If conservatism is an instinct, then perhaps Europeans are more conservative than is often assumed.
If conservatism is an instinct, then perhaps Europeans are more conservative than is often assumed.
T he death of Queen Elizabeth II was followed by ten days of mourning in the United Kingdom. The monarch’s body lay in state, first in Edinburgh and then in London. Around 250,000 people queued, some for as long as 24 hours, to pay their final respects. The Christian service at Westminster Abbey was attended by 2,000 people. A further 29 million watched on TV and streaming services. After the funeral, the coffin was transported to Windsor Castle and lowered into the royal vault at St. George’s Chapel. Some have wondered: Why all the fuss?
The New York Times published a disapproving report, noting that “the queen’s funeral will be paid for by British taxpayers.” MSNBC host Ali Velshi was dismayed when the English historian Andrew Roberts rebutted his dismissal of the British monarchy as “an institution that had a long and ugly history of brutalism, violence, theft, and slavery.” One fashionable idea is that the queen can be disentangled from the institution of monarchy — that there are lots of “queenists” but not so many monarchists. But the truth is that Elizabeth II lived her life in such a way as to make her personal and institutional legacies inseparable. It would be difficult to admire her life of service had it been in service of something worthless.
By paying their respects to the queen, Britons were also paying homage to their cultural inheritance. We have seen similar displays elsewhere in Europe. For instance, another cultural artifact, nearly as old as the British monarchy, is the 900-year-old Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. In 2019, the world looked on in horror as flames shot up from its roof. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, spoke of the cathedral as “part of us” and “our common heritage.”
PHOTOS: Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II
Modern-day France is an overwhelmingly irreligious country. So it is perhaps surprising that the destruction of what Pope Francis called “a symbol of Christianity in France and the world” should have elicited so strong a reaction. That it did so complicates the assumption that people are detached from tradition. The French state has owned the cathedral since 1905 and since then has failed in its upkeep. But after the fire, nearly $1 billion was raised for its restoration. Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect of the French national historic monument, told the Times of London that fire was a “terrible drama” that could be “a remarkable blessing in disguise.”
It would be an overstatement to claim this as proof of a traditionalist revival. Much of modern European culture is moving in the opposite direction. In his posthumous essay collection, The Meaning of Mourning, Roger Scruton discussed the impoverishment of post-religious societies:
It is increasingly rare to raise a monument, or even to lay our dead to rest in a grave that we might subsequently visit. The habit of cremating the dead and then scattering their ashes reflects our post-religious conception of what they become by dying, namely nothing. We briefly snatch at their nothingness and then watch them fade from our empty hands.
But perhaps that also explains why we continue to cling to whatever traditions have survived. Consider, for instance, the concept “human rights,” a product of Judeo-Christian values, or God-given “unalienable Rights,” as enshrined by America’s Founding Fathers. The Founders called these truths “self-evident,” but they are preserved in duties, pieties, customs, and laws, handed down from age to age and, when necessary, defended by force.
The materialistic and atheistic ideologies of the 20th century discounted traditional notions of truth, beauty, and goodness. Taken to their extremes, they produced horrifying results. They also persist as real and present threats. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainians sought to preserve their identity through art, literature, and music. Putin sought to destroy it with violence. Of the many graphic videos and images to emerge from Ukraine, the most disturbing have been those showing bodies discovered in mass, unmarked graves. If the queen’s funeral served to remind her subjects of what it is to be a human being with an immortal soul, the sight of bodies disposed like landfill reminds us of the human tendency toward barbarity.
In much of Europe, there persists an undeniable appreciation for tradition and the need for continuity between the past, present, and future. If conservatism is an instinct, then perhaps Europeans are more conservative than is often assumed.