Abstract

Subject to Debate

This article presents a debate on modernity, in context of the death of Princess Diana. The amazing thing about the Diana story is simply that there is a Diana story. It's not just that Great Britain still has a monarchy, which consumes an enormous amount of money and buttresses a still-powerful hereditary aristocracy, and that remarking on this makes one sound like a CPA at the opera. The outpouring of emotion on the death of Diana is what it says about how little so many millions of people expect out of life. It's pathetic, really, all those grown men and women telling reporters how much it meant to them that Diana visited some relative's hospital room or shook their hand at the opening of a supermarket, or just "meant something" or "made a difference" of some never-exactly-specified nature.