Will the Grinch Steal Christmas?

I keep thinking about the ending of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” How this poor guy’s evil plan doesn’t come off the way he expected it to, all because he doesn’t really understand the Whos. Because all he can see are the material trappings of Christmas, he assumes that that’s all everybody else sees too. But that’s not what Christmas means for the Whos, and after he takes away all of their things, they celebrate anyway.

I have long felt that we are being conditioned, by politicians and others who benefit by having ordinary people afraid of each other and at each others’ throats, and by an entertainment culture that continually pumps out apocalyptic narratives in which the worst of our human nature rises to the top. This culture gives us worlds in which people are pitted against each other in a desperate battle for survival and the only way to make it out alive is to lie, cheat, steal, brutalize, kill–and sometimes eat–one’s fellow human beings.

It feels to me as if someone with an agenda has been manufacturing these narratives, “training” us to think of each other as nothing more than competitors for scarce resources, enemies even. And to live accordingly. I haven’t seen the film “Contagion”, but I am told that it is representative of this trend: As soon as there is a big disruption in society, the social fabric immediately tears apart and people begin looting and killing each other. How the Grinch Stole C... Dr. Seuss Best Price: $1.22 Buy New $3.99 (as of 04:40 UTC - Details)

But that’s not what I’m seeing around me now. What I’m seeing is people coming together, helping each other, encouraging each other. Yes, some of the nastier aspects of humanity are surfacing too: The people who report businesses and individuals for violating the draconian orders, and the police officers who unthinkingly obey those orders. But looking around me, the first seem to be the exception, and even the second is not universal. Neighbors are helping each other; people are sewing masks (for all the good they may do); and many local sheriffs across the country are recognizing that these lockdowns constitute a violation of fundamental rights, and are refusing to enforce them.

They join thousands of individuals who are choosing to ignore the unconstitutional edicts, to gather together, to worship, to open their businesses and to go to the beach, in defiance of the orders.

I believe that the people who have orchestrated this (not the virus, but the statist responses to it) were fully prepared for civil unrest, looting, food riots, and violence. But I’m not sure they were prepared for this.

I’m not sure they were prepared for a former marine to stand on a truck and speak to a line of police officers in riot gear about their oath to uphold the Constitution, about their own consciences and being able to sleep at night. I’m not sure they were prepared for hundreds of protesters to stand and pray for the stormtroopers who stood between themselves and the California State Capitol building. I’m not sure they were prepared for a hairdresser to risk jail so that she could feed her family–or for so many of those around her to support her in doing so.

I don’t think the people who plan to test, track, monitor and force vaccinate all of humanity actually understand humanity all that well. I think they really believe that we can be controlled through fear and through force. And to be fair to them, those things have been awfully effective in the past. But I don’t think they are going to work this time. Annabel Pickering and ... Shaffer, Bretigne Buy New $14.99 (as of 08:50 UTC - Details)

The tools of those who would control all of humanity are very limited. Fear, propaganda, and force can indeed be powerful. But they are not what has kept humanity going for thousands of years. We haven’t survived as a species because we are good at brutalizing each other, or at lying and cheating. We’ve survived because of our ability to cooperate, to build networks of trust, and to trade for mutual benefit. These are all things a Grinch can’t understand.

Are people afraid? Yes–but I suspect not as much as our would-be overlords would like us to be. And more and more, people are recognizing that the thing we really need to fear is an entity that can shut down our entire society at its pleasure. People are catching on. And it’s just possible that a whole lot of us did in fact learn the right lessons from our history with the total state in the Twentieth Century.

I don’t think the Grinches who seek to use Covid-19 to achieve their dreams of world domination expected any of that. And I suspect that–just like in the book–even after the Grinch has taken our stuff, savaged our economies, and done its best to drive us apart from each other with its edicts and its fear-mongering… we’re going to get together and sing anyway. And there will be nothing it can do to stop us.