Sometimes I envy authors of fiction, who are free to create characters to illustrate whatever points they want to make.
My wife and I are reading a series of novels by C. J. Box about Joe Pickett, a game warden in Wyoming. The stories take me down memory lane. Years ago, I drove most of the highways described in these novels. I see in my mind the high desert and the mountains in Box’s books. I feel the intense cold of winter storms he describes. I smell the sweet aromas of mountain meadows in spring. I hear elk bugling in the fall. I see pronghorn antelope running through sagebrush. And I remember listening to landowners curse the oppressive bullying they endured from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) bureaucrats.
Authority over others too often brings out the primal beast in those who hold positional power. Particularly destructive are individuals who thrive on hassling people who cannot resist because of the power of the Federal Government that enables such bullies. Box’s depiction of a slimy, regional EPA director in the book we just finished elicits a visceral disdain for this despicable man. Particularly satisfying was reading how, in the end, he got exactly what he deserved. Unfortunately, in real life, administrators often get away with abusing people. I have witnessed it too often. Such cruelty in Christian organizations seems particularly egregious to me, because I have higher expectations for standards of ethics and morality in these organizations.
Power corrupts, and I learned the hard way that women can be as abusive as men when they gain positional power. Perhaps someday I will write stories about diminutive tyrants in the academic workplace who gleefully torment those who physically could squash them like bugs. They remind me of my experiences with frail little kids in public schools who ingratiated themselves to playground bullies. Because they knew their bully friends would protect them, these little tyrants enjoyed hassling others. As a kid, I found such behavior to be infuriating and disgusting. As an adult, I never changed my mind on the matter. I have a special disdain for bullies—both for the big brutes who exert their physical power and for the weak little people who flaunt their positional power. If I ever write a novel, such characters in my book will get what they deserve in the end. In that regard, fiction is more satisfying than real life.
Cosby Cogitations 