Reach for your Culture

Some say Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was the first to proclaim, “When I hear  the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun.” Others say it might have been Göring or Himmler.* One thing’s for sure: once one Nazi blurted the banality, it didn’t take long for the rest of them to parrot it. Originality and wit were never hallmarks of the Third Reich. Some years later, the English satirist Malcom Muggeridge did what English satirists do best, and turned brown-shirted thuggery on its head: “When I hear the word ‘gun’, I reach for my culture.” And in case you were wondering, that’s what America needs to do next.

The United States has now fully entered the long reaping season that our gun addiction has sown. We have watched in paralyzed horror from Columbine through Virginia Tech through the Café Racer massacre, mere blocks away from my own house in Seattle, right up to and through the seemingly ultimate abomination that was the Newtown Tragedy. I say “seemingly ultimate” because we all know Newtown will not be the end, but rather only a particularly vicious chapter somewhere in the middle of a book we seemed doomed to keep writing.

I have occasionally over-indulged myself with ranting on Facebook about this national sickness, and I have almost always regretted it. Gun-loving friends (and not-such-friends) prefer to shrug and pout, posture and taunt, flicking out comebacks like, “What are you going to do? Pass a law? You think that'll help? Good luck.” Until now I haven’t had the time, inclination or clarity to properly respond. But here goes:

No, I have limited interest in politics per se.  Political solutions are necessary but not sufficient. As the gun-addicts love to remind (and threaten) us, outlawing handguns and assault rifles will merely turn gun-addicts into outlaws.  (I am personally okay with that, by the way.  Addicts need to find bottom.) We have to go deeper than politics to change our entire society.  That’s where art comes in. Art can do all sorts of things that politics can never— and should never— hope to.  Artists can and must, analyze, prophesy, seduce, synthesize, convince, cajole, ridicule, probe, scour, purge, alienate, repatriate and heal. To make that short list shorter, we must employ all the uses of art to win our country back from this insanity.  We must surround the sickness with non-violent culture, like a healthy white blood cell engulfing and dissolving a pathogen.

I’ll be posting more essays as part of a larger conversation about how art can be key to disintegrating America’s gun cult. I am a playwright primarily, so mostly I am brainstorming potentialities of theatre, but I am equally eager to hear anyone and everyone’s thoughts on other creative tactics. Including gun-lovers. I love you too, sick and frightened as you are. I encourage you to join the conversation that will lead to your rehabilitation and your country’s ultimate recovery.

More to come.

 

 

 

 

 

*See Wikipedia’s article on German Playwright and Nazi apologist Hanns Johst for a more detailed derivation of this bon mot. Suffice it to say, as a playwright myself, I feel like I have a duty to undo his legacy of nastiness.

Comments

[Jason C]

I always find it fascinating that the strongly anti-gun commonly see the pro-gun in closely the same way as they themselves are seen, which is to say, frightened and confused. The common perception among the pro-gun minded is that those who "fear the gun" are just un-educated and not aware of the facts. The term "Transference" comes up a lot when speaking of those who rail against the merits of self defense, and "think with their hearts and not with their minds" is the simplified analogy of choice.

While I find many of these generalities to be true in a stretched perception kind of way, the common theme of fear among the anti-gun minded remains a constant. Fear of the unknown, fear of personal responsibility, fear of civic responsibility, and especially fear of human nature. Its all well and good to wish upon a star that we "all just get along", but it is not in our nature as long as we have free will as our maker intended. Some good reading to help anyone understand more is an excellent article titled "Raging against self defense". A simple web search will bring it up readily enough. If nothing else, it will help the anti-gun minded to understand how they are perceived, since those of us of the pro-gun nature understand your view of us readily enough.

[Paul Mullin]

Thanks for your thoughts, Jason. I just went back over this essay which I hadn't read in awhile and while I do mention the pro-gun folks as "frightened" once, I talk much more about addiction. I think that's actually the gist of the problem: addiction to a misunderstanding of power, and addiction to sick ways of thinking, and certain sorts of fetishism. Fear is a component, but not the main problem, and certainly not one that would be readily admitted to. The fearful rarely readily admit feeling so.

I do appreciate you reaching out though. Your response is measured and thoughtful. Your side of the argument could use more folks like you.

Cheers!
Paul