hordes of petty people to project their psychological fusion upon.
“We can’t get an Imelda Marcos or Eva Peron in New Zealand because that demagogue niche is kept in check by our impotent royals and benign Governor General. This is the State of the Art in constitutional technology for keeping The State small and in check. That’s why we need our Queen, and it’s why Republicanism is dangerous.” – 1954: The Queen and The State
New Zealand has masses of idiots or uninformed (depends what mood I’m in on the day) citizens who would fall in behind a crazed dictator in a second. Why don’t they? Because QE2 and Prince Philip have been occupying the dictator’s throne and used it to do absolutely nothing. If we’re talking about the One Ring of Lord of the Rings here then QE2 has been Frodo the Hobbit who has kept the Ring safe and out of circulation for 70 years, and Philip was her supportive companion Sam. Granted, those who bear the weight of the crown live a lavish existence but that’s what the situation demands in order for the projection to work. Besides, as they sacrifice their lives to this service and raise children inside this palatial public captivity it ought to be as comfortable as possible. Long-distance marathon runners have comfortable shoes don’t they?
“Met Prince Philip at the home of the blues, said he’d gave me information if his name wasn’t used, he wanted money up front, said he was abused by dignity.”- Bob Dylan
Now QE2 has lost her Samwise Gamgee, Prince Philip, how much longer can Elizabeth carry this crown? Will the next monarch be able to keep this dangerous Statist power imprisoned with them? If the containment field were to break then there would be outbreaks of chaos all over the Commonwealth and into the vacuum would rush all manner of celebrity power mongers. Consider how ready we already are to elevate Jacinda Ardern and Anthony Bloomfield to near deity levels already. If QE2 were to end not just her term of service but the institution of royalty itself that wouldn’t cast The Ring into the fire at all, only we can do that for ourselves. If she did that, or if her successor couldn’t shoulder her burden the power would splinter off into many parts and many celebrity warlords. It’s a hard job and a fragile political structure; A Second Best Solution. The thing that is holding together life as we know it just lost one of its structurally essential support props with Philip’s death and a slow avalanche is certainly underway now.
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Note: Elizabeth only became successor herself aged 10 because her uncle, King Edward, measured himself against this massive task of being the British Power Sink and abdicated. Perhaps that was the smartest move he ever made, akin to Bilbo giving the ring to Frodo to take care of. As much as the Windsors admire St George the Dragon-Killer they’re not quite that in respect to The State and I wonder if they even aim to be. The Dragon of The State is not dead, just perpetually at bay by the sword of the Windsor.
1 Ref. Northern Advocate (1947), Papers Past
Image ref. Elizabeth and Philip in Fiji, Brian Brake (1953), Museum of New Zealand
Image ref. Philip in ceremonial robes, Brian Brake (1953), Museum of New Zealand
Image ref. Baby name counts over time (data), Department of Internal Affairs (April 2021)
Ref. 1953: Queen of New Zealand in New Zealand
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