Perspectives on Blood Meridian - for those lamenting weak Christians in America
(Christianity)
I re-read this Cormac McCarthy classic during my trip out west last year, and found many allegories to our modern kiked society. (Spoilers Ahead)
Given some of the very yelly opinions by some on this site, as well as in my real life, about how very weak Christians are and how bad Christianity is for whites, I have been contemplating the book again. Bear with me, this going to be an effortpost
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Blood Meridian, written by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road) and published in 1985, is a brutal, poetic, and philosophical novel set in the American Southwest and Mexico during the 1840s. The story follows a teenage runaway known only as "the Kid" as he drifts through a landscape soaked in violence, pedophilia, moral sickness, homosexuality and weak religious figures. The Kid is portrayed as morally ambiguous, dumb, from a horrible background, disgusted by little and merely existing in the world like more of an animal. Eventually he joins the Glanton gang—a group of Indian scalp hunters who descend into indiscriminate killing to collect scalps they cash into the Mexican government in an effort by that country to wipe out natives. It's based on some factual events.
The novel explores the thin line between civilization and savagery, with one of its central figures, Judge Holden, embodying an obvious Satanic allegory-force of sexual violence, overt deception and nihilism. Against this, characters like the Kid show brief glimmers of conscience, but these are often weak and ineffectual.
A key thematic undercurrent is the portrayal of Christianity and Christian men as impotent in the face of overwhelming violence and chaos. Christian figures are often depicted as ineffectual, deluded, or hypocritical, unable to counter the moral void embodied by Holden. McCarthy presents a universe seemingly indifferent to Christian morality, where faith offers little protection or power.
But there is a moral to this tale. As The Kid becomes The Man in the last chapters, he is changed, encountering many figures whose lives he could effect positively. He could do good with what he has now, but he too falls into weak impotence and does nothing, takes no action to better himself, and chooses to "stay out of" situations where he could be a better person.
In his final chapter, The Man, faced with several chances to be morally righteous, declines to do so. At last, he is found by Judge Holden, who mocks him and declares his Satanic victory. The Man, cornered by Holden in the outhouse at a brothel is brutally raped and murdered by Judge Holden - the man knew he has abused children, animals and other men and women all throughout the novel. He never thought it would happen to him, and only gave small and ineffectual moments of protest throughout.
The moral of the story: if you experience the brutality and injustice of life, and still choose to shirk away from it and not stand up to the devil, he'll catch you and rape and kill you in that brothel outhouse just like he did everyone else. You don't get to escape alive and happy just because you ducked him a few times. You have to be a man, understand the immorality of your own inaction and change into a better person.
As a Christian, you have to stand up to the Satanic elements of society or Satan will simply get you in the end. You can't dodge him. You can't run. You have to fight.
"Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak." Holden says at one point. Up is down and down is up but you hear versions of this every day, even on this site, probably even in this thread eventually.
Let God call you by name. Stand up and don't sit down.
