::::::::
Sarah Palin's appearances are spellbinding. Her followers and not a few of her critics are mesmerized by her beauty and dynamism. We admire her as an outdoorsman and hunter; yet she's also devout and maternal. The potency of her public image may lie in the powerful archetype she evokes. Are her special attributes not reminiscent of Artemis, the woodland goddess, goddess of childbirth, goddess of fruitfulness, protector? Or perhaps it's her Roman counterpart, Diana the Huntress, goddess of the moon and wild beasts. If this be the subliminal source of her power, could she not, like Artemis, also be a dangerous foe?
Palin's use of violent symbols is irresponsible. Only in that sense is she dangerous, along with a whole cadre of media personalities and opinion leaders on the far right and some on the left. Do they mean to incite violence? When admonished, they say they don't mean for anyone to take their words literally. I will grant them the benefit of the doubt, but that doesn't exonerate them altogether. Do they not understand the power of symbolic speech and subliminal messages? Ignorance is a pis-poor defense, particularly since they have been warned repeatedly.
But if Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Angle, Bachmann and similarly demagogic
opinion leaders are guilty of this, they have many accomplices. Inasmuch as
some of us have defended "hate speech" on the grounds of "free speech," or
looked away on the grounds that to rebuke
demagoguery would be "censorship," or simply been too disengaged or
indifferent to care, we too bear some of the blame. My argument is hardly original: the Holy Scriptures contain
many teachings to the effect that we are not to remain passive in the face of
destructive behavior. We are to admonish inebriates, and take their car
keys, lest there be blood on our hands also.
Consider these words from the poet Kahlil Gibran's masterpiece, The Prophet: "And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all." As a society, we have been too permissive, too tolerant of hate speech and violent imagery. We must grasp this one fact: potent words and symbols can be life-giving or death-dealing. Today our nation is at a moral and cultural crossroads. Which way will we choose?
