“Are we mere specks of dust floating through the Milky Way?
Are we here to learn to love? I think that's true either way
Come winter, come spring, come summer, come fall...
You're floating with me after all”
~ ‘After All’, by Derri Daugherty & Steve Hindalong
from The Choir album “The Loudest Sound Ever Heard”, 2012
Some arguments I've had recently have found me thinking about playwright Arthur Miller.
Perhaps a bit of history is in order. Let's go back sixty years or so.
In the wake of World War Two, Communism found new prominence in the geopolitical scene, not least due to the commencement of Mao Zedong's reign in China and the Soviet Union's testing of an atomic bomb, both in 1949. Any anti-communist sentiments in the West were somewhat muted during WW2 as the Soviets were Western allies against the Axis powers. With the war over, the Cold War found itself in full swing, suspicions became especially rife amongst the peoples of Untied States against anything even remotely associated with the so-called Red Menace.
Along came a Republican Senator from the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin, Joseph Raymond McCarthy. He became the public face of this suspicion, and thus the phenomenon known as McCarthyism was born. A paranoid Senator McCarthy argued that there was a high level of Communist sympathy (if not outright treachery), bubbling just under the surface of all levels American society, but especially in the fields of politics and the arts. The Senator's chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and its sub-branch, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, gave him the scope to pursue his foes, both real and imagined, with white-hot zeal.
There was another noteworthy event that occurred in 1949, on February 10th to be precise. It was on this day that the play Death of a Salesman, written by young playwright Arthur Asher Miller debuted on Broadway. The director of this performance was one Elia Kazan, a collaborator and good friend of Miller. In 1952 Kazan testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (not directly connected with McCarthy's investigations but certainly a close relation in terms of intent). Kazan stunningly named several colleagues as being potential or former Communists and Soviet sympathisers. This action was to fracture Kazan and Miller's friendship and stir controversy as recently as 1999, when Kazan received an honourary Academy Award.
The experience of McCarthyism lead Miller to pen one of the most powerful pieces of writing for 20th Century theatre and in 1953, in the midst of the rampant paranoia of the time, The Crucible was first performed. A fictitious retelling of the Salem witch trials of Massachusetts in 1862, The Crucible eerily mirrored the experiences that many had of McCarthyism in the ‘Fifties. The Crucible tells the story of a young woman and her friends, who are caught behaving in an unseemly manner. The girls find that by making wild accusations against others without basis or proof, they are not only able to justify their own actions but also bring harm to those who would oppose their selfish desires. Gullible citizens and even the authorities of the day are sucked into a vortex of lies, paranoia, greed, and self-serving viciousness, while the lives and relationships of often innocent parties are torn asunder. Several characters are executed under suspicion of being witches, without a shred of evidence being offered to condemn them.
It's a piece of writing at once beautiful in its execution and ugly in the themes it explores. As a piercing cautionary tale it is the kind of story that needs to be retold time and again, lest we fail to learn from the mistakes of the past. The lessons in The Crucible have extraordinary resonance today. The emergence of the internet has made it possible for more voices and opinions to be heard than at any time in human history. More than ever people have an unfettered opportunity to spread whatever message they choose to a wide audience without the authority of their voices being earned through graft, accountability, or the wisdom that comes with knowledge, training and experience. I write a blog, and while I make every attempt to ensure that what I write is factually correct, there are plenty of people out there in the big bad world who have far fewer scruples. This can become dangerous when mixed with an agenda.
We've all seen it. The chain emails, the Facebook posts, the stories on A Current Affair and Today Tonight, the articles in tabloid newspapers like The Herald-Sun. Topics ranging from anti-government rants to discussions about how the world is not as nice as it used to be. And then the really nasty ones, the ones that really push my buttons, like those that debase asylum seekers. They make all sorts of false and specious claims. Asylum seekers are invading our fine land. They're stealing our resources, taking our jobs, changing our culture, taking exorbitant welfare payments, breaking our laws, making our lives a misery. These claims are often founded in half-truths or out-and-out falsehoods, designed to appeal to the basest part of our nature.
It's the Red Menace of the ‘Fifties and ‘Sixties, or even the more Antipodean Yellow Peril, all over again.
The thing is, it's not particularly difficult to see straight through the bulk of these claims. All one needs is a modicum of intelligence (less than you might imagine), a dash of common sense, a willingness to enquire and question and examine, and a touch of unselfishness. It's far easier to blindly accept the nasty paranoia of spineless, self-serving malcontents, especially when they have loud voices, or are in the majority. To add insult to injury, to point out the inconsistencies, the untruths, the utter lack of concern for another human being, the selfishness of it all, is to invite scorn. I've been plastered with unearned labels for having the audacity to stick up for the vulnerable, those largely without advocates of their own. "You're too liberal," they say, "You have no faith, you're un-Australian, you’re anti-pensioners, you're soft on crime, you shouldn't speak up". You are condemned.
It's McCarthyism. All over again.
Many will be familiar with the recent KONY 2012 campaign by a US organisation called Invisible Children. As a movement, it's not without its controversies and detractors, which are well documented. I was fortunate enough to engage in a debate on the Internet with someone I'd not met or spoken to before, each of us with an opposing view on KONY 2012 situation. It was starkly refreshing. He was not at all concerned that I had a different idea than he did, just as I was unconcerned about his alternate views. He made some valid points, and I'd like to think I threw a few out there myself. We both listened and considered and argued our views passionately. We did not come to an absolute concurrence in the end, and really, that wasn't the point. My feeling was that KONY 2012 needed to be debated, the ideas tested. My opponent and I parted with respect.
I thoroughly enjoy the contest of ideas. I've heard it said that dumb people should surround themselves with smart people while smart people ought to surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them. I'm not claiming to be one of those smarties by any stretch, but I do endeavour to challenge my thinking and ideas whenever I can. I hope that this habit would sharpen me in an increasingly dull world. So many seem terrified at the though of having their ideas challenged and many more are ready with a thoughtless insult or a derisive tirade, especially in the largely anonymous environs of the internet. One of the World Wide Web's biggest foibles is the way it makes it so very easy for us to relive and repeat the most horrid of mistakes of the McCarthy era.
Perhaps the biggest indictment on our current crop of political leaders is that they have stifled any robust debate about genuine policy in an effort to earn superficial political points in the immediate news cycle rather than considering and articulating a vision for the future. Indeed the current level of debate in this country has a level of sophistication that is, to my eyes, largely unsatisfactory. Perhaps it's as much our fault as theirs, with our appetites for the frequently facile popular media appearing to be endless.
There are as many ideas and opinions out there as there are people on the planet. As a frequent holder of minority views (amongst my peers at least), I know this to be so. It's OK. Don't be afraid. Accept new ideas. Consider the views of others. Remember well the famous quote by novelist and philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Resist the impulse to be reactionary. Don't blindly follow the safe footfalls of the masses. Allow yourself to be challenged and please, oh please, resist the urge to condemn those who challenge you. We'll all be better off for it.
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