God save the Queen
The quintessentially British supplication “God save the Queen” never ceases to irritate me. I can think of no reason why intelligent and modern students at Oxford — once the seat of logical positivism — laud some old woman whose only claim to fame is the superstitious beliefs of preindustrial society. I have three points of contention with this sentence: first, the entity “God,” whose status is always being debated; second, the entity “the Queen,” who people once believed was chosen by the previous debated deity to lead crass mortals and, in the process, own all the villages and cows in the land. Finally, there’s the archaic English subjunctive, which is a type of tense indicating a wish or a desire — a situation that doesn’t yet and may never exist. Because of this, I think this sentence is thrice removed from reality. I don’t believe in gods or queens, and I really don’t think any gods are going to be saving any queens anytime soon.
But there are people who believe in ridiculous things. Some people believe that unicorns exist. I have what I think is a reasonable argument against this sort of thing, though it doesn’t always work. I say the burden of proof is on you. If you say that unicorns exist, then show me a unicorn. My crazy friend who was once institutionalized at a facility for recovering glue sniffers would retort: I know there are unicorns because every time I make spaghetti they appear to me in a rainbow. In the spirit of liberalism we agree to disagree, though I never take him up on dinner party offers. I don’t think my friend has a case for unicorns, really, but there’s nothing I can say to dissuade him, so whatever floats his boat, et cetera. Which is perfectly fine by me. Yet it irks me when bad arguments affect my life. I must admit that I enjoy eating steaks. Apparently, though, cows have an astral link with unicorns (like their historical one with queens), so my friend really gets on my case about eating steaks. I tell him: “Well then, you eat your veggie burger, and I’ll eat my steak. Or at least give me a reason I would find acceptable and I’ll stop.” What’s really alarming, though, is that there is actually a society of unicorn-loving people out there. They think that my steak-eating ways are immoral.
“Steak is bad for you anyway,” they argue pragmatically. “Science has shown that people who eat steaks have more heart attacks.”
“That doesn’t mean that steak-eaters are intrinsically immoral, nor that they should be treated differently,” I reply angrily. “Science has shown that people who have to put up with aggravating and patronizing people have more heart attacks.”
“It’s only a small change,” they argue. “There’s nothing genetic about steak-eating desires. You can conform to the norm.”
“Whatev!” I shout. “I want to eat steak, and you haven’t properly shown me why steakeating is wrong.”
“Because of the unicorn, who is our deity,” they reply. “And studies have shown that most people believe in unicorns. Why are you so angry?”
“I am angry,” I reply, “because this affects my life. It does not affect yours.”
The unicorn lovers are right because people believe all sorts of ridiculous things. And public discourse and significance is what determines the moral status quo, isn’t it?
The months pass and the unicorn lovers have indeed overrun the world. Steak eating becomes a despicable activity, barely tolerated only because of historical accident. Steak-eaters are forbidden from having children because their unhealthy eating habits put children at risk of becoming obese and having health problems later in life. We’re offered the option of converting to veggie burgers, an option which is unpalatable to me. I dream of a world where such dichotomies do not matter.
In due time, we are driven underground. Posters of steak eating are ancient relics that have been wiped off the face of the earth, a time we refer to as pagan Greek joyousness. In a horrible ode to ancient religious rites we have been labeled “faggots” by society because they burn us on piles of wood these days, along with feminists, bras and Whitney Houston memorabilia.
This is where I admit that my column has been a thinly veiled and exaggerated allegory about gay people. Surprise! Well, maybe the unicorn will save the queens after all.
Johann Loh is a philosophy major from Singapore. He is studying abroad at Oxford this year and can be reached at loh@princeton.edu.
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A well written piece (and good to see another philosophy major on these pages!) that reminds me of some of Bertrand Russell's polemical works. In all fairness to your opponents, though, you might consider presenting their arguments more sympathetically - something that Russell didn't do well in "Why I Am Not a Christian," for example. Cheers!
