Oh, I agree. But now, it's kinda frightening to see how people could easily follow someone in this anger toward people who never did something bad to them.
Oh yes, it was quite frightening! I remember thinking that the world had gone mad.
There's a study of human dynamics that explores how people can be caught up by a person's charisma to think and do things they never could before. McCarthyism in America and the Nazi era in Germany showed just how far people would go to follow the heart and will of a charismatic individual. It was no accident that people like Hitler and McCarthy had people under their power; for they did everything they could do to have this power. Now Diana was not Hitler but I'm not surprised that she was able to induce so many to feel hatred towards the Royal Family. From the very beginning, every action she took in public was geared to make a certain effect. Even before she moved publicly against the Royals, she was testing out her charismatic power in small ways to see what she could do with it. At the beginning it was harmless and quite charming. Everybody enjoyed seeing a young woman's reaction to the first taste of adoration, her response was a little intoxication and a little wanting to play with this newfound toy like a new puppy. Later it wasn't so innocent.
Its interesting to compare the reactions of people towards Diana's death and that of another charismatic individual, JFK Jr. The news coverage of their deaths were immensely overblown. People were shocked, heartbroken, physically upset. One person said that when Diana died, so died the hope that she would have a better life. The same could be said for JFK Jr. People had known him since before he was born and there was always the dream that he would take his father's footsteps and become President of the United States. The death of that hope was hard for people.
Yet, there were differences in people's reactions too. Yes, at first there were mumblings against JFKs wife, etc. but when all was said and done, most people came to the realization that JFK Jr was driving a plane at night with bad weather and he was not qualified to drive a plan at night even under good weather conditions. It didn't take people long to come to their senses about what really happened and to really let JFK JR and Carolyn rest in peace. None of the parties in the crash nor the families had shown any desire to wage a public war against anyone else although given the circumstances of the crash and the marriage, anyone could have.
Although there were rumours about problems with the marriage; the public, not having been urged by either the Bessetts or the Kennedy's to choose a side, didn't choose sides. An accident forces people to look for someone to blame and people were looking at the causes of the JFK crash; but the public didn't have the added incentive to 'hold a grudge' against one of the parties because of prior public efforts by JFK or his wife or family. There were nasty rumours in the papers at the time about Carolyn's cocaine habit but amazingly the stories never went anywhere. The public appetite for them was low to non-existant. The reason, I believe, is that the public wasn't encouraged by any of the principles to continue this harmful speculation.
However, in Diana's case, the people remained hungry to find the Royal Family at fault. They ate up every accusation that was published, not only against Charles but against the whole Royal Family. The story about the cold, uncaring Royal Family was selling papers long after the stories of the drug-addicted Ms. JFK JR had stopped making the rounds. The only difference between the public reaction in the two cases, I believe, was that Diana 'primed the pump' she set people up to keep their hatred of the Royal Family up; not only in the short term but in the long term. And she convinced her allies in the press, namely Richard Kay of the Daily Mail, to keep up the campaign when she was gone.
The hatred of the Royal Family would have died a natural death if Diana and her friends in the media had not made it their business to make sure the hatred doesn't die. Some people even think that they are being disloyal to Diana's memory if they don't remain steadfast in their hate.
Both JFK JR and Diana were gorgeous, sensitive, charismatic people who made people like and admire them. They both had their faults. The only difference between the two was that JFK Jr never sought to use his charismatic power to the detriment of anybody. Therein lies the difference between the ramifications of their death.
