I’ve been wrestling recently with the notion that we are witnessing a great event; one of those transformational cusps that come along every once in a great while and utterly reshape the social and political discourse. As I’ve been mulling this rather florid notion, I’ve been discussing (no, more like yelling with) the denizens of another web board whose political affiliations vary all over the map. My discussion partners range from freeper Bushbots to silk-stocking socialists and every shade in between. I’m often reminded during my time there of the adage that arguing on the Internet is like running a race in the Special Olympics – even if you win, you’re still retarded (pace, disability activists, it’s just a pithy figure of speech).
I was recently involved in the following exchange:
Him: I suspect that Casey Sheehan may have spent much of his too-short life exasperated by his mother's possessiveness. Even in his death, her words show she thinks it's all about her. He'll now be remembered, not for his life or his sacrifice, but as the son of Cindy.
Me: If it weren't for Cindy, would you even know who the fuck Casey was? If it weren't for Cindy, if you heard his name would even care?
Him: So Cindy is the real hero of Iraq then? It doesn't matter that I might not have heard of Casey Sheehan. He didn't die to be "heard of". And the key word is "he", not "she".
I've really tried to see this Sheehan business objectively but perception is colored. I read all of her words I that could find. Subtract the political content and you're left with a woman who relates to her son's death only as it has effected herself. Take out the "I's" and "me's" and "my's" and she has remarkably little to say about her son or his lost potential. She's not consumed with grief for a son, rather she's obsessed with a lost possession.
Sorry, I think its grotesque. Then I suppose I might be cheering for her if she was camped on some big Liberal's doorstep. But I hope not.
So, that got me thinking about the underlying nature of what’s going on here and why I feel it’s so damned momentous. Here's my current take on it:
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Cindy isn’t the "hero of Iraq", as my opponent so facilely put it. Cindy started as the simple mother of a slain soldier, but then through thought, action, accident and perhaps design, she changed.
She has become a conduit for all the unease, discontent, disapproval and dismay that has been building in the country but not finding an outlet. Up till now there has been no political outlet, and, short of The Daily Show, damned few social outlets either. Nothing has "taken". But now, through Cindy Sheehan, something has. Frankly, at this point the nature of Cindy the person really doesn't matter any longer. Let me explain why I think this is so.
The soldiers who fought and died in this war, or indeed in any war, had characters that were all over the map. They are remembered, however, not for their personal successes and failings but for the elemental aspects of their situation - their service, their devotion to duty and comrades, their willingness to do what the times asked of them. Their value is on that super-personal plane. Whether they were liars or thieves or philanderers in "real life" doesn't count. They transcended that through their service. While their individual characters were obviously still important to those who knew them as people, those traits were no longer their important qualities on a universal level. Their entry into service started that transformation, and their deaths, in a most tragic but archetypal manner, completed it.
In much the same way, Cindy Sheehan's character and personal circumstances have ceased to be important in terms of who she is now. She's geting divorced. She may be self-centered, even self-obsessed (though how many great men have shared that trait?). Parts of her family disapprove. Her behaviour may appear unseemly to her opponents. None of this matters now. She has undergone a Shakespearean "sea change". She has become a touchstone, her very name is a talisman. While those close to her will feel the pangs of any personal flaws, those are no longer significant for her influence on the world.
My opponent thought it grotesque to watch a person’s human nature being subordinated a greater cause. I suppose that has been said about most great people. I certainly feel sad when I see that someone's human qualities have taken second place to the requirements of being an icon. But in Cindy's case I think it's too late to do anything about it. She has already transcended herself. Useful judgements about her now have to be made on a plane much beyond the personal.
This is why the personal attacks against her – her divorce, her family troubles, her tax problems – have had such astonishingly little effect on her influence. We already perceive her as being beyond that. Over a week ago she served notice that she was untouchable by such criticisms – and enough of the world agreed that it became so.
Not that people won't still try to bring her down though personal judgements and attacks - they always do, as in the case of Edgar Hoover, James Earl Ray and Martin Luther King. But Cindy has made the quantum leap. This is why personal attacks haven't worked up till now, and why I feel the attempt is pointless. To bring her down now you'll need to attack the cause, not the person. The lessons of Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney are that an attack on the man may not defeat the cause, even if it is terminally successful. And the cause can not be defeated if if it has taken wing. I think this one really has.
We are living in historic times, friends, savour it.
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