Letter to The Editor - Traditional cultures around the world warn of the danger of ‘the headless man’, the quasi-automaton cut off from divine guidance

To THE AGE          John Warhurst wants us to ignore ‘furphies’ (‘Ignore republic-debate myths’, 26/1), but he ignores some of the best arguments in favour of our monarchy. Firstly, it is embedded in sacred tradition and fundamentally works for good on the people as a whole by encouraging us to ‘lift up our hearts’ and raise our vision towards the higher worlds and the divine creator and sustainer of all. A republic, by contrast, is too mundane and earth-bound. It is not, incidentally, ‘the people and society’ rather than the monarchy that have given us our rightly prized constitutional stability: both have.

     Secondly, Warhurst ignores the profound way in which our monarchy is linked to our history, so that its very existence causes us to be mindful of the legacies we inherit from our ancestors, whose wisdom and industry need to be considered and honoured by each subsequent generation. Traditional cultures around the world warn of the danger of ‘the headless man’, the quasi-automaton cut off from divine guidance. Communist totalitarianism is an example and it grows out of republics.
  NJ, Belgrave, Vic