There’s no hiding place down here
You know, there’s no hiding place down here
I went to the rock to hide my face
But the rock cried out, no hiding place, now
No Hiding place down here–Gospel Standard
I really like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. His work ethic, attitude and humility are an inspiration.
In an age when it seems every third person attached to the entertainment industry is a pedophile at worst and a scumbag at best, Johnson’s superhero persona on and off screen is exactly what this society needs.
And no one knows this better than Dwayne Johnson himself.
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But even Dwayne Johnson is not immune to the toxicity of the Twitterati on both sides when it comes to politics. And his recent dust-up over a tweet about Boris Johnson reminds us that there truly is no hiding from the insanity that has gripped the online world.
“Breaking: PM Boris Johnson is in fact my cousin [though we clearly look more like twins],” the Hollywood actor tweeted. “Jokes aside, PM did say something in his speech I liked – ‘the people are our bosses’. 100% agree. The people/audience/consumer will always matter most. #ourboss.”
DWAYNE “THE ROCK” JOHNSON — DELETED TWEET 7/29/2019
Johnson knows that everyone goes to see his movies. His latest movie exists because he won’t work with Vin Diesel who Johnson feels takes his job for granted.
And, despite holding very strong opinions, he is always inclined to look for the positive in everything. It’s refreshing for a cynic like me to see that.
It’s also good PR. Conservatives watch movies. So do Marxists.
I don’t begrudge him that. It’s his business, his brand and his choice.
Taken at face value Dwayne Johnson said nothing objectionable. Taken cynically Dwayne Johnson said nothing objectionable.
But that’s no reason to let him off the hook by the perpetually offended Twitterati.
If anything, it’s the main reason he had to be attacked by a rabid and, frankly, insane Remain twitter mob who are so triggered, so ideologically possessed they can’t bear to hear someone they like condone something said by someone they despise, Boris Johnson.
Even if what was said was a basic tenet of polite and decent society: that if we have to suffer the indignity of government, that government should be our servant not our master.
It was particularly galling that it was said by a Prime Minister ‘elected’ by a super-minority of the British People. I get that.
But some things, like the Magna Carta, should transcend even Brexit.
And it shows just how deeply scarred our political life is. We’re to the point where Thomas Jefferson could come back from the dead and recite the Declaration of Independence. It would be decried as racist because Jefferson was a slave-owner.
And then he’d have a milkshake thrown on him before being hauled off to jail for spouting hate speech. Snopes would then ‘fact-check’ his words and declare it ‘fake news.’
Facebook would ban people for sharing the video.
Because who says something today is far more important than what they said. In today’s internet culture wrongthink is forever.
How far have we sunk in our political cynicism that founding tenets of what we’re supposed to be fighting for are stifled because the wrong person uttered them?
You don’t have to like Boris Johnson to agree with the sentiment. But in the world of ideological possession, purity of essence trumps all other considerations.
It’s a sad and pathetic state of the times that someone as obviously conscientious and well-meaning as Dwayne Johnson can’t express a political thought that should be non-partisan.
All Dwayne Johnson did was remind everyone that the key to success is hard work and humility. Because that’s what good government, if there is such a thing, demands. Being humble enough to do right by the people even if it is at odds with your personal beliefs.
Dwayne Johnson should not have deleted the tweet. He should have let it stand. It’s what he believes. It’s who he is. Anyone who follows him even obliquely knows this.
Once it’s out there it won’t go away. There’s no hiding from this once it starts. And no halfway competent Hollywood publicist should have advised Johnson to do so.
The box office for Hobbes and Shaw is immune to this tweet. But it may not be by his deleting it.
By backing down Johnson empowers the ugly people who don’t embody any of what he stands for and alienates those who do.
And it shows me that Dwayne Johnson isn’t ready to lead.
Because leadership means having the moral courage to be vilified. To have principles means being lambasted for them. No matter how good or positive a person you are, someone will throw shade on you simply because you highlight how ugly they are.
People throw shade at the Dalai Lama for pity’s sake.
This admittedly minor incident is however indicative of where we are headed culturally. People feel so dis-empowered they take to Twitter to vent their spleens at anyone who sports any deviance from their ideological purity.
It speaks to exactly what the Johnson bros were saying. There’s something wrong with our politics that is deeper than the issues du jour.
The way back from the brink of societal collapse is remembering who the true bosses are, empowering ourselves to rise above petty partisan politics and stop tweeting about how unfair it all is.
Lesson to Dwayne: No matter how much you try to couch something in non-confrontational terms someone is looking to be offended. There are whole squads of people paid to be so offended, shape the narrative and drown out rationality.
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For this reason and so many others Twitter is a terrible form of communication. It’s also a worse mechanism for societal change.
In fact, it’s the opposite of that. Sitting on your ass decrying Tory corporatism on your iPhone over your Vodaphone connection at a Starbucks is not a revolutionary act.
In fact, it’s the exact opposite. And it doesn’t matter if you’re the people who hate Boris Johnson and Brexit or the ones decrying Dwayne Johnson for deleting the tweet.
You’re all ineffectual narcissists trapped in the Matrix; doing the bidding of the worst people in the world who are supposed to work for you.
And that’s the thing everyone is searching for a hiding place from, their own lack of humanity and, more importantly, humility.
“And when the sinners gonna be runnin’
At the knowledge of their fate
They’re gonna run to the rocks and the mountains
But their prayers will be too lateI went to the rock to hide my face
But the rock cried out, no hiding place, now
No Hiding place down here “
Reprinted with permission from Gold Goats ‘N Guns.
