Some people were very happy about the Royal Wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William and others (many of whom feigned indifference) were angry, bitter, frustrated, indignant even! “Why anyone in the US would care about two rich Brits getting married is beyond me”, “Am I the only one who’s not excited about the Royal Wedding”, “I am so sick of hearing about Kate Middleton”. These are just a sampling of a slew of hateful and annoyed posts that awaited me as I signed on to facebook this morning and boy am I glad that I didn’t sign on until after the wedding festivities were over. Talk about a buzz kill! Whats with this negativity? That is a REAL question and something I want to take a closer look into.
I must begin by stating that I am not naive concerning the status of Kate and William. I find it somewhat silly that a mythology should be built around Kate Middleton as a commoner. I am unwilling to call anyone who received and early education in Jordan “common”. As for William; well the title of Prince speaks for itself. These are not people with whom any one of us shares much in kind. Therefor, I am not concerned with rather or not William and Kate are relatable people. What I do appreciate is what this Royal Wedding represents to a world who’s daily headlines only seem to grow more abysmal as our pavlovian thirst for blood, oil, and tragedy reach fever pitch.
310 dead across three states from tornado ruin. This is the ugly truth of today’s headline in the United States. Each one of those who lost their lives deserves mention and truth is, in fact, unavoidable. Our daily headlines seem to resonate with such tragedy’s only to be intermittently speckled with tales of greedy villains side stepping consequences while the poor absorb the shock of their criminality with all the repose of a brow beaten child who hardly feels the sting any longer. Why then should it be considered offensive to anyone that we take a morning out from our daily routine of tallying recent devastation's to celebrate love? Not focusing on a lineage of aristocratic hypocrisy but instead upon a young couple standing before their family (not to mention the world) to profess the magnitude of their affections. If this style of happiness offends us so then perhaps we should ask ourselves why it is that our response should be so jaded? Have we forgotten what it feels like to appreciate good news? Or are we so incapable of appreciating the happiness of others without feeling jealously desirous and hyper aware of the quaint nature of our own situations?
Perhaps this negativity highlights our own guilty concusses as we are forced to remember the blood lust with which Princess Diana was pursued. Diana was an education for us all that fairytales are complicated structures delicately assembled and easily fractured. What made Diana so enthralling was the way in which she gave a modern face to an aged institution. Diana brought the aristocracy out of its sandbox and into the world, forcing us all, not simply the monarch, to recognize the gravity of a changing world facing aggressive challenges. It was the insatiable appetites of a scandal hungry public that yanked the spotlight away from Diana’s positive causes and focused then upon her hem line, love affairs, and social outings. What happened to Diana is unforgivable and like it or not, it is a fixture of our modern past. What we mustn't do is behave as though, as spectators, we are innocent of the pressures we put upon people such as Diana or Kate. Simply because we can not hear the gears turning does not mean we are not a part of the machine. Why then not channel our negative thoughts into positive well-wishes that a young couple will hopefully find happiness with one another through the challenges of the years and demonstrate to them that we are an unselfish people capable of wishing two strangers true joy? I think it would make Diana proud to see the people of the world behave with that degree of grace. I think it would make me hopeful for the future of our human condition.
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