Lady Di Died for Our Sins
by modern living editor Jason Capodimonte
Our contributor E. N. Beej pointed out to us the other day that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation managed on July 1, 2007 to broadcast two hours of Canada Day coverage and six hours of the memorial concert for Diana, Princess of Wales.
Lady Di, don’t you love her? As Time magazine noted way back in 1999, she captured the popular imagination – and manipulated it to her own benefit (okay, Time didn’t put it as bluntly as that, but those boys have got much longer deadlines than we have here at the HEAD and can spend more time finding ways around the bush).
Here you had a young woman, born into privilege, who married an older man born into about as much privilege as it’s possible to be born into, was given the title of princess, and then spent the rest of her life portraying herself as a victim. She died because she didn’t do up her seatbelt, but her devotees believe that the crash in which she died was engineered by the British secret services. This car, see, raced in front of her car and flashed a blinding light into the driver’s eyes, causing him to swerve into a pillar.
Oh, right. That’s how the British secret services bump people off, especially enormous celebrities. They love incredibly complex plans which could easily be detected. It seems just a teeny bit more likely to me that if they had wanted to whack her they’d just have put a bomb in her car and blamed the Irish (we weren’t that afraid of Muslims then, eh?).
The Princess of Wales died because she was human. If you run a speeding car into a pillar while all but one of the human beings inside aren’t wearing seatbelts, the ones not wearing seatbelts are pretty likely to die, which they all did. Considering that the princess devoted much of her life to making the British royal family seem more human, it’s disconcerting to watch her devotees turn her into a superhuman figure who would never have died if one of the most powerful governments in the world hadn’t conspired against her.
The Princess of Wales was in many ways an estimable human being. She certainly carried off her royal role far more commendably than her husband’s late great-uncle and great-aunt carried off theirs. However, many people aren’t satisfied with just being human.
When one grows up, one discovers that being human Is in many ways considerably less than hot shit. If one grows up and becomes an adult, one either tries to find ways to heat the shit up a bit or just accepts the fact and gets on with living. If one grows up but remains a child, one doesn’t have the ability to cope like that. For a start, one doesn’t have a freaking clue about how things work. The adolescent mind eventually sinks into despair, and, because it can't figure out what's going on, into the belief that things are bad because someone powerful is conspiring against it.
Whence the New Age movement. I mean – read their stuff. It’s all about how the ways of achieving success in life are kept secret – the government hides them, or they’re off in the minds of people in another galaxy that (seriously) your friendly local channeller will call up for you, or they’re revealed by numerology or astrology or turdology or Rosicriucianism or some other system of arcane knowledge.
But back to our princess. Adolescents of all ages converted a pretty young woman into a great beauty who was going to humanize a hidebound institution, the British monarchy. When, pretty well as would be expected (largely because she wasn’t really trying to do it), she failed to get any of the hide off the old monarchy, they rose in fury against her husband and his family. When she died a death like those of untold thousands of people, they could only believe that the old guard had killed her off.
Okay, maybe the old guard did. I mean, the CIA tried to kill Castro with an exploding cigar (really – a cigar with a bullet in it with a magnesium charge – Castro lights up and shoots himself in the head, more Medals of Freedom doled out in Washington). If, though, you wanted me to put money on her death being engineered by powerful conspirators, you’d have to give me really long odds and let me bet about a penny. And lend me your motorcycle.
The Princess of Wales was elevated to deity in the cult that believes that change in society is produced by exceptional individuals. It’s actually produced by technology, eh, or by the concerted action of large groups of ordinary people, but the cultists aren’t the sort of people to pay attention to what’s actually going on around them. They’re looking for someone all-powerful, the way their mum used to be, to step in, the way mum used to do, and make things better.
Nowadays they watch Oprah, practise vegetarianism, and live in dread. That’s why they can’t forget the Princess of Wales.
Lady Di Died for Our Sins © John FitzGerald, 2007
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