Just Why Are People Monarchists?

[nailit]

I honestly don't get it?
Dont want a thread full of vitriol (Wealth envy etc)
But I honestly don't get why people go out of their way to wave flags, bow and curtsy to people that they don't know, etc.

Ive had a (very brief) conversation with Prince Charles and my ex with Camilla. It was during a tour of a local museum. They both seemed down to earth and friendly enough and yes I was there for the novelty of it!

BUT....I still cannot understand the sycophancy of it all.

[Nical]

I don't know any monarchists and have never met any.

[Bobbisox1]

Because I’d rather have them than a republic, I don’t get the vitriol aimed at them just as you don’t understand why some like them,they didn’t ask to be born into their life as Royals and as Harry has shown, they are shackled by it

[woofgang]

I don't go out of my way and have never curtseyed or waved a flag but I have seen the Queen many times and met Prince Phillip. If you don't get it you don't have to. I have zero idea why anybody watches any kind of sport especially football...and as for supporting a team or an individual...well I'd rather have a life....but if it floats other people's boats then its fine by me.

[david small]

Traditional grovelling in the presence of a God anointed superior being. Our ancestors prostrated themselves before those of Royal blood. Habits die hard. Plus a little sycophancy might advance one’s own interests.
Sickening isn’t it?

[KARL]

Could it simply be a mix of insecurity (needing someone "up there", a bit like some need a god but this one is a bit less than that, on earth, living and occasionally there is a possibility of seeing the monarch with the naked eye), sentimentality (gosh, they have children), and nostalgia (it's always been like this) ? Possibly other factors enter this.

[Mamyalynne]

I've waved the odd flag a time or two, I don't adulate or feel inferior to the Royals at all - they are people an some of them have a position I would never wish to hold.

My Father met the Queen more than once and called her a sweet lady who was much smaller than he thought, a loyal soldier and a proud supporter of the RBL.

[JimF]

I honestly have no idea! I have no doubt that the queen is a sweet lady, Charles is an old hippie etc. I have nothing against them personally - it's the institution which I despise, and one which is totally out of its time. The nonsense that tourists would suddenly stop coming is farcical - the most recent figures available list the Tower of London as the most visited tourist attraction in the country, but no-one actually expected to meet the queen there, and they'd still come whether there was a monarchy or not.

https://www.visitbritain.org/annual-survey-visits-visitor-attractions-latest-results

[-SharonA-]

Don't know why people go to church to kneel and pray to someone they've never seen.

[Maydup]

Ironically the things we believe in or admire least these days, have the grandest buildings and attract the most tourists. Royal palaces and castles, and Cof E cathedrals.

The pomp and ceremony is all part of our tradition. Take it or leave it, I do.

[Old_Geezer]

I think they're brainwashed into by parents who were brainwashed into it by their parents who were ... Some seem taught to need someone "superior" to tug their forelock to. Rather sad really.

[naomi24]

I wouldn't bow and scrape to anyone but my country with all its history and tradition is second to none. Knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing isn't to be commended.

[jim360]

I would have called myself a "soft" monarchist, although I'm rethinking that lately. Nothing to do with Prince Harry et al, more because the role of Monarch is in a state of Constitutional limbo. It's entirely right and proper that an unelected, hereditary monarch has only symbolic power, but on the other hand the legal fiction that they *do* have such power is looking suddenly more dodgy. How we'd change it and what to I don't know -- but maybe it's something to think about as part of a wider constitutional reform.

[Zacs-Master]

Why define yourself? What purpose does it serve?