That the British fuss and fret over whether or not Michelle Obama should have touched the Queen is their own sorry business, but I don’t get why Americans are perturbed. Isn’t it enough that Mrs. Obama greeted the Queen politely, while wearing a nice dress and a pretty smile? It was the Queen who first rested her hand (encased, natch, in a white glove) onto Mrs. Obama’s back, after all — not Mrs. Obama initiating the move. But returning the gesture triggered the Times of London to blare in this morning’s
headline, “Protocol is abandoned as Michelle Obama cozies up to Queen.” Back home, Time and CNN (Anderson Cooper probed the intricacies of meaning in Michelle’s gesture on the 11 o’clock news last night) both deemed the incident worthy of American attention. AOL chimed in with the headline, “Michelle Obama Breaks Tradition.”
My husband is furious with me for even bringing up the topic. To him, the British monarchy is a dastardly relic from the past. He knows the argument that it lends dignity and unity to the nation, that it separates the nation from its politics, and that it brings in tourist dollars. Even so, he thinks it’s a very silly and dumb institution that makes utterly no sense in the modern age.
I admit that in the face of the G20 summit that’s trying to deal with the world economic slump, this is trivial stuff. But trivial stuff is a great source for understanding what we human beings are really like, as opposed to what we say we’re like. It’s the place where behavior commonly defies both reason and principle.
We expect our President and First Lady (to whom we lend a home that’s the democratic version of Buckingham Palace), in visiting the Queen, to show the world that they know how to obey the rules of politeness established by the British monarchy. To some, this is simply the rule of, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” But where are the limits to “When in Rome”? If any Americans other than news commentators are truly worrying about Mrs. Obama’s hand gesture, they must be mighty insecure about democracy itself. What are they afraid of? That people living in democracies are at bottom rubes who don’t know how to behave?
Part of the point of breaking with the British was to establish a nation built on the principle that all men are created equal. And last I heard, the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings ceased to exist with the French Revolution. As to the rule, “When in Rome,” well, it has its limits. Mrs. Obama did just fine.
