Many maaaaaany years ago, when I was still in college, a group of us from the campus Christian Fellowship went to visit some patients at a nearby psychiatric hospital. In the recreation room we had a small group of the patients together, conversing, singing, talking about Jesus. I noticed one man sitting as far into the corner of the room as he possibly could squeeze, as if he'd bust right through it to the outside if he could, and he continually glared at us and growled, "Shut up! Shut up! Don't say that! Shut up!"
I had a feeling....
Then when we started to sing a song together the man suddenly leapt from his chair, ran to the window (I thought he was going to jump out!), stared as if he were seeing something out there besides trees and sky, and started screeching, "Make them stop! Make them stop! Have mercy on me!"
The attendants finally took him away.
And I had a feeling....
When we left the hospital and were back in the car, an older Christian minister who was with us said, "Did you notice the man who was demon-possessed?"
As a very young Christian I hadn't been confident to give what I saw that name, but the minister absolutely confirmed my feeling.
That scene returns to me often these days. In an automatic way, like a free, involuntary, inescapable association....
We'll come back to that.
In the present raging sociocultural-political conflict, I can't help noticing that one side's persistent ploy is to make the other side, very simply, stop talking. The ploy takes on different guises, but the point is entirely consistent. It's ad hominem, obfuscatory, obscurantist, diversionary, or, when all else fails, simply violent and infantile. "You won't do what I want? Okay, BURN DOWN THE SYSTEM!"
It betrays the barren wasteland of intellectual and moral bankruptcy from which it oozes like pus.
The "pus" takes on such various expressions as:
"And you're an expert on this--why?"
"You can't say ANYTHING to this because you're not ___________."
"Boomer."
"Well, that's just __________-phobic."
"You're a racist."
"Why are you so angry?"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!"
Or a recent variation on the theme, popularized by tantrum-throwing teenage girls (who are nevertheless sufficiently collected and focused to "selfie" the whole thing, phone in one hand, whatever else they might be throwing at the door with the other), "I hate you! I hate you! Get out of my room! Oh, please Cyberspace, rescue me from my Neanderthal parents, please love me, Cyberspace and tell me I'm wonderful, make me a hero, please please pleeeeez, I wanna be the next Greta!!!" (Why does it remind me so much of "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille"?)
And of course "Cyperspace" DOES. In spades. Gushingly. Lots of grown-ups who ought to know better (they do, actually) pander to the child, making her the fig leaf for their cynical, soulless political agenda. Which makes you ask who's exploiting who....
There's no intellectual, moral or spiritual substance (though there is likely a spiritual force) behind it. What's behind it is a gaping abyss, a nihilistic rage against the Universe for daring to exist without getting their permission first. They brook no argument. They DON'T in fact argue. They only "cancel." Or worse.
It's repulsive, disgusting--the hatred, the malevolence, the consuming passion to malign, vilify and finally exterminate anyone who refuses to think, talk, walk and emote in lockstep with them.
And when they run through their repertoire of stale, obtuse, infantile "Shut up! Shut up!" tactics, in whatever guise the tactic happens to play itself out at the moment, you know, I just can't help...
Remembering that man, all those years ago, with the flaming eyes and hateful grimace, crouched there in the corner, growling, "Shut up, shut up, shut up, don't say that, shut up, don't say that...."
And I get a feeling....
