My
first days in college in 1952 were not the most pleasant period in my
life. My parents arranged for me to stay
on campus in one of the dormitories.
Looking back now, and being as inclined toward privacy as I am, I would
have preferred a private home somewhere in the town, but being young and green
I didn’t know any better at the time. In
that dormitory were a number of students, mostly in their sophomore, junior or
senior years. I was one of only three or
four freshmen living among them. This
was well past the age of what used to be called hazing. If I had been a beginning freshman about
forty or fifty years earlier, there is no telling what I might have had to
endure. Perhaps having my clothes
ransacked, or my head shaven, or my bed short-sheeted or any number of other
disruptive initiations! But by this
point the rites of passage for freshmen had reduced themselves to simple
ribbing and teasing.
One
freshman in particular hated to share a bathroom when he had to use the
commode, something you inevitably had to do when living in a dormitory. He did not like to be seen sitting on it. One day when he was so inclined by the laws
of nature to do just that, he was suddenly swamped by a huge flock of students,
who came and crowded into the room, packed themselves into that little space,
and surrounded the commode seat, as if they were paying a friendly and
celebratory visit. That staged prank was
his initiation.
In
my case it took the form of being made aware of my uptightness over studies and
problems of one kind or another. I was
so super serious in those days! I would
verbalize to the older guys, the supposed veterans, seeking their help, and they
would give me that tweak-y smile, that teasing look that seemed to say, “Why
are you so gloomy and worried, Racine, when everybody else is having so much
fun?” It was somewhat annoying. But much of that was more helpful to me than
I was old enough to appreciate at the time.
They would not take the sense of freshman pathos on my part seriously.
Have
you ever had your buttons so pressed and reached such a point of aggravation
that you were rendered a screamer or something quite close to one? And then you noticed that everybody around
you was calm. You were the only one in
sight who had a bee in the bonnet, the only one angry or outraged. Few of us can say they have never been in
such a situation. Would it not have been
fitting at that moment to be taken by the hand and shown the heavens? If it happened at night, you could survey the
stars, and someone standing by might have urged you to shake your fist at them,
bellow at them, make yours a cosmic gripe.
And then after spending your fury, you might hear them asking you to
look again. Look again, and see how many
of those stars or planets have stopped in their tracks to take notice of the
fact that you are in a rage. How many of
them have altered course or burned brighter or lowered the lamp in respect for
your furious petition? The universe has
a way of seeming quite indifferent to our emotional extremes.
There
is nothing new about moaning and complaining.
The Psalms, written anywhere from three to four thousand years ago, are
thought of as lovely ballads that extol divine love and power, the work of
poets and musicians. But read them
through sometime, the whole one hundred and fifty! No body of Scripture has given us more
examples of irrational hyperbole. Aside
from the likes of Psalm 23, some ridiculously paranoid claims are set ablaze on
the sacred page. Let us consider a few.
Psalm
11:7-8: “The wicked are everywhere, and
everyone praises what is evil.”
Psalm
22:6: “I am no longer a man; I am a
worm, despised and scorned by everyone!”
Psalm
31:12-13: “Everyone has forgotten me, as
though I were dead; I am like something thrown away.”
Psalm
102:3-10: “My life is disappearing like
smoke; my body is burning like fire. I
am beaten down like dry grass. . .I am nothing but skin and bones. I am like a wild bird in the desert, an owl
abandoned in ruins. . .All day long my enemies insult me; those who mock me use
my name in cursing. Because of your
anger and fury [spoken to God], ashes are my food, and my tears are mixed with
my drink. You picked me up and threw me
away.”
Do
such outbursts invalidate the Psalms as sacred writing? Certainly not! The tormented heart is made vivid, and that
has teaching value, if not inspirational value.
What
are some of the modern hyperboles motivated by irrationality and paranoia?
“This
country is going to hell in a hand basket.”
“Nobody
in business is honest anymore.”
“All
product quality is gone out the window; they just don’t make those thumbtacks
like they used to.”
“They
don’t put up buildings like they used to.”
“Every
Caucasian below the Mason-Dixon Line is a racist.”
“Muslims
and Hispanics are taking over the country.”
“The
Mafia controls everything.”
“Teachers
don’t know how to teach today’s kids.
They’re not teaching.”
“Professional
sports are no longer about fair play.”
“All
movie makers care about anymore is the exploitation of sex and violence.”
“All
Pro-Choice activists are murderers.”
“All
Pro-Life activists are sexists and bigots.”
