And if you do, will anything happen?
The sound of one particular Blondie song plays pretty regularly in my head. It appears on the 1978 album Parallel Lines, one of the first vinyl LPs that I ever picked up. Lead singer Debbie Harry performed “One Way or Another” when she appeared on The Muppet Show in 1980, and it was that performance that led me to the album – but that’s not the song that plays on a loop in my internal sound system these days.
Will it come true, will anything happen?
Released as the b-side to the UK issue of the “Hanging on the Telephone” single, “Will Anything Happen?” is one of those deep cuts that never got much airplay back in the glory days of rock radio yet somehow lingers on the edges of memory decades later. The Jack Lee lyrics aren’t much, but it’s sometimes the very sparseness of song texts that endows them with flexibility to fit our changing circumstances.
As sung by Debbie Harry, the song shimmers with a sense of longing for truth and consequences as it portrays the relationship between the singer and the guitarist she loves. Nowadays, I hear the plaintive refrain whenever a new revelation about the unpunished crimes of the wealthy and powerful is doled out by corporate media mavens who seem to simultaneously clutch their pearls in disapproval and chortle with glee at the prospect of outrage-driven clicks and viewership.
Cartoon by Thomas Nast (1871) [Public Domain]
No rules at all
It’s amazing to watch (in the way that the aftermath of a highway pileup is watched) glitterati journalists dangle the latest “shocking revelation” about overwhelming political corruption, to see the performative reactions from celebrity opinion-havers and hoi polloi on various sides of the social media spectrum, and to witness almost nothing actually punitive happen to the powerful perpetrators. Rinse and repeat, ad nauseum. Ditto for bloody atrocities on the world stage and the seemingly unstoppable rise of plutocracy in these United States.
It turns out that a member of the White House inner circle did a thing that was absolutely and obviously illegal, brought them vast sums of filthy lucre, involved large numbers of people with insider knowledge, was actively harmful to the very demographic that most determinedly supports the former occupant of the White House, and went unreported at the time because a New York Times reporter was holding back the story so it could be leaked as a tantalizing tidbit driving interest in the new book they’ve published.
Will anything happen?
There’s this member of congress who made a name for herself by hatefully attacking LGBTQIA+ rights, by making wild accusations of treason against political opponents, and by publicly calling for the execution of her government colleagues. It just so happens that she was also instrumental in putting together the January 6 Capitol attack and has done a whole mess of stuff that would get the rest of us fired, professionally blacklisted, and perp-walked in a hot minute. Her political party continues to embrace the worst possible positions and the grossest possible people, and the opposition political party lacks the determination to do much more than tsk-tsk and use her as a bogeyman for campaign fundraising, so she simply flits from one flouting of decency and law to another.
Will anything happen?
Over in Eastern Europe, there’s this belligerent autocrat determined to redraw the continental map and restore the faded grandeur of former imperial times by shooting and bombing the infrastructure and inhabitants of his neighbor into dusty oblivion. Thanks to the instant broadcast capabilities of worldwide social media, we can witness the terror of children in real time as their homes are blasted into greasy spots by an endless barrage of airborne munitions. We can watch shaky handheld smartphone videos that show bodies rotting in the streets. But the dictator regularly drops broad hints that he’ll launch nuclear attacks if any world powers get too actively involved, so they don’t get too actively involved.
Will anything happen?
A plutocrat who was born with a good lead from third base and grew up solidly on the colonizer side of apartheid has such a silly amount of money that he can simply purchase entire social media networks when annoyed by criticism of his august personage. A non-insignificant number of Americans cheer on the idea that a multi-billionaire known for vindictive actions targeting union organizers and critics of his business leadership is exactly the person who should have personal and granular control over a platform that has major effects on national understanding of key issues. Some very sensible people have been sounding the alarm of coming consequences, but he’ll soon be able to cut off their access to an enormous audience at whim and without worry.
Will anything happen?
Frustration is the order of the day. It’s not about being offended, having hurt feelings, or complaining for the sake of complaining. It’s about frustration at the fact that, as has always been the case in human history, there is not only one rule for the wealthy and powerful and another for the rest of us – there often seem to be no rules at all for those at the top.
The larger the atrocity, the more likely it is that there will be no consequences at all. The pettiest of offenses lead to massive monetary fines, loss of income, and years in jail. The most egregious of crimes lead to nothing beyond online kvetching and its attendant result of the offender mounting a high horse to rail against their own victimization via so-called “cancel culture” that doesn’t actually cancel them at all.
