No One Mourns the Wicked: Ironclad Irony and Idiocy
20 days ago a young man was assassinated in front of his own children and a crowd of several thousand people on a college campus in Utah. Almost spontaneously, our "progressive" brethren broke out in thunderous celebration for the death of this man; posting fictitious quotes attributed to him and calling him every manner of slander the left is capable of summoning as an insult against their opponents. One of the more fascinatingly ironic facts of that phenomena for me personally, was a massive increase in downloads of/ internet searches for the song "no One Mourns the Wicked", from the titled movie "Wicked" which was released just a year ago. The lyrics proclaim that the wicked die alone, the wicked's life is lonely, etc.; much to the delight of the liberals who played the song in celebration.
However the irony of them playing this song as a celebration of that man's death is overwhelming to those of us who have seen the movie and know the story that it represents. The entire purpose of that song is meant as an underhanded slight at the character known as Glinda the good.
The story of Wicked is about a woman who is seen as an outcast because of things she cannot change about herself, which causes her to see reality more clearly than those around her; who see everything through the emerald colored glasses of obedience to a narrative, rather than by rational thought. Indeed, the story tells us of the great lengths that the government went through in order to force people into obedience and compliance with their fictional narrative: banning certain professors from teaching, silencing all dissent, promoting propaganda from the central office of governance, seeking out people to exploit in the name of the state, and finally; proclaiming anyone who would not bend the knee to a false "wizard" as wicked and enemies of the state. While that storyline may hold echoes on both sides of the political spectrum, it is important to remember that the person who is called "Wicked", is not actually wicked. She is one who sees the truth in the world around her, and constantly seeks to protect the innocent, engage people in discussion to see the truth of the world, and to stand against a corrupt government which seeks to silence her so it may maintain its power and corruption.
In short, one should always be cautious who we proclaim to be "wicked", as we celebrate their demise. It may very well be that we are the wicked ones in this story, who prefer comfortable lies to inconvenient truth.
In the words of the film and play's writers: we cannot allow "good" to simply be a word, it has to mean something.