In Memoriam

A sad event transpired yesterday at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. when a security officer at the museum, Stephen Johns, was killed by a delusional old man who had spent most of a life-time being twisted and deformed by irrational and poisonous hatred. I won’t bother to mention the name of the pathetic wretch who apparently thought he could ease his own pain by inflicting that pain on others, but he was a well known adherent of the type of self-indulgent paranoia that paints anyone “different” as hostile and threatening and subscribes to the almost occultist fantasy that there is something akin to Biblical literacy in our country’s founding documents which can only be divined by those who are ideologically pure. To call someone crazy is perhaps too exculpatory for a man who had willfully cultivated his own madness through practiced years, but he definitely wasn’t right in the head.

There has, of course, been a great deal of public dialog about this as average Americans seek to put the event in context and determine its meaning and significance, while others with specific objectives attempt to influence interpretation of the event. The range of perspectives presented is a panorama of the American political spectrum with every possible view from outrage to satisfaction being expressed by somebody, somewhere. The usual suspects of television and radio political commentary of every stripe have weighed in with their own learned assessments and insight into the causes of Stephen Johns’ murder and its implications. America is truly a wonderful place. Speaking of which, in the United States of America, there have been an average of over 40 murders each and every day of the past ten years. Each of these thousands of murders is its own story of tragedy and failure which has left devastation and loss in its wake. This does not diminish the import of Mr. John’s death, nor does it minimize the danger represented by the philosophy which resulted in Mr. John’s death, but it does suggest to me that metaphysical panic and frenzied introspection resulting in finger pointing and the hysterical prognostication of civil Armageddon may not be justified.

Our nation and most of the world are in the grip of a serious economic dysfunction which has resulted in widespread loss of wealth, employment and confidence in the future. None of this is in any way unprecedented and most rational people believe the situation will correct itself eventually, but it is well documented that in times of economic hardship modern societies tend towards fear-mongering, blame-fixing and violence. There are not more nuts in America today than there were last year or the year before, they are just a little more broke and a little more desperate, like most of the rest of us. I offer this as a counterpoint to the idea that Right-Wing extremism is on the rise in America. Strident voices of intolerance and hate are certainly more vocal than they have been in some time, but I believe this is principally because they greatly fear that the application of reason and equity will put them out of business; the leaders of the disaffected must have a flock in order to turn a profit and if peace and prosperity break out, they might have to get a real job.

I have listened with both amusement and revulsion (which often go hand in hand for me) to voices on the left who say that the blather of vacuous con men on the right is provoking violence, and the voices on the right who claim that President Obama’s leftist ruination of America is resulting in hopeless frustration and violence by people who love their country too much. I don’t subscribe to either view; I don’t think anybody can get whipped into frenzy by AM radio, the reception is too crappy. Nobody with extreme views really much listens to what anybody else says anyway; they are consumed by their own internal dialog and they would hear a reinforcing message from the elderberry bushes or the neighbor’s dog if the cynical self-promoters of hate radio weren’t available. For my friends on the left, however, I would admonish you not to fall into the pattern of Dick Chaney’s thoughts and believe all our problems will be solved if we can just identify and quarantine the corrupting influences in society. Hate speech is as fundamentally American as a three-day drunk, and we will not be stronger, freer or safer by silencing anyone. Acerbic wit and public ridicule are much more potent than censorship.

And finally, the real story here is that we have missed the real story here. Some nut went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. with the intent of perpetrating an act of violence to send a pointed message of hate against Jews and blacks and liberals and pretty much anybody decent. This act is not special or noteworthy; the Jews of the world will certainly tell you that this was just a tiny sliver of a more massive and unfathomable tragedy, which is unhappily and endlessly repeated by we who bear the mark of Cain. The real story is that a guy named Stephen Johns, a guy who before yesterday very few of us knew existed, a guy who surely had hopes and aspirations and a million reasons to live, became a guy who stepped forward and accepted responsibility, put aside his own selfish fear and shielded the innocent from chaos, destruction and death and, in that moment, became infinitely more than the pale, creaking evil that took his life.