Mary Shelley Revisited

Someone needs to give John McCain and Sarah Palin a copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. They need to somehow understand that once they have created a monster, it is very difficult to control. On second thought, maybe Palin should see the movie. But certainly, before the violence accelerates into an expression other than mere words, McCain needs to reign in his Alaskan pit bull. She is more dangerous than I imagined.

I have been watching with dreaded fascination the execution and escalation of a dynamic in this Presidential campaign that can only be characterized as “enemy-making.” In the West this dynamic is as old as the Old Testament. When the Israelites identified all the other “ites” as the “Other,” and hence as their enemies, they set into motion a process that continues into the 21st century. Every child who has heard the stories of the warrior conquest for the Land of Milk and Honey knows who they are and how they were perceived, “Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you, (Deuteronomy 20:17), in other words, anyone who was NOT an Israelite.

The dynamic has been employed by human beings since ancient times and exploited by every military organization since history was first recorded. The strategy has been observed and researched and analyzed. The construction of the idea of an enemy begins first with fear; fear that life and livelihoods are in danger; fear that everything that is held as “sacred” is threatened. When the fear has been sufficiently mounted the next step is to dehumanize the other, to strip the other of their humanity. They are so different from us they cannot even be called human. They don’t have families. They don’t love. They don’t experience loss, or fear or pain. The next step is demonization. They become vermin, animals, not worthy even to live. Look at any military propaganda from the 20th century and you will see the pattern. The enemy is portrayed as rats, monkeys, insects and monsters.

The history is a long one. When Neolithic tribal societies shifted from a hunter-gatherer economy to an agricultural one, the rise of the cities engendered a confrontation with “the stranger,” a crisis of identity, an encounter with those who were not of the tribe, those who were not “like us.” Some of the greatest stories of human history narrate this encounter and suggest how it should go. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest recorded story in human history, Gilgamesh meets Enkidu the one like him but not like him. Enkidu is the one from the wilderness not of the cities, created by the gods to teach Gilgamesh how to be a kind ruler. They wrestle to exhaustion and in the wrestling they come to recognize each other as brothers. In the Old Testament, the lessons of Abraham and Jacob are eventually ignored, but the ideal is clear. Abraham encounters the strangers in the desert and offers them shelter, hospitality so unique among the nomadic tribes that the result is Isaac, the gift from God. In the story of Jacob’s wrestling with the angel of God we see a virtual re-enactment of Gilgamesh’s encounter with Enkidu. Jacob is so transformed by the encounter that his name is changed to Israel, the one who “wrestles with God.” When Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” he told the story of the Good Samaritan that I understood when I was eight. And when the disciples asked him, “When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or naked or the stranger?” He told them that as they welcomed the stranger, they welcomed him. We are still telling stories like these because we have not yet learned the ethical response. Who are Han Solo and Luke Skywalker if not Gilgamesh and Enkidu? All too often we do not follow these stories’ lead and instead of embracing the stranger, we kill him.

At a recent rally in Florida, Palin said, “"I'm afraid this [Obama] is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." Enter the rhetoric of fear. The implication was that Obama is an enemy and if she is afraid, everyone else should be. The most effective propagandist ploy however, is to create the illusion that the targeted one is the “other.” Perhaps the single most effective strategy is to create the illusion that the opposition is so different from the subjective “us” as to be anathema and the effect is anger and hatred.

In the last century, except for two decades (in which it experienced The Great Depression), America has been at war with someone. We have lived within a mythology of war. In a narrative of war ethics become inverted. Killing, which would normally be considered bad becomes good. Not killing, normally considered good becomes bad, indeed it becomes unpatriotic. In every case in war the enemy is depicted as something other than ourselves, indeed, as less than human. The enemy has been portrayed as vermin, “Japs,” slant-eyes, towel-heads. Xenophobia, fear of the stranger, has been the guiding undercurrent of the violence of war. It is the quintessential propaganda of a dualistic view that cannot imagine a sophisticated appreciation of difference. But rather, pits difference within a dualistic paradigm and worldview of hate. At a recent rally in Florida, Palin said the following, “This [Obama] is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” The language couldn’t be clearer. She was creating not an electoral opponent, but an “other,” an enemy. And her America responded.

At a recent Republican rally in Minnesota, John McCain was confronted by a woman in the audience who expressed her fear of Obama. In a moment that took my breath away she said, “I am afraid of him. He is…an Arab.” And in that moment, I saw in John McCain’s eyes the recognition of a face he knows all too well. It is the face of hatred and fear. It is the face of terror and anger. And in that moment, John McCain himself became afraid, of what he himself had helped create; an atmosphere of venomous rhetoric that brought with it the potential of violence. And John McCain began to defend his opponent. I suspect that he is at the core a decent man and the last thing he would want is a volatile campaign that carries with it a potential for violence. In that moment, I believe whatever decency he has left took precedent over his desire for victory at any cost and he made a weak and inadequate attempt to turn the focus back to difference in policy and not a difference of humanity. He told her, "No ma'am, he is a decent man...a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues." And although he did not address the issue of anti-Arab AND anti-Arab-American sentiment at least he didn’t allow the comment to stand without objection.

I sense no such decency in Sarah Palin. In fact, she seems to revel in her audience’s frenzy. Recently she said, "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers.” ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.) "Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience. And she said nothing in response; nothing to deter or discourage the violence.

The reality of course is that Barack Obama is not “the other.” He is not “that one.” He is not the stranger. But that is irrelevant to those who would find their political arguments wanting and instead exploit the heightened xenophobia in this country that has characterized the Bush administration’s response to 9/11. They resort to an ancient dynamic that constructs the illusion of the stranger; that emphasizes difference instead of sameness. They have had a lot of practice and they do it well. Those sent out to “warm-up” the crowds make a point of repeating Barack’s middle name, one not often found in America’s heartland.

Would it help to recall Frankenstein’s monster to the McCain camp?
Could they see beyond the “doctor” to themselves?
Or when we send the book to them (or the movie), shall we also send a teacher?
One who can explain to them that Mary Shelley’s horror story is also an allegory?
It is a message for the ages; the construction of the enemy unleashes a hideous and ugly human face. Beware this monster you create.

~~~ with gratitude to Darrell Fasching- scholar, teacher, friend.