If a Tree Falls in the Forest...

A decade or so ago, local television news gave extensive coverage to what they described as a Klan event – a rally, a demonstration, a parade, whatever -- being planned for an Illinois suburb of St. Louis. Local media knew it was in the offing, of course, because a participant told them it was. And they, in effect, did his bidding, by dutifully reporting on the plan and thereby drawing attention to and unavoidably magnifying into something of significant import what would have been a universally ignored non-event involving a tiny squadron of mouth-breathers. Just what the doctor ordered, as far as the KKK boys were concerned.

If memory serves, the thing turned out to be a circular walk on a suburban street by half a dozen comically costumed, sign-waving morons, witnessed by a sparse gathering of mildly curious – but neither pro nor con – onlookers who weren’t exactly sure what was going on. Only they and the television cameras witnessed this little confederacy of dunces doing their posturing and chanting.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? If hate-spewing wing-nuts wave their signs and shout their idiot slogans and no one pays them any attention, do they make a sound? The thinking here is no, not so much.

No question, our instinct -- the other 98% of us who actually have a brain – is to fight back, to shout them down, to throw rotten fruit at them, or maybe kick them in the shins or slap some sense into them. And there is nothing wrong with that instinct. In fact, it can be argued that it’s important to do that – to loudly and proudly protest their stupid but dangerous “ideas” and not let them go unchallenged. But, wow – talk about giving these fools what they crave – attention – and talk about risking portraying their ludicrous pity parties as events of vastly greater magnitude than they actually are and focusing vastly more attention on them than they deserve.

So there is also an argument for not engaging – for not showing up at all, or, if folks just can’t resist, for counter-protesting in a totally passive, turn-the-other-cheek mode – signs, sure, but no taunting or shouting, no sticks and stones; and maybe most important, no treating by the media every escape from the home by these zombies as a news event warranting breathless, wall-to-wall coverage. Here’s the thing: When the cameras are rolling and brickbats are being hurled in every direction, it’s impossible to know, unless the bad guys are all wearing black hats and the good guys white, who’s doing what to whom. And it’s precisely that confusion that gives surface plausibility to the preposterous notion that there were two equally-to-blame “sides” at Charlottesville. When that notion is picked up and spread around by a weak-minded but vastly influential figure like the president of the United States, trouble ensues. So maybe the best way is to make sure it's unmistakeably clear who's doing the acting out.

Of course, the president should have been forceful and unequivocal in his condemnation of the jackasses that caused this problem. But maybe the problem could have been avoided, or at least mitigated, if they’d been allowed to put their stupidity on display in splendid isolation.

(For an alternative method of handling these events, we can look to a small town in Germany.)