Shame On Us, Camilla
How many average looking people are behind the catty remarks about Camilla's looks? Far from reflecting badly on the (now) Duchess of Cornwall, the unrelenting attacks preceding her marriage to Prince Charles show the profound lack of empathy the rest of us are capable of. Strike empathy: perhaps empathy aspires to a level of humanity beyond us; how about simple human decency?
Leaders, public figures of the political and entertainment worlds, and certainly monarchy, lend themselves for public use. It is part of how we operate to ascribe meaning and motive to them and then judge them in this essentially made up context. We don't, of course, have direct access to them so are wanting in our understanding, but that doesn't stop us. Even those who author the words of greatest cruelty probably recognize the sting of their words. What would change - or not - in their behaviour if they were forced to read their columns or broadcasts directly to Camilla before they went public? Facing a real live person, they would surely see someone not unlike themselves in her vulnerability to being wounded by scurrilous remarks, to feeling pain at unfair and unjust attacks. This is empathy: the capacity to vicariously experience another's psychological state; to feel into another person. It is different from sympathy which is a "feeling the same as" state. Most of us don't feel the same as Camilla, but we can imagine how she feels. Or we could aspire to.
Failing to show empathy for Camilla does each of us a great disservice. While we gleefully succumb to the gossip and jokes even to the point of cruelty, we join the lowest common denominator. Would we treat anyone in our own circle with this disdain? If the answer is no, then to breach that ethic, even in relation to a figurehead, is a betrayal of our own "best practices". Being the object of our projection comes with the territory for the public figure. However, what they give us in lending themselves to our process is an opportunity to behave with responsibility in relationship. It is a relationship in that we have impact on the other and are presented with a choice about how to treat them: to find fault, criticize and blame, or to respond with some awareness that there is another human being involved.
I'm not suggesting that we like Camilla or approve of her or accept her as Queen. This has nothing to do with who ascends the throne, how we feel about adultery, Diana or for that matter, fox hunting. Everyone has their own feelings and position on these and many questions that might attach themselves to Camilla. To be empathic isn't an aspiration to sainthood. Go ahead and dislike her. Go ahead and sympathize with Diana. Other and personal feelings aren't in conflict with a little empathy for this beleaguered woman who seems to have carried herself with reasonable integrity while so much of her country and ours, has hurled insults at her.
We are a sorry and shallow lot when we succumb to a fairy tale mentality that sets beauty as a requirement in the judging of a soul mate; when we choose to understand Diana in her six or seven known affairs, but not Camilla and Charles for their one; to sympathize with Diana over the end of her marriage, but not with Charles over his being forced out of royal duty and archaic traditions to marry her in the first place (immature but a virgin, incompatible but beautiful). Do we really wish for him a vacuous marriage to a woman of a younger generation who shares not a wit of his interests and sensibilities, values or lifestyle, but who is beautiful? Is that the measure of our depth? If Prince Charles has found the wherewithal in himself to resist further pressure to live up to antiquated ideas - and perhaps through his experience teach this much-needed lesson to the rest of his monarchist set - why wouldn't we applaud him? Again, the point is not to confuse liking the man personally with understanding something universal in his struggle, a struggle that only be accident of birth is available to public judgement.
Classically speaking, no, Camilla is not a beauty. And on the other hand it can be argued that Diana was too young and too self-absorbed and too troubled to radiate true beauty. There wasn't the wisdom or the humour or inner substance to grow the lines that are perhaps not beauty, per se, but clearly have great appeal to Prince Charles. We don't have to see what he sees, but to refuse to see that he sees denotes a lack in us, not them.
Leaders, public figures of the political and entertainment worlds, and certainly monarchy, lend themselves for public use. It is part of how we operate to ascribe meaning and motive to them and then judge them in this essentially made up context. We don't, of course, have direct access to them so are wanting in our understanding, but that doesn't stop us. Even those who author the words of greatest cruelty probably recognize the sting of their words. What would change - or not - in their behaviour if they were forced to read their columns or broadcasts directly to Camilla before they went public? Facing a real live person, they would surely see someone not unlike themselves in her vulnerability to being wounded by scurrilous remarks, to feeling pain at unfair and unjust attacks. This is empathy: the capacity to vicariously experience another's psychological state; to feel into another person. It is different from sympathy which is a "feeling the same as" state. Most of us don't feel the same as Camilla, but we can imagine how she feels. Or we could aspire to.
Failing to show empathy for Camilla does each of us a great disservice. While we gleefully succumb to the gossip and jokes even to the point of cruelty, we join the lowest common denominator. Would we treat anyone in our own circle with this disdain? If the answer is no, then to breach that ethic, even in relation to a figurehead, is a betrayal of our own "best practices". Being the object of our projection comes with the territory for the public figure. However, what they give us in lending themselves to our process is an opportunity to behave with responsibility in relationship. It is a relationship in that we have impact on the other and are presented with a choice about how to treat them: to find fault, criticize and blame, or to respond with some awareness that there is another human being involved.
I'm not suggesting that we like Camilla or approve of her or accept her as Queen. This has nothing to do with who ascends the throne, how we feel about adultery, Diana or for that matter, fox hunting. Everyone has their own feelings and position on these and many questions that might attach themselves to Camilla. To be empathic isn't an aspiration to sainthood. Go ahead and dislike her. Go ahead and sympathize with Diana. Other and personal feelings aren't in conflict with a little empathy for this beleaguered woman who seems to have carried herself with reasonable integrity while so much of her country and ours, has hurled insults at her.
We are a sorry and shallow lot when we succumb to a fairy tale mentality that sets beauty as a requirement in the judging of a soul mate; when we choose to understand Diana in her six or seven known affairs, but not Camilla and Charles for their one; to sympathize with Diana over the end of her marriage, but not with Charles over his being forced out of royal duty and archaic traditions to marry her in the first place (immature but a virgin, incompatible but beautiful). Do we really wish for him a vacuous marriage to a woman of a younger generation who shares not a wit of his interests and sensibilities, values or lifestyle, but who is beautiful? Is that the measure of our depth? If Prince Charles has found the wherewithal in himself to resist further pressure to live up to antiquated ideas - and perhaps through his experience teach this much-needed lesson to the rest of his monarchist set - why wouldn't we applaud him? Again, the point is not to confuse liking the man personally with understanding something universal in his struggle, a struggle that only be accident of birth is available to public judgement.
Classically speaking, no, Camilla is not a beauty. And on the other hand it can be argued that Diana was too young and too self-absorbed and too troubled to radiate true beauty. There wasn't the wisdom or the humour or inner substance to grow the lines that are perhaps not beauty, per se, but clearly have great appeal to Prince Charles. We don't have to see what he sees, but to refuse to see that he sees denotes a lack in us, not them.
posted by Pat Archer at 9:58 AM
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