I've written here before of my love for the long running Broadway classic, Wicked.
It struck me the other day, while driving home from work and listening to Ben Shapiro beautifully dismantle the latest absurd instance of race essentialism in the news, that a big reason for Wicked resonating with me so much is that it's a great parable for today's culture of condemnation.
At first blush, the story of Wicked seems tailor made for the modern left's racialist world view - Elphaba is unnaturally GREEN and thus ostracized by her classmates. She arrives ready to support the Wizard of Oz, giddy at the prospect of teaming up with this great man. But it turns out that the Wizard is originally from Kansas and believes the animal-folk of Oz should be livestock, rather than articulate and intelligent denizens of cities and towns.
So it's a perfect analogy for the racism that our country was founded on and still permeates the United States today.
Uh, not quite.
On the surface, it is indeed an obvious anti-racist (in the traditional meaning of the term) parallel the the USA- but even bigger than that, from my perspective, Wicked has become a potent correlation to the very recent extreme polarization that has erupted between garbage covered blue cities and the rural refuges of flyover country.
On one side you have the conservatives - traditionalists, who believe in the founding fathers, the Constitution and the true principles on which our nation was founded. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - that all of us are created equal in the eyes of God - and entitled to nothing less than the opportunity to be free and thrive with hard work.
On the other - you have the radical left - which recently has been determined to insist on a dismantling of the USA. After all, our country was founded on racism, and to this day we are still mired in this disease. The only way forward is to tear it all down and start over, with an emphasis not on equal opportunities for all - bur rather a state engineered EQUITY that will insure by hell or high-water, an equal outcome in success.
The conservatives in Oz want their land the way it has been for a thousand years. Animals and humans, side by side, free to succeed or fail - all contingent on determination and excellence. A true meritocracy founded on the principles of freedom. It doesn't matter if my professor is a goat, what matters is if he knows what he's talking about.
The new left in Oz wants a new world order. Animals are livestock, not life partners. Animals are meant to be corralled, groomed and even eaten - all to sustain the greater good. What has come before was wrong and evil. There can be no equality. Only equity. Only a pre-determined outcome of good over evil. The only way forward is to tear it all down and start over.
And the punchline to this way of thinking is the same from both radical leftists in the real world and Munchkin extremists in the land of Oz.
If you're not with us, you're against us. And you aren't just wrong, you are evil.
You are Wicked.
****
In the opening of Wicked, Galinda asks the key question - "Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?"
This has resonated with me greatly over the past few years.
For a long time I have said that the difference between conservatives and hard left progressives is that the former just thinks the latter is wrong, while the latter thinks the former is evil.
In 2022 that is more true than ever.
This is because the far left has been wrong on just about everything and the only weapon they have remaining is the very effective tactic of castigation.
You are a bigot. A racist. A homophobe. A misogynist.
You are a Wicked witch.
(Spoilers ahead if you don't know Wicked)
Elphaba is branded as a Wicked Witch early on after her break from the Wizard and his orthodoxy. When she chooses to stand up for traditional values, she is cast out and smeared broadly by the cool kids, including her ex-besty Galinda, now Glinda the Good Witch of the North.
Wordplay is a running through-line in Wicked, used to illustrate how the statists manipulate language by whim to control others. The Wizard and his lackeys frequently use nonsense words as a cudgel to get their underlings to submit.
Glinda goes right along with it, and makes sure everyone stays in line - all the while filled with regret over the demonization of her friend.
Elphaba is eventually forced to submit, in that she has to embrace the label of Wicked Witch - and she wears the mantle, but she never bends or breaks under it. She still fights resolutely for what is right. But it all comes to a breaking point with the arrival of a powerful new Witch from the Wizard's homeland.
From her perspective, this Dorthy chick is just as bad as the Wizard and perhaps just as powerful. Think about it - a young beautiful witch arrives from on high, and drives a house on top of her sister - killing her instantly.
And Dorthy has the same belief system as the Wizard. Animals are livestock. I take what I want. Those Silver Shoes? (Or Ruby if you prefer) Those are mine. I have your ex-best friend's fiancé' (also your one time lover) at my command, along with your sisters unrequited love and a big ass lion. Animals can never be equals - their inferiority is baked into our history. We must corral them and slaughter them if need be.
Elphaba leaps at the chance to go deep undercover by faking her own death (based on more lies from the left, er, the Munchkins) because the wrath of Dorthy and the maniacal Wizard is just too much to bear.
Elphaba will continue the fight undercover, but for her own safety and sanity she must remove herself from the equation.
***
I feel like a lot of us who perhaps at one time dipped our toe into the public square to make our views heard - have had wickedness thrust upon us - and have been forced to withdraw.
I work in an industry where the vast majority of my colleagues are much more inclined to embrace the destructive radicalism of the left (the mostly peaceful BLM organization, the pronoun police, the removal of merit based school testing, etc.) and cast off people like me who disagree as Wicked.
There is a very real danger that if I stand up too forcefully - that I will severely limit my future employment prospects.
So to this day I stay mostly silent. I'm in hiding, gently pushing back when I see an opening that won't hurt my career or invite too much wrath. But my patience and faith is starting to wear thin.
I fear there may be a time down the road when it's too much and I have to stand and become the Wicked Witch.
I wasn't born this way. Wickedness has been thrust upon me, and hundreds of millions of Americans, by the cult of the woke and their corporate overlords.
But whether I find the courage to stand up fully against the anger on the left - or if I can only manage a more stealthy subversiveness - I will never bend my knee to the social justice madness that has infected our country, just as the evil sorcery of Madame Morrible silenced the animals of OZ.
I will never submit, I will never surrender to compulsory language, I will never fit in with the cool kids.
I will NEVER apologize to any of these people.
EVER.
