Plague Journal, Something Lurks
Yesterday we celebrated Halloween by accompanying costumed children on a parade through a suburban neighborhood. The homeowners appeared as happy to dispense treats to passing children, as were the children receiving the sweets. Halloween is a day of celebration, a mirthful exercise of imagination, a costumed reminder of our belonging to a wider community, from the very young to the old.
Lurking in the background shadows is something else expressed in popular culture. Books of horror stories are popular bedtime reading for small children. And there is George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) that marks the start of the modern zombie fantasy movement. Fantasy films followed and there’s Michael Jackson’s Thriller. A corpse is reanimated through magic, or in our time by technology or a pathogen. No matter how strong one’s sense of self, there is inherent potential to be “taken over,” used as a medium for evil and nefarious purposes.
How is this for a contemporary zombie tale…
… And there are darker omens. Last fall, my teenage nephew came running into the house, wide-eyed, saying he’d found a human skull in the woods. I followed him until, panting at the bottom of a ravine, I saw the skull trapped in a thicket of sticks and leaves, missing several of its front teeth. The police arrived, and for the rest of the night, I watched from my bedroom window as flashlights swept over the long grass, through the woods, until they were finally swallowed by darkness.
It was an overdose, an officer told me later, the victim most likely another casualty of the nation’s opioid epidemic.
The skull felt like a portent, but also a turning point. Months later, I noticed a vendor at a roadside stand selling Trump flags. “Trump 2020: Keep America Great,” one read. Another read “Trump 2020: No More [Expletive].” It was more than half a year away from the election, and I remember thinking: Why flags? A flag was something people fought under, and for; something people carried to war. By the summer, another vendor popped up selling flags with even bolder slogans like “Trump 2020: [Expletive] Your Feelings,” “Liberty or Die,” “Make Liberals Cry Again.” The economy was in the dumps but the flag business was booming.
And not just Trump flags. In the past few months, I have seen three Confederate flags hoisted in neighbors’ yards, where previously I’d seen none. Just a few weeks ago, two masked men appeared outside our high school, holding a large KKK flag and fliers, apparently scouting for young recruits.
At times, all of this has felt like a horror movie, where it starts off happily enough — in a sun-drenched, idyllic farmhouse — and then the darkness slowly takes over. The change has occurred so slowly that at times, I hardly noticed it, until one day I barely recognized my hometown.
If you’d like to read this New York Times true story about Lawrenceburg, Indiana by Brian Groh, CLICK HERE.
4 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Something Lurks”
Several years ago, one of the musicians we presented multiple times at our Long Grove concert series told me stories of growing up in Southern Indiana. Jordana Greenberg was raised on her parents farm before going on to study music and eventually founding Harpeth Rising. Her family is Jewish and she was extremely concerned for their safety based on threats received from various anti-Semitic groups in the area surrounding the farm.
What has always been apparent and is clearly evident throughout history is that those who scapegoat others, blaming a different culture or ethnicity for their lot in life, have no idea what they are talking about. Consider the white supremacists in Charlottesville who chanted “Jews will not replace us.” What on earth did that mean? What member of the Jewish faith would want to replace a scum-sucking moron whose entire being was centered around joining a militia and disparaging people of color? It makes no sense.
We talk about the ignorant or the uneducated and that perhaps with a better system in place, many of these so-called people would have a greater understanding of the world around them and therefore would be less likely to act out in such a heinous manner. I suppose that for some, a more worldly education might mitigate their propensity towards prejudicial behavior. On the other hand, there are many who are not redeemable, that have entered that basket of deplorables on their own accord and are happy to stay right there.
This does not bode well for the future of humanity. These folks will gladly lead the march towards the cliffs where we will all be subject to plummeting to our collective deaths. Indeed, like it or not, we are all in this together and though we may resist, our futures are intertwined and unless we can move past this rampant and insidious behavior, our lights will all go out.
“…many who are not redeemable” Yes, the saddest and most horrific aspect of our humanity. Every choice further disposes our future choices, until there is no turning back. Another way of putting it is “sunk costs.”
Like Leonidas on the beach at Thermopylae, shall we fight on?!
Boiling down complex issues is always subject to criticism, but here I go anyway. My sense is that we have four basic choices:
1. Fight for reason and facts to lead us into the future.
2. Succumb to the dark strains of fascism and ignorance.
3. Turn our backs on humanity and go into seclusion.
4. Give up the ghost and remove ourselves from life.
I realize this is overly simplistic, but what the heck.
Simple, beats complex every time. Concentration of force!
Why fight on? Outcomes are indeterminate. Besides the fight is almost certain to belong to the next generation. Is it not reward enough to leave example that some did not knuckle-under to absurdity and violence?