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A version of this photo-essay was published in the Concord Monitor
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| Strangled by Dark Emotions Photo of honeysuckle vine along the Merrimack CC Jean Stimmell: 4/16/16 |
Defending Fairy Tales from the National Rifle
Association
Finding ourselves shanghaied into an
alien world dominated by infotainment TV and Donald Trump, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the
National Rifle Association(NRA) has decided to join the club by rewriting fairy
tales to give them happy endings. These revisions promote the notion that if
only victims, like Little Red Riding Hood, had been packing a gun, they would
have triumphed over evil.
This marketing ploy by the NRA to
rewrite Grimm’s’ Fairy Tales is wrong on so many different levels.
On the flesh-and-blood, human level,
promoting the use of guns by children is reckless and morally reprehensible when,
already in the United States, close to 50 children and teenagers are shot
daily; and where suicide by gun is the leading cause of death in children over
the age of 9. We can’t risk more such deaths.
At the cultural level, the NRA’s
actions are unforgivable sacrilege. The NRA is defiling a classic work of
literature, praised by the likes of W. H Auden as one of the founding works of
Western culture. Ethically and spiritually, it feels to me like blasphemy to
replace the timeless wisdom of fairy tales with the naked assertion that
might-makes-right.
I will admit that, on the surface,
fairy tales – like the NRA – do indeed simplify the world by separating it
totally into black and white. They are populated with people who are
one-dimensional: either completely good or bad. The NRA has created “happy
endings” by taking this one-dimensional thinking to a whole new level: Just
shoot the bad guy and the problem is solved.
However this upends the deeper
meaning of fairy tales which, in the final analysis, bear witness to how rash
action and violence don’t solve problems but create bigger ones. For example,
remember what happened when President Bush quickly declared victory after his
military invasion of Iraq, announcing to the world: “Mission Accomplished!”
Fairy Tales have a different mission.
They externalize the bad guys, the evil ones, not to blow them away but to
create a safe space for children and adults alike to ponder the true nature of
our feelings. By having this safe place to process our dark, underlying
emotions, we gain the wisdom to see that this cursed shadow we are wrestling
with is often a projection of our own dark impulses – not an external enemy.
Like religion, fairy tales can awaken
us to the truth that the evil we wish to banish, more often than not, resides
not in the world outside but within the recesses of our own heart. They also
teach us how to come to terms with the unpredictable nature of change in our
lives.
Fairy tales teach children and adults
alike about the uncertainty of life and dangers that are always lurking, poised
to jump out and confront us at any moment. That is the nature of life: we can’t
escape. Despite our multitude of material goodies and high tech gadgets, we all
still grow old, get sick, and die. Shit continues to happen. Some would say now
more than ever.
The role of a fairy tale is to give
us hope and reassurance by reconnecting us to our childhood feelings of awe and
respect for life as a miraculous process – not to be confronted with a snarling
threat, as if in a Clint Eastwood movie: Go Ahead, Make my Day.
In essence, fairy tales are
metaphorical and mythological: their function is to teach us that despite
ever-present possibilities of impending danger and misfortune, we must keep on
growing and moving forward to reap our reward. In Shakespeare’s memorable
words, Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
xxx
