Them Are Coming
by John Weckerle
Today was a day of great activity – yard work, errands, grocery shopping, harvesting (well, just one zucchini today), cooking wyngette stew for dinner… It was an up-with-the-sun-and-get-to-it kind of day, and one that brought some insight into life and how it works.
During the errands, I found myself headed down an aisle in one of the Edgewood grocery stores, and almost ran into one of our local citizens. This is a person with whom I have at times disagreed, here and elsewhere, but with whom I have always had a congenial relationship. At least, so I thought. I greeted him with a friendly “Hey, <insert name here>, how’s it going?” and was surprised when he simply looked away, grunted, “Hey,” and pushed his cart very pointedly past and off into the middle distance – and ultimately into the rest of it. It took a second for me to process the situation and realize: to him, I have apparently become one of Them.
Now, the subject of Them is of particular interest to me at this time for a number of reasons. I recently listened to a recording of an old radio show from the 1960s, one of the many nightly broadcasts of an author and commentator by the name of Jean Shepherd. Shep, as he was known to his fans, was the author of (among other works) a book titled In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash (the movie A Christmas Story, narrated by the author, is based on part of this book). In this particular recording, Shepherd (who never really discussed politics, but commented on life in general) expounds upon a syndrome we see throughout history – as he puts it (more or less), the belief that all the bad things in the world come from somebody else’s rottenness, or stupidity, and if we could just get rid of Them, everything would be wonderful – “Peace and beauty, through us.”
I have written here before about the concepts of divisiveness, ideological intolerance, and vilification of those who think differently from one or another ideological camp. I find it all counterproductive and, to be blunt, more than a little childish. This insistence on the part of some people, or groups thereof, that they have a franchise on truth, or morality, or American values, or whatever… It is not enough that we feel that we are right, but everyone who disagrees with us must be wrong – and evil. They must be… Them.
During a recent look at the TV, I found myself amused, and maybe a bit alarmed, by a political advertisement in which gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez receives the endorsement of a number of representatives of the law enforcement community. At the end of the commercial, the intrepid Ms. Martinez looks into the camera and says “New Mexico is our state, and we’re going to take it back.”
After running to the window and looking out to make sure that New Mexico was, in fact, still there, I paused to wonder exactly who was being referred to as “we” and, perhaps more importantly, just from whom this nebulous but heroic group was going to take back New Mexico. Space aliens? The Chinese? Texans? Who is it that has stolen our little piece of the planet from us?
It took only a second to conclude that, in Ms. Martinez opinion and that of at least some of her supporters, New Mexico is in the hands of Them.
That’s right, Them. Those rotten people who are ruining society, contaminating our thoughts, and slowly but surely acting to destroy our values, our way of life, and our morality. They are responsible for the economic downturn, pollution, desecrating the Constitution, disrespectful children, leaving carts all over the parking lot, and toenail fungus. The forces of Them are hell-bent on taking away our freedom, making us conform to their sick and decadent way of life, and then turning us into Soylent Green. Heathen, the Great Unwashed – Them are vile, sinister creatures not entitled to freedom or existence, much less politeness.
Now, you and I know that there is, in fact, no Them. There’s just us. There are those of us who think one thing, and those who think another, and there are those of us who think that anyone who holds a point of view that differs from theirs is part of a conspiracy, a fathead, or the Antichrist – in short, one of Them. Given that there is no Them, that means that those of us who think there is a Them are holding tightly to a belief in something that doesn’t exist, kind of like the Birthers. In short, we have a substantial contingent of Them-ers in our society.
New Mexico belongs to all New Mexicans, regardless of their ideological leanings, just as America belongs to all the Americans in it, and the world belongs to all the people and other life forms, and so on. There really is no Them. There are just others of us. We’re calling on Ms. Martinez to state specifically from whom she proposes to take New Mexico back. New Mexicans who believe something different from what she believes? And we’d like to hear the same thing from those who are making comments like this in the national arena. Are you saying that you have an ideological and/or moral superiority that places you over and above all those who do not share your particular and personal ideals? Because, quite frankly, that is very much what it is beginning to sound like.
“Peace and beauty, through us.” That is, until the next bunch of Them-ers comes along.
One Response “Them Are Coming”
Sadly, I’ve noticed “themitis” on the rise. Nor are we the only ones ~ informally surveying friends and acquaintances reveals similar impressions. Wish I had an effective antidote. I remember my mother telling me years ago, smoothing over some teen quarrel along the lines of “you can’t be my friend if you’re her friend too,” that not having to agree 100% to be friends was the sign of being an adult. So let’s be adults.