The Handmaid's Tale: Thoughts

My little sisters, 1998. Yes, this is how
we dressed at all times.

One of the most popular TV shows for the past year has been Handmaid's Tale, based on the book by Margaret Atwood.  I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about and watched a few episodes.  The story--portrayed in a graphic and riveting way designed to capture your emotions and make you feel how wrong it all is--made a profound impact on my mind and I've been slowly revolving the thoughts in my head until they've taken shape and I'm able to decide how I feel about it all.

It's a disturbing show on so many levels.  The basic premise of the story is that a radical right wing Judeo-"Christian" group has taken over Congress and the East Coast and slaughtered the existing government, creating in its place a theocracy/monarchy where "righteousness" is enforced with an iron hand.  I was sitting there watching in a bit of shock at the horrific and graphic measures taken to enforce "god's laws", when it suddenly hit me.  This has happened before!  

History has been every bit as brutal and more so, and it's only recently that religious freedom, or freedom of any kind, has even been a thing.  Look up the Dark Ages when the religious institution of Catholicism ruled the civilized world.  People were stoned, beaten, tortured, and burned alive just for daring to be different than the status quo.  In Handmaid's Tale, so far as I've watched all they've done are beatings, hangings, mutilations, and some shootings.  Nobody's been burned alive or pulled apart by sharp tongs yet.  The suffering of Christians, and others who bucked the system, are clarified in my mind as I see on cinema a portrayal of what can happen when an extreme group, who care nothing for personal freedoms or the autonomy of an individual, takes over and rules the land.

It happened with Catholicism.

It happened under Islam.

It happened under Communism.

It happened under the Nazi empire.

At first I was like, this show is a blasphemous and twisted representation of Christianity, taking parts of the Bible and using it to their own ends to create terror and feed their morbid lust for power.  Then I realized it's not impossible.   It's actually not unrealistic.  And my gut twisted with apprehension for my children's future while my mind flooded with gratitude that I live in, so far, free America.

Although Hollywood is taking a swing at Christianity in a sense through the show, hollering "look what you get when the right wing radicals take over,"  I actually think it's the opposite.  Socialist democracy is much more scary, and is exactly the sort of thing that would allow such a regime to take place.  When you take away the people's freedom and think you can force them to do the "right thing", that opens the door to such a vast slime pit of corruption and abuse of power that it's almost unimaginable.  Both sides, left and right, need to learn to trust people to make decisions for themselves.  You can't make them stop drinking soda and eating hamburgers.  You can warn them that it's bad for their health, but making soda and hamburgers illegal would have such far rippling and horrible effects that the mind can't even grasp the results.  You can't take away their money because you think you know better how to spend it.  You can preach abstinence before marriage and you can preach that homosexuality is wrong, but hanging people who fornicate and shooting gay people is the wrongest possible solution and as un-Christlike as it gets.

Freewill is the core of the universe.  Freewill makes the world go round.  Freewill is so goshdarn important that God Himself allows horrible things to happen in His world, because He is wise enough to know that if he stepped in and forced people to do the right thing then that would be taking away their freewill to choose.  Without freewill, there is no love.  There is no hate.  There is no joy, or compassion, or sorrow.  Without freewill, the world is black and white and gray, a mere nothingness, a pitiful excuse for existence.  And the freedom to exercise our God-given freewill is the most important, most precious, most valuable thing a human being can possess.  Throughout history people have gladly died to protect that freedom.  May we be faithful in preserving it!

(In case you can't tell, I'm a staunch Libertarian. ;-) )