Propriety vs Passion

Last week, I finished watching the newest season of The Crown, which chronicles the life of Queen Elizabeth II from her ascension to the throne in 1953 to – so far – the 1990s. I should preface this by saying that I have no idea what the real life of the royal family is like; this post is about fictional characters. But there are still lessons to be learned.

Propriety and Priorities

When I watch The Crown, I cannot shake the image of the “whitewashed tombs” Jesus describes in Matthew: beautiful and pristine on the outside, but full of death and decay on the inside. Everyone is so dignified, and so proper, and so controlled, that they appear to have forgotten how to be human. They have put up a front for so long that the front is all they have left.

It isn’t that they don’t have priorities; it’s just that their priorities are all about appearances and customs and courtesies, about avoiding scandal and making a good impression. Things like marriage, self-esteem, compassion, fulfillment, truth, and honor must take a backseat. In the first season, Elizabeth learns that to be queen, she must cease to “think” or “feel” or “breathe” or “exist” as herself. When duty and personal desire conflict, “the crown,” her grandmother tells her, “must always win.”

Impartial?

We will leave aside the question of what function, exactly, the monarch of England serves which is so important it requires destroying the personal lives of the entire royal family. I am interested in a different question – whether passion is bad for leadership. Must a good leader always be impartial? Should we strive for moderation in all things?

You probably already know my answer to this; I’ve mentioned it before. Passion becomes destructive not when it is excessive, but when it is misguided. It is not when I love my spouse, or my country, or my fellow man too much that the problem comes; it is when I react to that love with misguided actions. Much evil can be done in the name of love, but the answer is not to get rid of love. It is, rather, to replace wrong passion with equally strong right passion.

The Right Perspective

Perhaps, in the end, it’s not that we care too much about the small things, but rather that we care too little about the big things. Perhaps it’s not moderation we need, but perspective. In my experience, the people who are calmest, most level-headed, and most mature are precisely those that feel the most deeply about the things that matter. They don’t waste energy on petty things because they have better things to spend it on.

This was C.S. Lewis’ view of things. In his Abolition of Man, he warns against a lack of deep passion in mankind. “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

On Apathy and Passion

Pop culture loves the anti-hero and the satire, and I won’t say it hasn’t produced many very well-made and enjoyable works of art. But in the midst of this, do we still remember how to take honor and courage seriously? Are there those among us brave enough to look the suffering and evil of this world full in the face – and not blink?

There is also, after all, such a thing as destructive apathy. It took Hitler’s passion and Germany’s apathy to bring the Holocaust to fruition. Apathy, impartiality, passivity in the face of evil are themselves evil. To him who knows the good and does not do it, it is sin.

Perhaps we do not need leaders who are impartial, who no longer remember how to feel compassion or rage, pain or triumph. Perhaps, in truth, we desperately need leaders of fierce resolution, passion, and courage – and the character and competence to use them for good instead of evil.

Image from Netflix’s The Crown