In his Saturday fireside chat, Prince Harry said he viewed his book as “an act of service”. Yet to access said chat, I had to spend $37.15 for a ticket and a copy of “Spare,” whether I wanted the book or not.
How greedy and cynical can you get? The book is already a gonzo bestseller. Chances are, everyone who joined this chat already has their copy. But Harry needs to make more money and secure more time on the bestseller list, shame be damned.
This set the tone for the discussion that was to follow: myopic narcissistic, intellectually vapid and, above all, hypocritical. That’s Harry’s true mark – not as a mental health or humanitarian leader or a warrior against institutional racism in the royal family – oops, he stepped back a few weeks ago after winning a Kennedy honor – but a grade A hypocrite.
Harry claimed to have been in the mental health field for two decades, but his actual experience with therapy appears sporadic: His regular schedule, he said, was once every two weeks, then once every some months.
It’s not really deep therapy, and that doesn’t make him an expert. But that’s the post-royal identity of Harry, a for-profit mental health expert speaking Oprah-ese while endlessly flaying his blood relatives.
Can you be a victim while being a hero? Can you be a paragon of kindness and virtue while insulting your family and revealing their private pain? Can you divulge their secrets while demanding privacy for you and your wife?
Prince Harry, master of convincing thought.
Dr. Gabor Maté, who led this conference, was sure to do a good deal of it himself. He noted that he wasn’t too impressed with anything royal and dismissed the huge chunk of Harry’s memoir as “royal melodrama” which he didn’t care about.
With Dr. Gabor Maté, the “trauma expert” and proponent of Hamas and hallucinogenic drugs, it all felt like a session on the adult subscription site OnlyFans.
Please. Even Harry’s harshest critics, and I count myself among them, have to admit: his royal life and recent apostasy is the most interesting thing about him. It seems that Mate is fluent in the very H&M tactic of putting others down to elevate himself.
There was a lot of talk about “unpacking” here — unpacking your emotions, your life experiences, your boxes and your luggage when you got kicked out of your cabin (just kidding). Living authentically was another big theme, as was a kind of Mad-Libs philosophy: “strength in vulnerability” and “vulnerability in strength” or gibberish like that.
I’ll give Harry this: He gave us a genuine, bristling moment as Dr. Mate walked off script, diagnosing Harry with multiple disorders. Helpfully, the good doctor had written them all down and presented a list.
Harry was mad – with good reason. It was a total violation of psychiatric ethics, to diagnose an outsider, a public figure at that, based on his book. Harry’s anger, barely masked by politeness – this royal background has its advantages, it seems – was satisfying.
“I can see that long list of how you diagnosed me,” Harry said. ‘Free session. Marvellous.’
Oh, was that elegantly bitchy. Impassive delivery just perfect.
That said, what did Harry expect? It is the natural byproduct of the commodification of your innermost thoughts and feelings, the rage of your wounded inner child, and family rage. books.
Anyway, back to Harry the Depressed, Harry the Neglected, Harry the Unhappy Emotional. “When I read your book, says Maté, it’s a story of deprivation.
Ha! Yes, ‘Waaagh’ as it will forever be known is the story of a prince who had everything at his fingertips, who had access to a high level education that he threw away, who had access to everything and Whoever He Wanted, was helped by the best public relations and crisis managers in the Western Hemisphere, but was so private he had to run for his safety and privacy.
Isn’t that the point of these public tantrums? Security and privacy?
Back to other well-known topics: Charles wasn’t exactly a hugger.
“The father,” Maté continued, “who clearly loves his children, can’t help but be emotionally distant.” . .’
“We only know what we know,” said Harry. A tautology for the ages. “We do our best as parents.”
In his Saturday fireside chat, Prince Harry said he viewed his book as “an act of service”. Yet to access said chat, I had to spend $37.15 for a ticket and a copy of “Spare,” whether I wanted the book or not.
On the memoir we were forced to buy: “I want it to be an act of service,” said Harry. ‘It must be. . . how you can save a life.
‘Waaagh’: saving lives, one petulant complaint at a time.
Mate didn’t go into the cruelest parts of Harry’s book: the mockery of the handicapped teacher. The boasting of his “killings” in Afghanistan. The sheer lack of gratitude for a privileged life that few have known throughout history.
Instead, Mate offered this advice: “None of us is a victim if we choose not to be.”
Excuse me? Does Mate know who he’s talking to?
Harry overcame that hilarity with his thoughts on therapy. “I would always encourage people,” he said, “not to wait until they’re in the fetal position on the kitchen floor.”
Like his wife? Harry wrote that after Meghan had a text fight with Kate over bridesmaids’ dresses, he came home to find his wife “sobbing on the floor”.
About Meghan: “People said my wife saved me,” Harry said. “He’s an amazing human being.” He spoke of once losing his temper while they were dating, and Meghan asked him if “that’s how he grew up” – men talking to women that way, thinking that it was OK.
It was, said Harry, “a light bulb moment”.
Well, Harry has given King Charles and Prince William another enlightening moment – he’s now okay with implying that the men in his family verbally abuse their wives.
This invitation to the coronation is surely in the mail.