Weekend Short: Right-Wing Media Fratricide and Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’

Welcome to the week-end! I hope you’re well.

The days-old snow is showing signs of wear on this cloudy central Wisconsin morning, and the feline Minerva is a cinnamon roll facsimile — all curled up in her new cat campanile.

Last night was spent with family; we tubed down what Charlie informs me are “Russian Mountains,” undulating icy precursors to his beloved rollercoasters. Should you go, hang onto your hats and babes because them there runs are slicker than snot.

Alright, enough happy talk; let’s discuss fratricidal tendencies.

Published in the New Yorker in 1948, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is as hideous as it is poignant. Best known for her Gothic works, Jackson’s life can help explain her fiction’s ghoulish reputation. In short, her life was misery.

Told by a domineering mother such things as she was “the product of a failed abortion,” Shirley attended Syracuse and married the seemingly brilliant (but despicably flawed) Stanley Hyman, a man who regaled his darling dearest with stories of his extra-marital affairs throughout their marriage. While Stanley was a literature professor at Bennington College and Shirley a stay-at-home mother, it would be Shirley’s writing that would secure for them what money they made — a fact Stanley found infuriating, and acted accordingly. Shirley took to chemicals, while Stanley took to former students.

Here’s Jackson:

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took only about two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.

The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.

You can read the rest here (the narrated option is excellent).

There are many themes, but I can’t help noticing the threat our neighbors and loved ones — our community — represent. We cannot conceive of them harming us, and the betrayal hurts all the more because of it — as is so powerfully communicated by Mrs. Hutchinson’s cries, “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.”

Greed-induced betrayal was on the mind because of Steven Crowder’s insinuations and attacks against Ben Shapiro’s and Jeremy Boreing’s Daily Wire.

“Who are these people?” is a fair rejoinder. Shapiro, Boreing, and Crowder are the first names most young people interact with when first getting into conservatism. For better or worse, Louder with Crowder and the Daily Wire are giants in our space and a spat between the two organizations — where accusations of selling out is a vile smear if unsubstantiated or deceitful, as Crowder’s barbs are, is an embarrassment and risks the cause of conservatism more broadly.

For those of you unfamiliar with this right-wing controversy, Isaac Schorr (formerly of NR) encapsulates the matter capably:

“Big Tech is in bed with Big Con,” declared disappointed right-wing commentator and comedian Steven Crowder on Tuesday. “The people you thought, the people I thought were fighting for you: A lot of it has been a big con.”

That was the opening salvo in a war of words that has escalated over the week between Crowder and other media figures on the right.

At issue are a wide variety of gripes Crowder has about a contract offered to him by the Daily Wire (Crowder did not identify it in his monologue, but the Daily Wire has since acknowledged that they made the offer at the center of his rant.) Among those gripes, Crowder’s core complaint was that under the terms, the Daily Wire would act as one of Big Tech’s enforcers against him.

It’s ugly to air contractual negotiations on air, but it can be a powerful tactic. However, Crowder went well beyond the bounds of reasonable disagreement. After having the initial terms for months, Crowder released a tape of a personal conversation with Jeremy — recorded unbeknownst to a friend and ally of many years. The video of Crowder releasing the tape backfires, diminishing Steven — a guy whose pre-downloaded variety shows used to be a pleasant way to pass the time on deployments.

Media is a place of egos and limitless avarice. I shouldn’t be shocked by the Crowder revelations. But we should be better. Steven is burning friends because of line items on a $50 million contract. Shooting inside the tent so indiscriminately should never be done.

I think now of Michael’s firm but unmistakably loving response to what he perceived as grievous error from David French on the subject of gay marriage — an article that should be the standard for conduct among us.

Michael’s conclusion:

And finally, while we make distinctions between what our churches demand in our marriages and what the state does — that does not mean the state has a license to lie. And it is a lie to call the return of legally recognized concubinage marriage or progress.

Your friend,
Michael

Stones are easily found in the fields near our homes, but how much better are we for embracing our friends with heartfelt concern?

But some men can only see enemies among those nearest them.

Please do post any thoughts you may have in the comments section.