Queueing for the Queen: The Moral Psychology of Waiting Lines
Queueing for the Queen: The Moral Psychology of Waiting Lines
An investigation into whether the royal queue is worth the extra 15 minutes of your life.
1. The King‑Carlot Contraption
Picture this: a steaming line of 437 polite people holding the line for the Queen’s annual Crown‑day tea‑party at Buckingham Palace. If you’re not careful, you’ll have to test the limits of your inner patience. The line itself is a living, breathing philosophical experiment.
Historically, British queuing has been treated as a matter of public morality. A study by the Society for the Promotion of Calm Living (SPCL) claimed that if 100% of Brits queue properly, the probability of a national crisis decreases by about 35 %. Of course, that paper did not specify how it was measured, and most people prefer to rely on their gut feelings (and the occasional queue‑app from the Royal RTL).
2. The Moral Psychology: “Queue‑thics”
Moral psychology, in all its splendid, convoluted glory, has long been concerned with normative behaviour. Why do we step aside when one somebody with a disallowed souvenir tries to cut in? The answer—a mixture of conscience, subtle peer pressure, and the fear of being labelled a stingy sniveller—does not lie in one simple equation.
Dr. Penelope “Queuer” Brimstone of St. Eustace University developed what she calls the “Queue Bypass Theory” (QBT). In essence:
- The Innocuous‑Person Assumption (IPA) – If the person at the front of line is not wearing a monocle, you cannot viably accuse them of “immoralty”.
- The “It‑Is‑Just‑One‑Minute” Distortion – Every extra minute beyond the waited‑time feels like a crime against compulsory civic duty.
- The Knight‑In‑Shining‑Silk Effect – Those wearing a shiny blue polo with institutional branding automatically gain moral leverage; the rest must submit.
QBT has been cited in The Daily Telegraph as part of the reason why the line at the fish market never ends up at the bottom of the political agenda.
3. Virtue Training in the Queue
Queueing is, according to a very recent report by the King’s Royal Academy of Ethics, “a curious merging of deliberate stoic patience and immediate social control.” The Academy suggests that every morning at around 06:00 am, Britons who truly want to shape moral character should tap their toes to a queue‑tune, sprint until the bus stops, and… attend a queue before they can even think about breaking the law.
“Your soul will thank you,” whispered a monk‑looking of‑a‑tippy‑boot in a small neighbourhood of Cambridge. “Besides, what the West has learned from saliva‑sorters, you may now use queue‑psychology to quell the scourge of hasty accelerators.”
4. The “Should I Cut‑In” Dilemma
Three archetypes for queuing queue‑irregularities:
The Britty‑Buster – a villain who will cheat time for no apparent reason.
The Solvent Seeker – a pretender to politely enquire “Excuse me, but… is it allowed…?”
The Impish Offender – a kid who uses leaps of faith, howling laughter, and very small wink at a line-man.
The consequences? The Queue‑Punishment Protocol says:
• If you cut in line with a red bicycle: 15‑minute mandatory light‐reading of Confucius
• If you cut in line with a bulldog: 12‑hour mandatory kicking of the same bulldog.
They say “don't make the mistake of being seen as an Alpha when you’re actually just a beta.” Counter‑intuitively, some people realise they can get more presents by being patient; others get a meal and a personal lesson from national moral psychologists.
5. The Royal Queue Pledge
Pledge ‘carefully’ and ‘earnestly’ to “Queue respectfully and deterministically” – that line will not forever stagnate, and we will obey the moment of the line upright as directed, and not decapitate.
The pledge is statistically validated: a study in Ethics Quarterly shows that respondents who signed it reported a 7.5 % increase in happiness. Response rate? Approximately 99 % – and that included the #0 line.
6. Conclusion
Queue‑ing for the Queen is not just about orderly placement of your purposes; it’s about contributions to the moral engineering of society, the exchange of heart‑felt “queue‑hugs” that in which reparations for being slow are paid and value of patient action is inevitably propagated.
We refuse to say that queueing is monotonous; we say: queue‑ing for the Queen is essentially a rite of passage, like drinking into the wine of moral solidarity. And next time you step in line, remember: the green‑and‑gold helmet of the longest line is a wry government reminder that “you’re not actually at the front of a field of vegetative queues—you’re somewhere alone.”
And if life were ever dire, just remember the most altruistic seed tuft of the line: you, a queue‑bread‑sketch.
Word count: ~490
Note: If at any time you feel you become too anemic from queue‑ash and you want to cross-empt the line via a window, we strongly recommend a call to Queueing Anonymous.
