Post-Reading, but Pre-Movie Thoughts on A Wrinkle in Time

So, I finished reading A Wrinkle in Time with the Girl. We'll be seeing the movie this weekend. I'm sure the movie will be a visually stunning work of art, however ...

We liked the story a lot, but I can totally see why they're making it now, and why, by the trailers, I'm going to HATE the movie.

But here's the thing, and I feel like having read the book, I have a better understanding of the left and it's inability to see the right's position.

In the book, the darkness, the evil, which must be fought, is the Dark Thing. Understanding little else about it, all the protagonists, and the readers, need to know is that it is hate, or at least, it is devoid of love.

How does this hate materialize when a world has been taken over by the Dark Thing? What does it look like for love to hold back the shadow? The author's interpretation of love's materialization is what the left thinks it is. However, the left is blind to the materialization of hate in it's quest to see a planet of love and light. 

What does it look like for the Dark Thing to have won? We see it on Camazotz. Everyone is the same there. Everyone moves in the same rhythm. They are described by the author thusly:

"... and though their features were as different one from another as the features of men on earth, there was also a sameness to them."

Earlier in the book, the children meet the "Happy Medium" and learn that the Dark Thing shadows the earth. There, they are challenged to think of the individual's in human history who have been lights which have cut through the darkness. Religious figures, artists and scientists round out the list. People who came along and were different than the societal norm around them, and that difference change the norm, changed the rhythm everyone was living in.

There are several references to individuality throughout the book. Mrs. Whatsit assures Mrs. Murry of her goodness as a mother in letting Charles Wallace, "be himself". I believe it is also Mrs. Whatsit who tells the children that life is like a Sonnet - it is strictly encompassed by some rules - the rules which make a sonnet a sonnet and life that which it is - but that within those boundaries, it is up to you to make it what you want.

So, while love is the light which dispels darkness, it comes through individuals and the greatest love is letting people be who they are.

But, when they go to Camazotz, the planet which gave itself over to the Dark Thing, every one is the same. There is diversity of feature, but they all act the same - they all move to the rhythm set by IT. And, the way to resist being brought into the collective is to not fall in line with the pulse and rhythm of IT. Here is where the left is blind.

The left champions the individual in so much as they champion breaking free from the Christian social norms which once held a greater sway over our society. "Let them be who they are" is their mantra so, the left sees themselves as the champions of light cutting through the darkness of "hate".

They focus on the confine of sameness dictated from that construct, "we don't want that sameness". But, they fail to see the sameness that they do want. They fail to see the ways in which hate has them too. I expect the movie to make a big focus of the materializations of "love" and "hate", but what about the reasoning of the Dark Thing for making everyone the same?

Through the man with the red eyes, the Dark Thing spoke, "For why should you wish to fight someone who is here only to save you from your pain and trouble? For you, as well as for the rest of all the happy, useful people of this planet, I, in my own strength, am willing to assume all the pain, all the responsibility, all the burdens of thought and decision."

Through Charles Wallace, the Dark Thing spoke, "You don't understand what a wonderful place we've come to. You see, on this planet everything is in perfect order because everybody has learned to relax, to give in, to submit."

And,

"On Camazotz we are all happy because we are all alike. Differences create problems."

And,

"Why do you think we have wars at home? Because they all live their own, separate, individual lives. I've been trying to explain to you in the simplest possible way that on Camazots individuals have been done away with. Camazotz is one mind. It's IT. And, that's why everybody's so happy and efficient."

And,

"Nobody suffers here."

And,

"But that's exactly what we have on Camazotz. Complete equality. Everyone is exactly alike."

While the book clearly means to break alikeness and the left has done it in so far as deconstructing Christianity's hold on society, the left has missed how it's intolerance of what they have deemed "intolerant", is creating a rhythm, a pulse of conformity that stifles individuality.

The left shot past individuality and is now demanding a collective of "peace" and conformity. A collective where the individual can still be a blue haired, gender queer, pansexual feminist, but where collectively, no one is allowed to question it. A collective forced acceptance of only one kind of individualism, and the left does not see how it is the women standing in the doors of all the same houses, calling in children who play to one rhythm.

The scary loss of individualism in Camazotz is not that they, despite different features, all look the same. It's that there is one mind and no room for anyone to be outside the dictated rhythm of life on that planet.

Camazotz is continually described as being a planet which wasn't overcome by the Black Thing, but one which submitted to it. And, while one would wonder how that happened, one need not ponder it beyond the reasoning the Dark Thing gives to the children.

Stop fighting this, submit to the collective oneness. You'll be happy, safe, and taken care of.

Except, unlike Meg, who saves Charles Wallace by loving him when she (not others) found him unlovable, I see no love for the unlovable, who are unwilling to submit to the rhythm the left is setting. I see, hear, feel ... only hate.

All through the book, it is the individual who is the light which breaks through the darkness of collectivism. If the darkness is forced acceptance of certain kinds of individualism, forced acceptance of progressive ideals for a global world of "peace" and "equality", then the lights are those who are currently resisting submission to it.

Be warriors, keep shinning.