We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar… (From “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot)
Shortly after news broke of Pope Francis' passing, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted to social media: “Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.” She named no names, provided no context, offered no clarification, she didn't have to. Her audience, primed by relentless moral absolutism, understood her implication perfectly.
It’s tempting to dismiss her statement as fringe rhetoric or a fleeting provocation. Yet, such dismissal overlooks the unsettling reality behind these stark words. They reveal something deeper and more perilous, a phenomenon in which the human mind is gradually hollowed out, emptied of empathy, reflection, and reason, replaced instead with a rigid belief system dividing existence into simplistic categories of holy and evil, salvation and damnation.
We find ourselves in an age that equates conviction with clarity and mistakes certainty for wisdom. Somewhere along the line, we ceased viewing figures like Greene as merely controversial politicians or combative personalities and began seeing them as symbols, empty vessels drained of nuance and filled with narratives that promise simple answers and unconditional justification.
But how does someone become hollowed out this way? It doesn’t occur overnight. People rarely awaken spontaneously to moral absolutism or the casual forecasting of apocalyptic outcomes. Instead, it begins quietly, often from a place of fear, fear of loss, fear of change, fear of irrelevance. This fear breeds a desire for control, and when the world feels chaotic, binary thinking offers comforting simplicity. Label something as “evil,” and you can confront or destroy it. Declare yourself on the side of God, and your righteousness feels unassailable. Such logic is intoxicating when the world appears incomprehensible.
In uncertainty’s vacuum, simplistic narratives provide shelter, not complex, human stories filled with nuance and contradiction, but clear-cut tales with heroes and villains, good versus evil, us against them. Greene’s message wasn’t just political commentary; it was ritualistic incantation, a tribal signal, a declaration of alignment, an act designed to consolidate power and eliminate ambiguity.
The trouble with speaking in absolutes is that it quickly becomes addictive. Absolutes eliminate doubt and ambiguity, transforming opponents into monsters and personal errors into acts of divine inspiration. Every step into such moral rigidity leaves less room for humility, contradiction, or basic humanity. Opponents cease to be fellow humans with differing perspectives, they become obstacles blocking divine intent. Death is no longer mourned; it’s celebrated.
This hollowing-out process is ancient, but modern technology accelerates it exponentially. Social media algorithms do not reward nuance or introspection; they thrive on outrage, moral superiority, and performative certainty. For those who've already exchanged complexity for absolutism, these platforms amplify and incentivize dehumanization.
We’re witnessing a subtle yet profound spiritual corrosion. It doesn't announce itself through overt violence or obvious conflict. Instead, it quietly erodes empathy, transforming people into mere slogans, replacing open-ended questions with definitive proclamations, substituting genuine community for ideological congregations, and trading the complexities of politics for apocalyptic prophecy. Greene exemplifies this corrosive transformation, but she is hardly alone. The hollowing out of our public discourse is pervasive, leading inevitably toward a slow but steady unpersoning of opponents, until even their deaths become cause for applause.
What's left when someone reaches this extreme? Little more than a hollow echo chamber of self-assured righteousness, a shell that might once have been filled with curiosity, caution, or even compassion. In its place stands a figure who no longer perceives human beings but sees only symbols. Such a transformation is alarming, far more dangerous than any individual controversial statement, because public figures set examples. Their rhetoric guides others down the same troubling path, constructing a world where cruelty masquerades as courage and empathy is dismissed as weakness or betrayal.
We don't need to guess where this path leads, history is littered with examples, and none end well.
What troubles me most isn't solely Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal beliefs. Rather, it's the millions who hear her and nod along, not because they’re inherently evil, but because they, too, have become hollow. Stripped of hope, battered by relentless change, desperate for meaning, they've latched onto narratives offering absolute certainty. These stories assure them they're the chosen ones, while everyone else represents an existential threat.
We're at a critical juncture, not because we have profound disagreements, but because we've lost the ability to disagree within the bounds of shared humanity. When death is met with celebration, complexity dismissed as weakness, and differing opinions portrayed as evil, the structure we inhabit ceases to resemble democracy. Instead, it becomes a house of delusions, a perpetual war of reflections, a house of mirrors we mistake for windows.
Unless we choose to look anew, not just outwardly at the world around us, but inwardly at ourselves, we risk losing more than arguments. We risk losing the very soul of the country.
Disclaimer: Jim Powers writes Opinion Columns. Views expressed in this editorial are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Polk County Publishing or its affiliates. In the interest of transparency, I am politically Left Libertarian.
