The Eutychus Perch by Hurricane at Hypocrisy.com

The celebrated Colombian poet and novelist Alvaro Mutis once received a wild ovation from a university crowd in Puerto Rico by announcing, “I want you to know that I support the separation of Puerto Rico from the United States.”  When the applause and cheering settled down, he continued, “ . . . so that it may be returned to its rightful owner, the King of Spain.”  Mutis is a monarchist and, while he freely admits that myriad abominations have come out of the monarchies of history, he also maintains that they are far fewer and have caused far less harm to the common people than those of the dictatorships that have often replaced them.  “Who,” he asks, “would replace a Czar Nicholas with a Joseph Stalin?”

Untold gallons of ink have been spilled over the question of what to do with countries that manage to rid themselves of pernicious governments but are clearly not ready for democracy.  At one point in the nineteenth century, Mexico, having gained its independence from the Spanish monarchy, felt it wasn’t happy about US-style democracy and wanted to install another king.  The resulting sad case of Maximilian and Carlotta is well known, and Mexico went from bad to worse and from worse to terrible.  Even the dictator Porfirio Díaz lamented, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.”  Following its revolution, the country ended up with the cockeyed absurdity of rule by the “Institutional Revolutionary Party.”

Is Mutis right about this, that the world was too quick to toss aside its monarchies?  Someone has commented that France’s government still consists of monarchy punctuated by strikes.  (Another  opinion has it that California’s government consists of apathy punctuated by petitions).  An application of Hegel’s dialectic may be instructive.  Let’s say monarchy is the thesis and some form of government by the people is the antithesis.  What has been happening in many countries is that the synthesis turns out to be a form of absolute, king-like rule by a dictator sprung from the people.  Think of Mussolini.  One would be hard-pressed to summon up a more revolting image of vulgarity than that stock footage of him finishing a speech, crossing his arms and thrusting his chin and lower lip forward in a gesture of swinish arrogance.

Russia under the Bolsheviks, of course, was supposed to implement the Marxist dialectic:  capitalism as t

he thesis, the communist state as the antithesis, and the final synthesis being the withering-away of the state, leaving the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”  What happened in practice was a move directly from a monarchy into the monstrous dictatorship of a new Soviet elite.

In contrast to the Mussolini phenomenon, I had the privilege of being present when Alvaro Mutis was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature in historic Oviedo, Spain.  As a student of Spanish history, I sat in amazed wonderment at the sight of the handsome and elegant Crown Prince Felipe, the future Philip IV, presenting Yehudi Menuhin with the prize for music.  (Mstislav Rostropovich received one on that occasion as well.)  To be sure, Felipe’s ancestors, Ferdinand and Isabella, had expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, at least in part in order to take possession of the property of many of them.  Christopher Columbus is said to have stood at the port of Seville watching them leave, knowing that their departure would finance his trip to the west.  But now, 505 years later, the crown prince of Spain made it up to a representative of the Jewish race, at least in some small measure, as Queen Sofía, a good friend of Menuhin’s, sat in the balcony beaming.

One thinks too of St. Louis, king of France.  On his deathbed in the home of a compassionate Muslim scribe, his last words were reported as “Beau Sire Dieu, gardez-moi ma gent” (roughly, “Good Father God, take care of my people for me”).  Not “Oh, Lord, am I good enough to go to heaven?” or “Lord God, cut short my time in purgatory,” but “Take care of my people for me.”

I don’t know of anyone who believes it is possible any longer to restore the institution of absolute monarchy anywhere in the world, even though we love our monarchies as a symbol of the good that used to be in them.  On being told that the queen mother of Denmark walked out of the palace grounds every day to buy fresh flowers, travel writer Bill Bryson asked in surprise, “Well, who watches out for her?”

The Dane whom he was talking with answered, “Why, we all do.”

What sort of solution might there be in all this?  George Washington firmly rejected what would have been the irony of his having defeated King George of England only to become King George of America.  However, even as he was very open to receiving the common people into his presence, he was insistent that the president must be treated with the utmost respect.  Perhaps his was the best synthesis.  Perhaps the new dialectic is this one:  Thesis:  monarchy; antithesis:  democracy; synthesis:  democratic government with the dignity of a monarchy.

This solution, though, leaves open the question of what would be best for a people who have just been freed from an unjust form of government.  Many feel it would be a benevolent dictatorship, but those are hard to come by simply because, with few exceptions, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  I’ve been told to choose my battles wisely, and frankly, I don’t have an opinion I’d feel comfortable fighting for.

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