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Adam Wilson's avatar

I love this, David. I would very much have liked to take your course, but I'm unfit for more computer time just now. These little windows in are very generous, and generative. Thank you.

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Dougald Hine's avatar

I've been thinking about this series of yours, in relation to a conversation I had yesterday with a researcher who is working on a TV series about the British monarchy. (A long story – but the short version is that when I was twenty-five, I took part in a BBC debate as part of the Golden Jubilee coverage, and they came across the footage in the archives.) I found myself saying that, somewhat to my surprise, I find there's nothing in me that wants to abolish the monarchy. To my surprise because, in many ways, I think of myself as an anarchist. Yet the presence of something at the centre of public life that is so anachronistic, irrational, and indefensible by any modern logic – these things which, for many progressive friends of mine, would surely constitute the argument against the monarchy, seem to me to speak in its favour, at least compared to any conceivable result of a process to create a modern replacement for it. So I'm curious how this train of thought might resonate or jar with your own thinking, as someone who has been thinking about kingship in a longer perspective.

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