I would not ordinarily be provoked to respond to an article I read in The Prince, but the particular target of this ill-formed rant, and the astonishing lack of clarity in its execution, forces upon me a defence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, by the Grace of God the Second of that name. Mr. Loh begins his polemic by asking why Oxonians should laud the Queen. I would point out that she is the Head of State for Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – and fifteen other independent countries – and as such has a share in the sovereignty over that body. Sovereignty of the United Kingdom - as it is presently constituted - rests in a highly evolved and palimpsest-like system of government called the Crown-in-Parliament. Contrary to popular American belief neither the Queen alone nor her advisers - such as the Prime Minister - possess sole right of rule. The U.K. is ruled by a “conversation.” All British Acts of Parliament begin with the characteristic invocation, “BE IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows...” Therefore the Queen’s “claim to fame” is not “the superstitious beliefs of preindustrial society” but the sanction of the unwritten British Constitution. She sits at the heart of British government, is an integral part of British culture, and any attempt at removing her authority would do terrible damage to the constitutional structure of Parliament, surely necessitating its immediate and subsequent reconstitution on wholly new grounds. She has also, over many decades in office, shown herself to be a kind, affable, reassuring old woman, patroness of more than 600 charities, consistently more popular than her elected prime ministers, and a pillar of stability during the often-chaotic second half of the twentieth century. And she has an interest in peculiar hats which many, even on these shores, find endearing. Mr. Loh seems to think Elizabeth Windsor is in some way responsible for the illegality of gay marriage, though he never makes it clear if he is bemoaning the failure of the British Parliament or the American Congress to enact that law. Since Britain recently gave equal rights to gay unions in the U.K., one presumes his target is America, where numerous states have constitutional amendments banning such measures. In all events, a little clarity would have been appreciated. I would also have liked to see some definite relationship established between the Queen of England – who, by office, has no political views – and gay rights. Mr. Loh makes another slip when he denies his belief “in gods or queens.” At a stroke, he has laid his finger on the central question of “faith,” although he quickly lets this flicker of insight die out. To believe need not mean, “to think it is there.” Thinking God exists is quite different from believing in Him, although the latter usually follows upon the former. The Queen of England is obviously a flesh-and-blood person as real as Mr. Loh himself, yet he does not “believe” in her. That God cannot be shown so easily only illustrates that the word “belief” has different meanings, and that properly understood religion is not, as Mark Twain had it, “thinking what you know ain’t so.” The author is on slightly stronger ground when he argues that Christianity is opposed to gay rights. Ironically the American branch of the C. of E. has been lobbying quite heavily for gay marriages, so this argument is undercut by his current geographic position. Anyway, somehow Loh needs to get God out of the picture (the real monarch under attack in this scatter-shot column), so Bertrand Russell’s famous teapot makes its perfunctory appearance – only this Princetonian-in-England prefers unicorns. Both the unicorns and the teapots are different from a belief in God, let alone the Christian conception of Him, not least because no one has advanced the idea of a Necessary Teapot which supports the existence of all contingent beings. (Better question: can there be a Self-heating Teapot?) There are, furthermore, no ancient texts alleging that such a unicorn (or teapot) ever walked, taught and preached in first century Palestine, which would have to be examined with full scholarly rigor to determine their veracity, which would surely have some bearing on the matter. For a man with an interest in horses with horns, he seems to have missed the point. And we are again quite far from the Queen of England, whom Mr. Loh seems to have forgotten entirely. This article, in the reviewer’s opinion, displayed poor writing, bad arguments, a marked lack of philosophical rigor, an ignorance of the English Constitution – which has served so well for so many centuries – and a willingness, which the reviewer would call “callous,” to attack a harmless old woman who has served her nation well during more than half a century in office. Besides, she has funny hats. I would have thought a self-identified “queen” would appreciate a lady with a flair for fashion. From this American: God Save the Queen.