"But spite of my treatment, and spite of my dissuasive talk of him to my neighbors, the lightning-rod man still dwells in the land; still travels in storm-time, and drives a brave trade with the fears of man." - Final sentence in The Lightning-Rod Man by Herman Melville
In the story of The Lightning-Rod Man a lightning-rod salesman knocks on the home-owner's door in the middle of a storm. This home-owner does not usually give much time to salesmen but, because it is raining outside and the man is wet, he invites him inside and proceeds to make the man feel comfortable. In the midst of the terrible thunder and lightning outside, the salesman begins with his pitch, but the home-owner counters it with his mild style of resistance. As the story progresses the salesman ratchets up his pressure trying to convince the home-owner that he must have a lightning-rod for his home and is even so brazen as to "command" the man to buy one. That, of course, is the last straw, and he physically ejects the salesman and breaks his salesman's sample lightning-rod for good measure.
The author, the Herman Melville of Moby Dick fame, lived and wrote in the 19th century, but it seems to me that his story resonates today and stands as a metaphor for pressures we experience. Many types of "lightning-rod salesman" work with their high-pressure tactics playing on our fears to persuade us of the "right" way to think. It is easy to identify a few situations which we are often confronted with:
* The economy - who is to blame, how can it be fixed, Keynesian, trickle-down, ...
* The Congress - represent interest groups, money influenced, always campaigning, ...
* China - friend, foe, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, ...
* The President - good, bad, inexperienced, brave, indecisive, not born in the US, ...
* Iraq, Afghanistan - necessary wars, pull out the troops, ...
* Universal health care - yes, no, socialistic, privatize, ...
* Social Security- in danger, easy fix, private accounts, ...
* Climate change - man-made, yes, no, ...
* The latest fad - Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, ...
* etc, etc...
I like how an old written work of literature like Melville's can be so thought-provoking. The internet hosts many sites where stories and novels can be read. The one I reference above came from www.americanliterature.com.
