apparently I have an opinion about opinions about the royal wedding

[kindkit]

I didn't particularly follow the royal wedding; I'm not that kind of Anglophile. But it was impossible not to hear about it. The parts of Twitter that I frequent were full of honorable British leftists saying true things: the monarchy is regressive and involves a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary people to a tiny aristocracy, the royal wedding is a distraction from more important issues, the whole purpose of the royal family is to foster a sentimental attachment to inequality, the cost of Meghan Markle's wedding dress could have housed or fed people who have nothing, etc. etc.

And yet I can't help thinking, "This is why leftists have a reputation as puritanical killjoys." It reminded me, to some extent, of fandom purity culture, in which legitimate criticisms get dulled down into the very blunt instrument of "That thing you are enjoying is Bad and Wrong." Which is an accusation that people, unsurprisingly, often react badly to.

I kept wanting the honorable leftists saying true things to shut the hell up.

Plus, I have noticed a tendency for the honorable leftists not to notice, or to gloss quickly over, the fact that a black woman marrying into the British royal family is not meaningless. Its meaning may be mostly symbolic, but symbols are important, as witness the angry British racists who hated the whole business. Anything that makes the typical Daily Mail reader fume that much can't be all bad, can it?

Comments

[halotolerant]

Yes to all of this. And also, to be quite honest, this is the last Royal Wedding at this scale there will be for a very long time (just from the ages of those in line to the throne, and even this was much smaller than Will and Kate). To have decided to budget strongly at this particular juncture would have appeared to be a comment on Megan, whether or not it was, and that would scarcely have been a good thing (and I'm sure the same people would have been ready to be outraged about that). Perhaps as and when Prince George or whoever marries, protocol will shift again, but it's not like this is happening on a regular basis.