With some entries for this category, it is difficult to avoid merely reposting the entire script or video of the episode in question… In fact, the 4Mar1960 Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” has become one of many solid favorite episodes of the first season because… well… it feels like today – this moment, this point in American history.
Consider Serling’s closing narration:
The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices—to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy. And a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is…that these things cannot be confined…to The Twilight Zone.
Though I remember growing up watching (with creeped-out fascination) the odd episodes of the Twilight Zone which were in syndication at the time, I cannot honestly say that much of my present perspectives and philosophies were shaped by this series. However, I still find it unnerving to hear Serling’s voice delivering his staccato rendition of thoughts which are often so very similar to my own.
In this episode, we see the characters of Steve Brand and Charlie Farnsworth – rational and paranoid, respectively – reacting to what is revealed as intentional and external situational and contextual manipulation: the sudden loss of electricity/telephone accessibility, the unexplained and sporadic function of vehicles, and suspicious lack of effect on specific members of the neighborhood.
Along the way, the neighbors are swept up in the growing uncertainty and fear, even as the first target of convenient accusation, Les Goodman makes the first accurate assessment of the situation and the group’s reaction:
I said it was insomnia! You fools. You scared, frightened rabbits, you. You’re sick people, do you know that? You’re sick people – all of you! And you don’t even know what you’re starting because let me tell you…let me tell you – this thing you’re starting – that should frighten you. As God is my witness…you’re letting something begin here that’s a nightmare!
Ah yes… the mob: Hungry for identification and persecution of the threat, and desperate for the vindication of mindless reaction; the lopsided scalene triangle of pathos, ethos, and logos – where the angle and leg length represent intensity and capability of action. In this case – ethos, the appeal of emotion – grossly offsets logic and ethical considerations and courses of action and destabilizes societal norms into the unbalanced and dangerous territory of scared anger.
Things don’t get better as those within the group begin to turn upon each other:
Steve: Charlie, don’t tell me what I can afford! And stop telling me who’s dangerous and who isn’t and who’s safe and who’s a menace.
[turning to the mob and shouting]
And you’re with him too – all of you! You’re standing here all set to crucify – all set to find a scapegoat – all desperate to point some kind of a finger at a neighbor! Well now look, friends, the only thing that’s gonna happen is that we’ll eat each other up alive!
Scapegoat.
Interesting word, and in the framing of the episode/contemporary issues today, a very dangerous word.
The final dialogue takes place between two aliens who are observing and, inevitably/unsurprisingly, the unnoticed instigators of the chaos which Maple Street eventually descends into:
Alien #1: They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find…and it’s themselves. And all we need do is sit back…and watch.
Alien #2: Then I take it this place…this Maple Street…is not unique?
Alien #1: [shaking head] By no means. Their world is full of Maple Streets. And we’ll go from one to the other and let them destroy themselves. One to the other… one to the other… one to the other…
This brings to mind one of the lesser-known figures of Greek mythology: Erysichthon:
So much she [Demeter] said and devised evil things for Erysikhthon. Straightway she sent on him a cruel and evil hunger–a burning hunger and a strong–and he was tormented by a grievous disease. Wretched man, as much as he ate, so much did he desire again.
[…]
…[S]o wicked Erysichthon’s appetite with all those countless feasts is stoked–and starves; food compels food; eating makes emptiness.
[…]
Yet when his wicked frenzy had consumed all sustenance and for the dire disease provision failed, the ill-starred wretch began to gnaw himself, and dwindled bite by bite as his own flesh supplied his appetite.
This is the problems with the irrationality of mobs – that their anger, rage, and appetite for what is, for the moment, the ripe and luscious fruit of justice find them consuming any and all perceived fuel… even if it those within their own group. The challenges of researching and writing accurately about major events like the Russian Civil War and Spanish Civil War reflect difficulties in large-scale and often well-documented conflicts; the shifting alliances, internal divisions, and rampant chaos discourage all but the most determined folks.
Much like today, with social and traditional media alike fueling the polarized and entrenched sides… looking for justice… looking for scapegoats… looking for the right answers/responses…
Yet here we are: reading, watching, and not really being able to change anything outside of our immediate vicinities.
However, that is exactly what is needed: local change… attendance (listening, not merely being present)… observation… consideration… and the determination to find the best path forward for everyone.
Dave recently got me to thinking about what the difference is between liberty and freedom… propaganda and influence…faith and belief… justice and justification. I can always count on him to get the creative and philosophical gears going… However, this is also what I want to leave up to the reader, rather than provide my own musings at this time: what do those pairings mean to you? It could be that events may force introspection on these themes today… tomorrow… or next year, but it is much better to ponder their personal meanings the peace of the moment rather than the chaos of the reaction.
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