Of evil and balance: Project '25, extremists, and Beowulf

In case anyone is still thinking that we educated folks are over-reacting to the Project 2025 threat, there's this, taken from Heather Cox Richardson's discussion posted last night:

The extremism of the MAGA Republicans was on display in another way today as well after The New Republic published a June 30 video of North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, currently the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, saying to a church audience about their opponents—whom he identified in a scattershot speech as anything from communists to “wicked people” to those standing against “conservatives”—"Kill them! Some liberal somewhere is gonna say that sounds awful. Too bad!... Some folks need killing! It's time for somebody to say it.”

OK, so, about that so-called paranoia? When Project 2025 outlines a plan to use military force to break up protests, it ain't gonna end well. And I have neighbors here on my street who proudly display their Trump paraphernalia. It's not like this is a problem for cities, or majority-Black areas, or whatever "shove it in the corner" thinking might cook up to distance us vs them. This is about having students of mine who are pro-MAGA. Will one of them want to prove loyalty to the Trump Flag and attack one of us teachers? It's not that far-fetched.

I worry. I try to maintain a professional "distance" from discussions in class, but since the MAGA crowd hates education, educated people, women, and those who might happen to emphasize the need for critical thinking and using peer-reviewed sources-- well, I'm a target.

That does not mean I'll stop doing my job, but it does mean that I'll spend even more time assessing what people/students/parents are saying and doing. It's unnerving.

On a good note, my essay about Maria Dahvana Headley's 2020 translation of Beowulf has already been accepted, and will be posted on MicroLit Almanac possibly Monday. That's really kind of cool, because it is not my usual type of book review; instead, it is my own musings on the text, and whether the gender of the translator has anything to do with how the narrative has been presented. Her approach truly honors the oral tradition, in that the language is fresh and contemporary, while preserving all that is good and wonderful about the musicality of the epic. The text is eminently readable, enjoyable, and often insightful. Why do the female characters react as they do? Violence by women as a response to systemic violence against women is not the usual trope --after all, Greek mythology usually vilifies Medusa, right? But I'll leave it up to you; if you pick up a copy of the book, give me a shout about what you see/think.

What a strange dichotomy, eh? My persistent and reasonable worry about MAGA adherents/extremists juxtaposed with my critical musings about an historic epic about heroes and whether they are really all that heroic. My take on Beowulf (and a few other grand texts) is that they point to the one irrefutable fact that evil cannot be defeated, only controlled. Balance will be established, one way or another.

And therein lies the resolution to my dichotomy.

C