Biography

I once read Andrew Morton's biography of Diana Spencer and it took four months to work up the nerve to finish the first chapter. I was appalled by a mind crushed by a band of witch doctors. To be an adult requires knowledge of what human life is and how to live it. What Diana got was pure poison. She was pounded with the doctrines of selflessness as the moral ideal, of sacrifice and obedience as virtues, of independent judgement as evil, of the mind as useless in reality. With the mind mangled it wasn’t a surprise that her life would be mangled as well.

Diana’s intellectual and moral development arrested in childhood and was dependent on others for guidance. With her mind shut down it wasn’t a surprise that she had died. Diana was told that the royal family was the pinnacle of a civilized society. In fact British royalty was a useless remnant of a barbaric tradition and that the monarch was nothing more than a hand puppet for ruling party. During the engagement Diana discovered that her fiancee was a pragmatist with an active sexual affair with a married woman no intention of breaking off the affair. She should have dumped him on the spot but Diana asked her sisters for advice and was told to go through with the marriage out of duty.

Diana valued what others told her to value which led to the constant pursuit of public attention and she sought guidance from psychics and astrologers and even took advice from her own sons. It was with the approval of a psychic and her sons that Diana entered a close relationship with the playboy Dodi al Fayed. He was the son of a pull peddler who lived on an allowance, routinely bounced checks, and manipulated women. He also bribed limousine drivers to violate speed limits and was a top contender for the Darwin Award. Even if Diana was not aware of the other vices she would have seen his open contempt for his own life as cause for alarm. But on the advice of others Diana put her trust in him and died.

Diana could have avoided the aforementioned horrors by simply saying: "No, this is wrong and I won't do it." But to do so requires a valid knowledge of moral standards and for Diana to know that she was right to exercise moral judgement. It’s not enough to know that there is an alternative to an course of action, one must know that the alternative is right.