Hexes and safety pins
It’s not a new phenomenon that many who feel powerless in this world turn to the otherworld for succor. The deity will judge and punish those perpetrators too powerful for the judicial and penal systems. Those who rule in this life will be overthrown into suffering in the next life. Karma – in the pop culture sense, stripped of Hindu theologies, following the prophet Lennon – is gonna get you, you rascal you.
Modern Pagans have their own way of performing this turnabout of power and powerlessness. Witches gather in circles to hex and curse and otherwise magickally blast the grifter in the White House. Offerings are made at altars with requests that deities of justice balance the scales by overthrowing those absolutely corrupted by absolute power. Drinking horns are raised at Heathen blóts as the gods are asked to strengthen the resolution of the good and bring comeuppance to the wicked.
Illustration from Magic No Mystery: Conjuring Tricks with Cards, Balls and Dice; Magic Writing, Performing Animals, &c. &c. edited by W. H. Cremer (1876) [Public Domain]
I’ve performed that last act many times, myself. When the horn comes around the circle and it’s my turn to speak, I often tie the theme of the particular gathering to events that are happening and injustices that are being forwarded. As with other things that Pagans and other people of faith do and say regarding the tragedies of our times, it is positive to have the opportunity to speak these things while surrounded by a supportive community. In the best instances, it can be therapeutic and empowering.
Whether in solo practice or in group ritual, religious rites can help us to process the inequities, to understand the injustices, to express how we are impacted by them, and to enlarge our perspective to empathize with others who are even more greatly impacted. This is an important function of religious practice, and it has true value for practitioners.
Does the value of religiosity as response end at the line of the sacred circle drawn by practitioners, or does it truly make a difference outside of that circle? Beyond therapeutic effects for the practitioners themselves, are we just doing a form of that most ineffective and overly online form of religiosity in the face of violence and horror, the sending of “thoughts and prayers”?
Several years ago, a newbie Heathen I tangentially knew online made grand proclamations on my personal Facebook page about wearing a safety pin as a sign of being an ally to victims of racism. This was in the early days of performative online allyship, when it was becoming increasingly trendy to change profile pic frames to stand with things or stand against them. This very white and very middle-class newbie was very serious about the power of the pin and the meaningfulness of declaring allyship.
When a black musician asked if the pin signified that the wearer could be depended upon to jump in and start punching neo-Nazis assaulting him on the subway, to take meaningful physical action in a moment when American racism takes raw physical and bloody form, to really be an ally at a time when lives are actually at stake and allies are desperately needed, to move from self-congratulatory hashtaggery to self-endangering reality, the newbie Heathen made a bunch of protesting noises and deflated like a helium balloon with a hole in it.
I sometimes think about that interaction when I wonder about the value of religious responses to crimes by those who fear no law or lawgiver. The wearing of the ally pin was so clearly and obviously a purely symbolic act with psychological and (in some circles) social benefits for the wearer but no real-world results at all for those who were declared the beneficiaries of the supposed allyship. It ended up becoming a symbol of inaction and self-congratulation. Can we say anything different about the religious responses within our walled-off rituals?
The Witches’ curses haven’t put a single member of the former administration in jail. The offerings haven’t led to any indictments. The speeches at blót haven’t stopped a single bomb from falling in Eastern Europe or a single plutocrat from doing whatever in the world he pleases. The consequences for the powerful are as sparse on the ground after the curses, offerings, and speeches as they were before.
Determination and innovation
So what are we doing here? Are we just comforting ourselves in a bewildering world in which we have no real power? Yes, self-expression and healing are truly important when surrounded by inequality and oppression, but is that as far as it goes?
I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that I don’t want to pat myself on the back for putting on a safety pin. I want what we do to have real-world effects that challenge the hegemony of the powerful.
The question I always come back to is one of connecting our religious beliefs and practices to action in the world. We do these things in ritual, and we take actions in the sociopolitical world we live in. It’s the bridging of the two that is key – the building of bridges between what we do in the circle and in the world.
Will anything happen?
If we want to answer that bothersome question with a resolute and resounding yes, if we want there to finally be consequences in the here and now, then we must build those bridges.
Aside from the old standbys of increasingly questionable efficacy in this bizarre era we live in – the public protest and the participation in elections controlled by two corporate parties – what is the path that leads from determination within a religious setting to real results in the world outside of that setting? Hashtivism long ago degenerated into ineffective self-parody, and the leaders we elect while hoping for consequences quickly settle into the same traditional dramatic roles and make grand speeches while letting the worst offenders do as they damn well please.
Will anything happen?
It will only happen when we find a way to let our determination drive our innovation and our allegiance to the Old Way illuminate a new path forward – a path that may, finally, lead to real consequences.
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