“All
Israelis are warmongers.”
“All
Arabs are terrorists at heart.”
“The
FBI is totally incompetent.”
“All
policemen are on the take.”
The
list goes on!
Hyperbole
can be very effective in certain forms of writing and speaking. It can add color and emphasis and
dimension. “A thousand ages in thy sight
are but an evening gone, sure as the watch that ends the night before the
rising sun.” Classic words of
hymnody! But irrational hyperboles are
just reckless sweeping remarks that stem either from panic and paranoia, or
they can be indicative of a copout attitude, a wish to dismiss someone or
something, pronounce it hopeless so that you do not have to assume any
responsibility for it or cope with it.
And we have all been in such a paranoid, panicked, despairing place and
have spoken in such crazy absolutes. The
enlightened among us know that the words are only a symptom of a mood we are
passing through, not the onset of a dire affliction of mind and heart.
Of
course, we are not always sloganeering with our irrational hyperboles. Sometimes they are subtly situated between
the lines we speak. We carry these
stereotypes around in our heads and let out a low, perhaps tacit moan whenever
we think we see evidence to support that stereotype. A soft spoken “Aha! ! ! I thought so!”
Which
brings me to the subject of recent events!
Acts
of terrorism are themselves acts and expressions of irrational hyperbole run
amok, whatever else we can say about them.
All Americans are fair game, because all Americans are heathen,
degenerate, despoilers of other countries, contaminated with capitalistic
corruption. Nothing good can come forth
from them. In “Argo” an incensed man on
the Tehran streets cries out in full throttle vehemence, “An American bullet
killed my son,” therefore all Americans killed him, or maybe even anyone who
looks like an American, as the escaping diplomats do. The Americans are not pesky neighbors. They are the enemy, and the enemy is not a
face; the enemy is a godless putrescence, a blight to be smitten as callously
and savagely as one would attack a bevy of ants corroding a kitchen sink. The enemy’s only birthright is to be crushed
and exterminated.
Fanaticism is irrational
hyperbole at its deadliest, because it has extended far beyond any point of
spontaneous thought or careless speech.
The exaggeration, perhaps once a fleeting outcry of prejudicial
sentiment, has been allowed over years and maybe decades to attach itself to
the base of many minds and harden into an intractable widespread doctrine. Unbridled passion becomes the corporate will;
the terrorist is but the instrument of that will.
For me the most disturbing
thing about the Boston Marathon bombers is the cool dispatch in which they went
about their deadly deed. They were not
riled up protesters; they were quiet, cool, matter-of-fact killing
machines. In a way it was fortunate for
all of us that they were, else the detectives scanning the video footage might
not have picked up their trail. How
ironic that what was supposed to make them unnoticeable had just the opposite
effect. It betrayed them.
Of course, unlike the planets
and stars that are impervious to our personal moments of irrational outburst
and uptightness, civilization cannot afford to be indifferent about those for
whom outburst has long been exceeded by entrenched murderous madness. For fanatics there is no such thing as bridge
building or creative dialogue. You and I
as U.S. citizens are being hunted like cockroaches and termites. We shudder to think that we are so
regarded. But maybe now in this twenty-first
century we are beginning to know something of what the Jews of Europe felt
under their Nazi rulers, even though we already enjoy the relative safety of
our own republic that protects us. The
Jews had nothing like that when they were being hunted. They finally had to
create post-Holocaust a republic of their own.
But a caveat is called
for. In the 1950s a pestilence broke out
in our country. We could call it
Communist mania. Harmless people were being
hassled and often jailed for alleged Communist affiliation or for past
Socialist sentiment. Under the
instigation of Senator Joseph McCarthy a witch hunt of insane proportions was
conducted, and its relentless, mindless assault impacted upon anyone
but real Communist conspirators.
Thankfully the nation came slowly to its senses and silenced the
furor. Now it would be a pity if the
lesson of that time were forgotten out of paranoia equal to that of those who
have branded us the enemy. Nothing would
be gained, if we began imagining that we see terrorists under every rock and
roof or behind every act of violence perpetrated by common criminals. Heaven forbid that anyone begin thinking that
the backfire of any passing car or the crashing of thunder from the sky or the
outbreak of any spectacular fire in a ghetto apartment building or the collapse
of any bridge or overpass is just possibly the terrorist empire at work. Let us not return to the desperation and fear
that the 1950s wrought. Let us not give
ourselves reason to wake up somewhere down the road and discover that we are
the enemy – our own worst.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com
I welcome feedback. Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net
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