The Oath-Go-Round at the Coronation
One has to admire the attempt to resurrect Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan for the Coronation. Hobbes, writing in the aftermath of the English civil war and at the time the “modern” British monarchy began to be shaped, believed that the only way out of the primitive natural state of permanent civil discord, “a war of all against all”, wherein life is “nasty, brutish and short” was a “covenant”, whereby all submitted to a “sovereign” ( an abstract concept that could include monarchy, oligarchy or democracy) that would supreme, unfettered power to impose civilised order. The original illustration to Leviathan depicts a handsome, Stuartish Monarch – yet on close inspection the Monarch is composed of all the citizens that have transferred their powers to him, and from whom his sovereignty is derived.
In May 2023, we were enjoined to enter an actual Hobbesian covenant, and pledge allegiance to a modern Leviathan, King Charles..
But the Hobbesian commentator detects two major flaws in this new social contract.
First, after an initial frisson over whether this allegiance is “commanded” from everyone, we are told it is voluntary – a mere invitation to pledge allegiance. This will not do at all. According to Hobbes, the covenant transferring power to Leviathan is universal and irreversible. Only thus does Leviathan get his, her or its supreme authority.
That is one lamentable failure. The other problem is that, in the UK, the identity of Leviathan is elusive. Is it the King, as Head of State? But in the same Coronation Ceremony, the King swears (in an Oath dating back to Hobbesian times) to uphold the laws enacted by Parliament. But, in turn, in Parliament, MPs swear allegiance to the Crown.
We arrive, puzzled, at an Escher-like hierarchy of Leviathans, folding back on one another..
I suppose the Crown may represent the feeble spirit of our Leviathan, and Parliament the crude actuality. So affirming allegiance to the Crown may bathetically translate into obedience to some wretched, passing, crew of politicians.
Hobbes squirms in his shroud.
May 2023
