TEA PARTY IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE
"In the fight between you and the world, back the world." Franz Kafka
Rod Serling's prophetic "Twilight Zone", still tremendously popular half-a-century after its prime time, reminds us now what we were reminded then: there are stranger things than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Our eyes are opened to realities we thought we had neatly stowed. "A Stop at Willoughby", aired in 1960 during the first season, looked at the frustrations of the modern corporate individual and the impossibility of escape into a simpler, serener, stabler yesteryear. In 2012, mass movements, notably the Tea Party, have been demonstrably determined to move the entire country back to a halcyon past. Tea Partiers, extolling the individual, have substituted a collective for an individualist solution to the troubles of modernity, but the result is the same.
James Daly plays Gart Williams, a high-powered Madison Avenue executive harassed by his boss at work and his wife at home. Napping on the train back to the suburbs at night, he hears the conductor announcing "Willoughby." Upon awakening, he finds it is daylight, summertime, and...1880. The train starts moving, he awakens again, having returned to winter, 1960, nighttime. He asks another conductor about "Willoughby", only to be told there is no such stop on this line. As the pressure increases from all sides, as he gets no respite at work or at home, Williams again naps on the train, and again wakes up in Willoughby, in a summer past. He learns a little more, but he stays on the train, which returns him to modern times. His situation grows more hectic desperate. At his wits' end, he makes up his mind that next time--he stops at Willoughby.
He does. In the sleepy summertime, with the band playing on the stand, he meets a couple of boys who have been fishing. Tomorrow, he will join them. He walks happily into his new life. The scene fades to a snow bank by the railroad track, in 1960, where the authorities are picking up the body of Gart Williams, who jumped off the train. Willoughby is the name of the undertaker, into whose hearse they load the corpse.
Serling protested the fast pace and high pressure that some people succumb to in modern times, how people can be driven to suicide. There is a simple lesson here: we all need to take it easy. But two generations later, we live in a world that is obsessed with material acquisition, one that celebrates high pressure and derides the "whiners" who are unable to keep up the pace. Some of those who cheer the breakneck temper of modernity would take us back to a time before government began to interfere with the ability of the successful to really trample on everyone else. The Tea Party Patriots, the politicians who exploit them and the billionaires who finance them, have set us a goal of marching boldly into the future by going back to the past, by jettisoning all the social policies and programs that America and all other industrialized countries have adopted, starting around the 1880's. The ambitions of this mass movement resemble a collective Willoughby. Anyone who knows night and winter happen--in short, reasonable people--can see that what this movement seeks is self-destruction.
The Tea Partiers of the new millennium are a far cry from traditional conservatives. Not too long ago (say, the 1960's), conservatives were for maintaining the status quo. Believing society to be mostly in good shape, they felt it unwise to change too much, too quickly. Some change is desirable, even conservatives would agree, but changes should come slowly, only after proving they are really needed, and they will actually work. In contrast, liberals would advocate for the changes they think are needed, believing we can always make adjustments as we go along. In this respect conservatives and liberals differ only in degree. There is always room for honest disagreement and compromise. Modern "conservatives" actually detest the present. They would destroy every government function save the military and police, and compel the whole society to return to the nineteenth century, forcefully if necessary. Then (and only then) do they believe we can proceed into a future of health, wealth, and happiness. Lacking a clear explanation from the Tea Partiers as to what they seek, we are free to conclude that Serling's "Willoughby" aptly describes their goal.
Many flaws are evident in any actual Willoughby of 1880. The times were simpler, lacking the automobiles, radio, and television of the mid-twentieth century--certainly missing the computers and electronic gadgets of the twenty-first. Yet the Tea Partiers make no proposals to rid our planet of modern inventions. They would free us from the social, political, and economic changes of the modern age. They want a return to a time of low taxes and freewheeling capitalism, when each of us could theoretically ascend to celestial heights or descend into deep misery, depending on our ability and drive. With opportunity for material improvements universal, there was no need for government handouts or taxpayer giveaways. A man earned what he got and kept it. Life, they believe, was ideal.
The fishing might not be so good, though, with raw sewage and industrial waste going straight into streams. But with the twelve-hour day and six-day week, fishing might be more fantasy than experience. Still, without TV, movies, computer games and the like, there was less to do. There were books, and kids did learn to read--those who did not avail themselves of the "opportunity" to go into factory work at six years old. Concerning opportunity, we know the plutocrats who owned the country rigged the game so they and theirs had more "good old equal opportunity" than everyone else. There were no intrusive government regulations trying to give commoners a chance to improve their lot. The list: epidemics, pollution, corruption, Jim Crow, ongoing colonial wars--goes on. The point is that 1880 had its own troubles, and we cannot trade the problems we have now for those we solved then, even if we desperately want to.
The emotion of nostalgia is part of human nature, necessary in its place. Tearing down the social contract because some of us think we were better off without it is a psychotic proposition. Even without a boss as sadistic as Mr. Misrell, or a spouse as coldly ambitious as Jane Williams, the stress of living can torment even the sturdiest souls. Desperation to simplify is perfectly understandable. We can resolve to take life easier, to smell the flowers, to think. We can encourage others to do these things. We cannot get rid of bullying bosses and grasping family members by stealing Social Security for Wall Street, by turning Medicare into a cheap coupon exchange. We might improve our individual lives by realizing we all face the same challenges, and treat our fellow humans accordingly. We cannot turn back time.
Gart Williams, a man alone, gave up the fight and jumped to Willoughby. America at the start of the third millenniuim has many isolated individuals, trying to live in a corporate-dominated world We all have a rough time. Some people have banded together in a vain attempt to bring us back to halcyon days. In the process they have allied themselves with the very corporate interests that have made their lives so impossibly complicated. In terms of society, a stop at Willoughby comes down to collective suicide.
