"Armed with his blazing torch the God of Plague
Hath swooped upon our city."
Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus, about 429 BC
Punishment by plagues for the sins and crimes of leaders is an old and powerful idea in Western Civilization.
God is using the plague to rid America of Trump.
Sophocles' play, Oedipus the King, begins with a plague. Thebes was suffering because of the unpunished crimes of its leader, Oedipus. The Greeks understood that when a leader offends the order of the universe, the gods arrange a visible sign and a punishment. The plague didn't happen because of virus or germs or bad sanitation; something was morally wrong. By the play's end, Oedipus acknowledged his crimes, was punished, and was removed from power. Order was restored in Thebes. The plague ended.
There were over a hundred mentions of plagues in the Bible. The ones most familiar to Americans are the ones visited on the Egyptian Pharaohs. Their "hearts were hardened" and they refused to release the Jewish people from bondage. God punished the people of Egypt with plagues of locusts, frogs, and eventually the death of every first born son. It's in Exodus.
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| Ten plagues of Egypt |
Samuel, 24 describes God's anger with Israel. King David sought guidance from a prophet who said the King could pick his punishments: famine for his land, a plague on his people, or face the danger of personal foes. David feared his personal enemies more than a plague on his people, so he selfishly chose a plague. His people suffered and died.
Later he repented. "He said to the Lord, 'I am the one who has sinned; I am the one who had done wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? Please, let Your hand be against me and my family.'" He took action, built an altar, and the Lord answered the prayers of the land. The plague ended. It may have seemed like the miracle Trump predicted would end COVID.
The modern American's moral sense is troubled by the suffering of the innocent, just as it troubled David in the story above. Why should the innocent suffer? But we recognize that they do, and we find partial justification by our sense of personal responsibility. Some people who catch COVID did risky things.
At the community or national level, there is the democratic principle of error and consequence. It is the right of the people to establish their government and pick leaders. If the nation picks bad leaders, bad things happen.
Few Americans bemoan the strategic bombing of German cities in World War Two. The German people put Hitler in power, they were at war, and they faced the cruel justice of bombs dropping on their cities and randomly killing their citizens. So, too, the people of Japan, who let themselves be led by people with dreams of empire. It was a plague of bombs.
Some Americans back in the 1940's, and many more today, feel discomfort at being the direct agents of that suffering of the noncombatants. Their bombing may be the "wrath of God" visited on a whole nation, but it came in the form of bombs made in American factories and delivered in American bombers by American servicemen. It would be an easier moral problem if, in 1945, a virus had broken out in Germany and Japan, killed as many or more people, with Dresden and Hiroshima being places of near total destruction in a pandemic hotspot. Then, had Germany and Japan surrendered amid an uncontrollable public health disaster, I suspect Americans would consider it providential, an act of God, and feel no moral qualms at all.
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| Some would say agent of God |
Trump shows little evidence of being a deep or reflective thinker. He never promised virtue, and certainly not Christian virtues. He is not a "turn the other cheek" man. He promised wins. In his rallies he bemoans how unfair it is that he is judged by COVID and its consequences, when things were so great prior.
It is a political reality that incumbent presidents are given credit or blame for things they can barely influence, much less control. Our legal doctrine notion of "fault" would not convict Trump if this were a tort claim. He understands that, and wants to be judged by that standard. It was the China virus, their liability, not his.
But Americans brought up in the Judeo-Christian traditions of Western Civilization cannot shake the idea that if America is on the "wrong track," then their leaders are responsible in some way, or in any case face the political consequences. That is the case Democrats are making. Trump didn't listen to Fauci and other modern equivalents of the prophet David consulted. Like King David, in Samuel, Trump chose to avoid personal risks and to let his people get plague instead. Trump treated it as a PR problem. That was a management error and an immoral act of selfishness. King David repented when he did this. Trump did not. Trump hoped for a miracle.
Maybe we got the miracle. Maybe the plague is the miraculous intervention, the unknowable forces of the universe working to give America a more virtuous leader and bring order back to the country and the plague to end.
6 comments:
So COVID wouldn't have appeared if Hillary had won?
No, I'm pretty certain we can ascribe coincidence in this situation. What it did reveal is the incompetence of this administration in dealing with the crisis, and in fact using it to further their own self-serving agenda.
Would a Clinton administration have done better? I would like to think so, and it's indisputable they would have followed established health guidelines which would have likely avoided many infections and deaths. If there is any moral downfall at work here it's putting the economy before the health of citizens, money before people, a Regressive first principle.
This epidemic was the result of animal to human transmission, which happens when certain public health disciplines are relaxed, or nonexistent. We get salmonella outbreaks when chicken processors drop the ball. It occurred in China, but it could have happened anywhere there are populations in close contact with animals, which is most of the World.
Why now? These organisms are opportunistic, always waiting for a chance to attack. We are in competition with them and need to learn to never let our guard down, which goes for Regressives as well. If America can repel this assault on democracy and decency it still will need a vaccine against another outbreak.
They are always waiting...
This is an odd bit of eschatological thinking in any case.
But “God” punishing the whole world because America elected Trump?
At any rate, it’s absurdist relief from competing proclamations of science.
I know a devout Trump supporter who claims that God sent us Trump. She was serious. I'm thinking Trump came from different direction.
Anyway, Peter, thanks for the Bible lesson.
Plague is one of the Four Horsemen. We have plenty of believers who are certain we're in the end times foretold in Revelations. There is certainty in their belief that the Rapture is coming for them and them alone. It is a miss reading of Scripture. As with the writings of Nostradamus you can pick and chose your interruption of events after they occur. I'll predict that to the people that believe Trump was sent by God is fulfilled whether he wins or loses. If Trump wins they're belief is verified. If he loses they're belief is verified as well. They can point to Exodus where Moses never made it to the promised land but nevertheless delivered His People. Either way they'll be filled with praise and little doubt in their belief and appreciation of Trump who, to them, is sent by God.
Bill Mahar did a pretty spot on spiel about religion last week, IMHO. I'm an atheist and like Bill I don't subscribe to any of the whacky sky wizard crap that seems to pretty much define the traditional American values narrative. That we factor so much on conjecture , myths and centuries-old dogma just seems sort of, well, dumb. Its hard to have a coherent discussion when one side believes firmly in things that can't be proved. I get the 'prayer works' bullshit because its actually the power of suggestion, which can be shown to work in many cases. But God has no more say about human actions than does the Easter Bunny. Both are mythical figures; constructs that give hope to millions of believers of all faiths.
I read recently that a guy with a skull cap electronic device was able to get a robotic prosthetic arm to grab a cup from point a, move it to point b, and release it just by thinking it. It took some practice but he did it. I mention this because it highlights how science and our biological knowledge are untangling many of life's mysteries that religion once explained.
Whatever may have been the case thousands of years ago—and my own beliefs are scientific rather than religious—I do not believe a divine being acts to disrupt the natural order of things in our time. Given the horrors of the past century, I would not choose to believe in a deity capable of such evil.
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