MARCH 1, 2026
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone, you leave things as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone, you leave it to a torrent of change.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English writer, Orthodoxy (1908), Jay p. 84
MEDITATION: Do you appreciate that Heraclitus, among the very first of the ancient Greek philosophers, was right when he said that everything is changing, all of the time?
COMMENTARY: The survival of the British monarchy into the 21st century can only be explained as a sort of High Church of England act of transubstantiation. While the outward appearances remain more or less the same, as always, the reality is altogether new. The king may go through all the centuries-old motions of reigning, but he doesn’t in fact rule.
The lesson? You cannot preserve what is worth preserving by leaving it alone. The resilience of the British monarchy has depended on the surrender of real power, allowing for the maintenance to date of most of the show-biz side of that institution.
If nothing else, it keeps the tourists coming.
