Corona Horns
Many animals have horns and when we are confronted by the horns of a dilemma, it feels like horns are there on animals’ heads to protect them from predators. This is sometimes the case, but many times not so much. Zoologists suggest that horns exist in nature for protection in some species, but they most often exist to establish male dominance and to jockey within the species for territory and mating rights. Survival of the fittest and having big, spiky antlers or horns can be quite critical. The strong survive and flourish and the weak die off to protect the strength of future generations. All very Darwinian and notably harsh to most of us.
It is noteworthy that females of the species that occasionally do sport horns or antlers do so for only two reasons, for improved visibility (meaning to better see one another on the horizon) and to protect themselves and their charges. Males on the other hand might use their horns for protection from outsiders, but most often they use them against one another in male jousting for position and status. They sometimes seek to injure or kill their opponents, but most often prefer to just scare them away through intimidation.
Horns have a long and complicated history with humans. They are viewed, depending on the culture as some combination of evil and strength. It is not surprising that the two notions are created in that the horn is most often an instrument of domination, strength and aggression as is the case in the animal kingdom. However, man has gone a step further in identifying his need for natural dominance, he has imbued horns with a representation of salvation and immortality as horns are simply more durable than flesh. This is easily witnessed by early man in the animal horns found lying in the dust when flesh has long-since disappeared.
Egyptians saw the horn as the beginning of life. In Norse mythology, the horn is given divine connotation with attached wisdom and is used on a practical level as a Gjallarhorn or “yelling horn” to sound alarms (presumably of impending attacks or danger). By the time of the Greeks, horns took on a decidedly dualistic role, first as a symbol of largesse in the form of the Cornucopia or Horn of Plenty that is overflowing with fruit and abundance. The Greek God of wealth, Plutus, was the son of the Greek goddess of agriculture (Demeter) and both went around with a big old horn to express the bounty of the land.
But then came the Bible and its three dominant religious sects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The exploitation of excess is taught as the root of all evil and the horn takes on a sense of atonement. The book of Psalms delineates this by telling us that the horn is a symbol of honor and strength, but that when it is possessed by the arrogant, the Lord must cut it down to humble it. The horns of the arrogant are rejected by God and the horns of the righteous prevail. The meek shall inherit the earth is the outcome the Biblical authors liked most and can logically be considered the outgrowth of the exploitation of strength and plenty.
While the Bible makes references to the beast of the underworld, the anti-Christ, Satan as a fallen angel who exemplifies evil and acts as the antithesis of truth damned to the eternal fires of Hell until the final judgement. In the Book of Wisdom, the devil brings death into the world. He knew the difference between what was “righteous” and “sinful”, but cared not. Its harder, however, to prove that the Biblical devil had horns. To do so requires us to extrapolate that dragons have horns and the devil is described as serpentine and dragon-like.
In the Bahá’í Faith, that preaches the value of all religions, a malevolent, entity like the devil does not exist. The devil is simply the lower nature of man. Man has free will and can turn to good or become immersed in self-centered pursuits. Individuals who follow this path of self and do not develop spiritually are often described as satanic. The Bahá’í feel that the devil is a metaphor for the self-serving inclination within any of us. Those who follow this base nature are described as followers of “the Evil One”. Lucky for us Bahá’í Faith is Persian in its origins and can be disregarded as terroristic.
This brings me to the obvious notation that in modern imagery, the devil has horns and cloven hooves. It may be a composite of the Book of Revelations and Greek Mythology (specifically Pan, the god most associated with lust). The devil was meant to be grotesque in appearance to humans and horns and hooves did the trick quite nicely. The sheep are destined for heaven, but the goats, with their horns and aggressive ways are damned to hell.
Where am I going with all of this? Need you ask? Our beloved leader, Donald Trump is indeed on the horns of a dilemma as we speak. He can lift the lockdown earlier than recommended (assuming the individual governors don’t countermand that…which they certainly might) and get the approval of the mammon-loving portion of the American electorate (who think others will get infected, but not them and theirs) or he can listen to his scientific and medical advisors who are looking to the Chinese and South Koreans that are coming out of their crisis, and maintain the ban for the common good.
Unfortunately, Trump has proven time and again that he deserves his horns. He is the epitome of the great horned beast of mythological and biblical reference. He is the dictionary definition of self-centered self-interest. He is to a growing daily portion of the thinking public of the world, “The Evil One” who puts filthy lucre above all else. Does anyone really think he wants the economy up and running for the general good? I think not. He is doing it for his own businesses and for his own re-election purposes. He knows it was the single most persuasive argument for keeping him in power and away from all the imps of the underworld that will descend upon him once he is restored to human form from his current place of false deification on Capitol Hill.
The ultimate Corona Horn irony is that this symbol of plenty, this symbol of strength and immortality, will ultimately be the horn that gets shoved up his derrière. As the electorate realizes, as it must be as these days of idiocy and irresponsibility unfold, and as the powers that be (pick your religion, they are all the same on this point) smite the evil empire and restore upon the earth the sanctity and everlasting grace of the common man.