#982: Loopy to the Tonsils, Barmy to the Back Teeth

Depending on who you ask, April 8 could go one of two ways. It will either be when a total solar eclipse happens, putting on a show for the roughly 44 million people who live within the eclipse’s path, or it will be the end of the world . . . which brings to mind a fabulous pre-rap song by the rock group R.E.M. (Each stanza ends with the lyric “Its the end of the world as we know it . . . but I feel fine.”

During a total solar eclipse, some places on Earth are entirely shielded from the sun by the moon for a few minutes. In North America, the eclipse will start on the Pacific coast of Mexico and travel a diagonal path northeast across the U.S. before leaving the continent shortly before 4 p.m. ET. The U.S. won’t see another total eclipse for the next 20 years. I for one have yet to experience this astronomic marvel. Luckily however they do occur far more frequently than most people could imagine. I have read that they occur somewhere on the globe approximately every 16 months. So, perhaps one of these days, Annie and I will take a cruise and, armed with eclipse glasses, partake in the phenomenon.

Maddeningly, there are millions of people right here in the good old USA who are as frightened as Macbeth before Banquo’s ghost that tomorrow’s TSE spells doom and destruction for us all; that it is a portent that we are all about to be punished for the sins of others. How in the hell is this possible? From whence comes such loopy fear and dread? The answer can be stated in 2 words: conspiracy hucksters - men and women who seek their fortunes and get their jollies out of peddling miracle cures, warning about the enemies in our midst and paving their paths by warning their victims that anyone who disagrees with them are, in fact, the true conspirators. This is the world of Alex Jones and NewsMax, QAnon and the “Watch the Water” charlatans.

Alex Jones, for example, is claiming that the government is planning to use the event as a practice run for declaring martial law during the eclipse, which will allegedly be enacted if former president Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. And of course, it’s not just Jones. As Quartz reports, there are quite a few people on TikTok claiming the solar eclipse will mark the end of the world, drawing nonsensical parallels to biblical events. And apparently Carbondale, Illinois (population 25,000) is predicted to be doomsday's epicenter, because it sits at the center of an X of the totality paths from both this year's eclipse and the one that graced North America in 2017.

Then, there is a popular theory that the solar eclipse will pass over several towns named Nineveh in the U.S. and Canada. Depending on the post, some have said it’s six towns, others say it’s seven or eight. People propounding this inanity on social media claim it’s notable because Nineveh is also the name of a town that the biblical figure Jonah, visited, and some double down to suggest that an eclipse happened during the biblical visit too. From here, it’s just a hop-skip-and-jump to suggesting that this is a sign from God.

To Sir Pelham Grenville (P.G.) Wodehouse, KBE, one of my absolute favorite British authors, these conspiracy hucksters are either “Loopy to the Tonsils,” or “Barmy to the Back Teeth.” And yet, despite what “Plummie” (Wodehouse’s nickname) thinks of them, people hawking various end-of-the-world hell-broths, are hauntingly successful. “How’s that?” you ask. “What kind of fools could find an evil conspiracy or divine portent in a TSE?” The same kind of people who believe that the 2020 election was rigged, that no chiidren were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, and those who, against virtually every shred of scientific proof, continue “knowing” that the earth is flat.

According to a June 2023 article in psypost.org, “a flat-earther is someone who will have a low level of scientific culture but who nonetheless considers him/herself as someone with a high level of scientific knowledge.” It is terribly difficult for those who tend to find truth in science to understand that no amount of facts are likely to change the minds of flat-earthers or others addicted to the “truths” espoused by lunatics. Conspiracy hucksters, to my way of thinking, are in serious violation of one of the Bible’s most grievous taboos: that of “putting a stumbling block in the path of the blind.” (וְלִפְנֵ֣י עִוֵּ֔ר לֹ֥א תִתֵּ֖ן מִכְשֹׁ֑ל - Lev. 19:14). Those who are in the “stumbling block business” are, to my way of thinking, doing a toxic disservice to a frightened, confused and often grossly unsophisticated segment of society. By their very nature, these merchants of intellectual mayhem are arming their minions to go off to fight a war that will fill their coffers while flattering their egos. And with the geometric growth of social media and now A.I., it is going to become even harder to open the eyes of the blind or the ears of the deaf.

The Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum notes in her must-read 2020 work Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism:

People have always had different opinions. Now they have different facts . . . .
The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, and offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. For those who become the one-party state’s gatekeepers, the repetition of these conspiracy theories also brings another reward: power.”

To a great extent, these loopy-to-the-tonsils, barmy-to-the-back-teeth conspiracy hucksters are the modern-day equivalent of the Roman Emperors of old: doling out bread and circuses as an expedient means of pacifying discontent, diverting attention away from real, demonstrable truths, and making it safe for autocrats to have their way. There are but 211 days to go until America goes to the polls. (Yes, I know; many of us will be casting and mailing off ballots days - even weeks - before November.) The best strategy I can suggest is that the forces of democracy make a continuous showing on the air, the waves, and the internet repeatedly holding up a megawatt spotlight on the blatant mistruths, the shirking of duty, the utter lack of patriotism, and humility displayed in both words and deeds by the challenger versus the incumbent. For now, more than ever, we need leaders whose conscious allegiance and loyalty are to the Constitution, not a self-professed, would-be dictator.

And for those who will get to see the Total Solar Eclipse . . . drop me a line and tell me all about it! (For those who ask “Rabbi, Is there a proper blessing for observing a solar eclipse?”, I’m afraid the answer is “No . . . just be cautious and feel the power of the universe!”