On Tyrants
West published The Day of the Locust in 1939. Hitler had already come to power, Mussolini had invaded Ethiopia, and Lenin had bamboozled Russia with three empty words: Peace Bread Land. Leni Riefenstahl had made Triumph of the Will, D.W. Griffith had made The Birth of a Nation, and Stalin had starved millions in the Ukraine without anyone making a film.
West wasn’t short of inspiration on tyrants.
Tod didn’t laugh at the man’s rhetoric. He knew it was unimportant. What mattered were his messianic rage and the emotional response of his hearers. They sprang to their feet, shaking their fists and shouting. On the altar someone began to beat a bass drum and soon the entire congregation was singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”.
So, perhaps, in this instance, West wasn’t so much a visionary as he was just aware and astute. Perhaps his ideas don’t apply as neatly to our contemporary, enlightened times as they did to the dark pre-WWII days when he wrote them.
But, could there still be some sliver of wisdom to be gained, and some foresight to be dug out of West?
After all, the Soviets were atheistic, and the fascists only tolerated the Church because they had to. West’s was a world of battling ideologies, not one of fighting religions. Wasn’t it we who resurrected those?
Isn’t it our preacher who speaks in tongues, our President who speaks not even in one, and our Jesus who campaigns Republican? And isn’t it our Allah who rewards us for exploding ourselves into crowds in the name of our illiterate Mullah?
Let us draw fresh blood for the altar.
Hit My Baby, One More Time
Somewhere in the middle of The Day of the Locust we meet Adore, an eight-year old boy, and his ambitious, greedy mother.
Adore’s mother is convinced that her son has “talent”, and will one day break into show business. Would it not be a sin to not do her utmost — look what she’s sacrificed to give her boy the chance she couldn’t have — to foster his talents and get them noticed by all the important people who notice fostered talent? Wouldn’t she be a cruel mother if she didn’t push him into performing like a monkey to a music box? It’d be a waste, for sure, and no one likes squanderers.
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