Pattern recognition

The fabric of reality is fraying in England: the old queen is dead, a disgraced prince has been ousted by the new king, his older brother: Gormenghast is changing, and Gormenghast both relies on and demands nothing ever changing.

The upstart forces of far-right authoritarianism, led by the rich and powerful, for the rich and powerful—millionaire commodities traders and property developers instead of the aristocracy, this time around—are ascendant among the populace, but slowly starting to rise to challenge them are the voices of an equally upstart—but opposite—progressivism, and both are leaving the older established political parties in their wake, potentially foreshadowing a different sort of wake for those older, failing, and increasingly irrelevant, parties.

English Civil War pamphlets have been replaced by online articles and social media posts. The world—or at least England—is being turned upside down again, while le Roi Soleil ushers in a new Age of Absolutism from his gilded palace, but this time he’s on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose - the eternally repeating patterns of mythic time are being imposed on our familiar temporality, and while we as individuals have free will, the story arc taking shape around us seems inescapable.