Epitaphs

 Like the rest of the country, I was left reeling by the horrible news of the assassination in Utah yesterday. I never saw something like this coming; and I have to confess that the tragedy doesn't fit snugly into any of my preferred political narratives. 

After all—I tend to see people like Kirk as the extremists. Yet, I can't help but notice the fact that he was the one in that stadium who appears to have been willing to have a frank and open debate. Maybe it wasn't waged in entire good faith. But still—the premise of Kirk's appearance at the university was that he was open to arguing with anyone who wanted to come up and discuss his ideas.

He was trying, then, to use ideas and words and arguments to settle our political disagreements in this country—as every citizen should (however objectionable those ideas and arguments may have been in Kirk's case). He was doing political debate the way it's supposed to be done in a free society—with passion, perhaps; but still, with speech and thought—never with fists and bullets and bombs. 

And instead of coming forward to question or debate him in the same spirit—someone shot him through the neck—killing him on the spot. 

We still don't know who that person was, or if they were even on the Left. There is good reason to think they may not have been. Kirk has also been the target of a splinter group of white nationalist extremists called the "Groypers," who accuse him of not going far enough in the direction of racism and antisemitism (even though—by normal human standards—Kirk went pretty damn far in the direction of both). 

I absolutely endorse the sentiment that politicians of both major parties have echoed since the killing: no one should ever applaud this murder; political violence is utterly toxic and destabilizing to our country; it must end now. 

At the same time—it feels like yet another feature of Trump's authoritarian consolidation of power that we now have to celebrate Kirk's memory. The whole nation has been enlisted in collective mourning for someone who was—after all—an extremely partisan and inflammatory figure. 

Flags have been ordered to be flown at half staff for the remainder of the week across the country—for someone who helped Trump organize an unsuccessful putsch and promoted the politics of white grievance and antisemitic nationalism. I can't be the only one whose skin is crawling at the spectacle.

Of the dead, speak no evil, perhaps. But speak no lies either. And yet, we are being asked to remember Kirk as if he were somehow a positive influence on our politics or a unifying figure that the whole country can grieve for—in short, to remember "Not what he was, but what he should have been"—as Byron once put it—writing of the way that epitaphs tend to fawningly eulogize some powerful but unworthy decedent.

Of course, there are many good reasons why no one should ever be crowing or gloating repulsively over Kirk's murder. For one thing—that would make us no better than Trump (who was just gloating the other day over the corpses of 11 civilians he massacred on the high seas, off the coast of Venezuela). 

But it would also be a denial of our shared humanity. Kirk held any number of reprehensible views. But he was also shockingly young at the time he was killed—only 31 years old. He was assassinated in an appallingly brutal and cowardly manner—imagine if it happened to you? Or someone you loved? And people did love him. He was a father and husband—as conservative media and the Vice President hastened to remind us yesterday. 

And yet.... "I know he was a constant consort; own / He was a decent sire [...] I grant him all the kindest can accord; —as Byron put it elsewhere, writing of the death of King George III—And this was well for him, but not for those / Millions who found him what Oppression chose.

We can say the same thing of Kirk. He may have been an excellent father and husband. That doesn't incline me to forget the fact that he tried to help overthrow our democracy in 2020 and was instrumental in converting America's mainstream conservative party into a vehicle for the antisemitic, racist far right. Part of me, then, is inclined here to echo the epitaph that Hugh MacDiarmid once wrote on an "Army of Mercenaries" (in response to Housman's): It is a God-damned lie to say that these / Saved, or knew, anything worth a man's pride... etc. 

But—it's worth recalling that even Byron's "Vision of Judgment"—on the fate of the loathed monarch—did not end with the damnation of King George. Even though Byron was a pronounced political foe of the king—and sought to mock in his verse the fawning adulation that Southey had heaped on the dead monarch in his own "Vision of Judgment"—Byron still has the king enter at last through the pearly gates. 

It is a large economy / In God to save the like; but if he will  / Be saving, all the better; as Byron wrote. And we say the same of Kirk. 

What redeems him in my eyes is not what he said and believed—but that he was willing to entertain objections to it. Not the position he took in debates—but the fact that he was willing to have a debate at all. That's undoubtedly what we need in this country, if we are going to overcome our divisions with resort to ideas instead of violence. For that, I can respect Kirk.

Faced with people who wanted to settle arguments with a bullet to the throat—Kirk instead tried to frankly debate the issues on the merits—using reason and thought. In doing so, he modeled what is best in a tradition of free thought, free speech, and free inquiry that is supposed to be central to our democratic political order. Anyone who was at least willing to settle his political disagreements with words instead of violence cannot have been all bad.

So that's my Vision of Judgment in the present case. Just as Byron would ransom the king from the pits of Hell, I don't see who would have any right to withhold redemption in Kirk's case. To quote Browning's "The Lost Leader": Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us / Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne!