Tonight I’m working on a play I plan to enter in the John Cullum competition. Although the play is historical, I hope to bring into some of the themes that concern me regarding contemporary politics, domestic opposition and dissent, free speech, and the necessity of protecting unpopular ideas and opinions. Could there have been a more radicalized time in American history when a free media (press) and expression most represented a “clear and present” danger? In East Tennessee this conflict was likely as sharp as anywhere in the country.

I want the play, therefore, to challenge the current social acceptance of the notion that one can shut down argument by appeal to emotion or inevitability–both, forces of the mob rather than the authority of reason. A major source of their strength is the desire by so many for comity over all else. A good section of people would prefer, for example, that the person in front of them in line ignore that he has been over-charged in a transaction, rather than disrupt the orderly flow of progress past the register.

These folks are those who would say of Mussolini, “At least he made the trains run on time.”

Although an individual may dam a stream, rebelling (effectively) against the ocean is another matter. They hyper-linked 21st Century has fewer eddies and yearns to become one enormous tide.