Reading through an article about Congress’s Facebook inquisition, marveling over their audacity to erect yet another facade of omniscience that few will bother – or be safely permitted – to look behind, I was drawn to my growing conviction that Wizard of Oz is the most brilliant metaphor of the fallacy of government power ever imagined.
Through the eyes of a child, the Wizard, amidst all his noise and fire and green-ness, is scary at first, and then – admittedly, even to a child – somewhat disappointing when he tums out to be just a man. But children are forgiving, and in the end the man is erudite and eloquent and publicly contrite. He is perhaps a little bumbling, but lovingly so. If not able to grant each character what they think they lack, he at least helped them – the Lion, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow – to recognize what each always had all along. And if he could not actually bring Dorothy home, he seemed utterly sincere in his intention to do just that: “an old Kansas man myself!” And of course Dorothy finds herself, in the end, home and surrounded by everyone who loves her. A warmer ending to a story, a child will not find.
And throughout this very wam ending, there was the Wizard, ever in view, ever a strong and convincing image as the world was made right.
The Wizard, of course, did nothing at all for any of the story’s protagonists, and nothing for any permanent resident of Oz, neither munchkin nor man. And yet everyone was convinced that only he, the great and powerful, could solve their hardest problems.
To some degree he even convinced them that they had problems to begin with. Take this witch. What did she want? Well shoes of course! She was just a girl who was temporarily insane over fashion. And yet, the Wizard made her out to be some terrible force who needed to be vanquished if ever Dorothy was to go home again. More repugnantly, he actually sent this girl on a mission which required her to trespass on the Witch’s property and steal one of her prized assets. The result was that the broom was good for nothing, the witch – scary, but innocent – was unfairly dead, and the wizard was no more able to grant wishes than he ever was (if ever a wizard he was).
Consider the momentos he granted in place of fulfilling the wishes. A diploma and a medal and a government issued heart-shaped clock. The very act of dispensing these momentos carries the implication that the Lion now is courageous, Scarecrow smart, and Tin Man feeling because the authoritarian government has acknowledged it so, through public ceremony.
The Wizard has an anthem. “He is the wonderful Wizard of Oz, if ever a Wiz there was, he is, the Wizard of Oz, because because … because, because of the wonderful things he does.” What wonderful things? There are none. More to the point: that this conjurer of cheap tricks is praised in song in the first place is outrageous.
The anthem, the public ceremony, the imposing theatrics, the imagined threat of the witch, the Emerald City all combine to create the mythology of the Wizard and the state apparatus he represents. The final critical ingredient for this mythology to transform the state into something truly powerful and potentially oppressive is belief. The people must believe that the Wizard is their master, and that he really is wise, and that his will must be obeyed. And in fact, that has occurred. In some distant past, before Dorothy and her dog dropped in from Kansas, the residents of this land bought into all of it.
But Dorothy is new here. She has not bought into any of the Wizard’s mythology. She is not intimidated by his fire and noise. She is much more interested in people’s actions than their appearances – no matter how scary looking. Consequently, she eventually confronts this Wizard in a way nobody else ever had: she holds him accountable for his actions. This Wizard has said he could help her go home if she brings him the witch’s broom. She does her part and she believes he will now uphold his end… until Toto tugs at the green curtain.
And then, she knows he is a fraud, and whatever power he thought he had simply vaporizes.
After the Wizard is exposed for what he is: just a man, we realize how tenuous and fragile this man’s power, and by extension that of the state (Oz), actually is or was. His power depended on a false alter ego inflated to stupefying proportions, large and loud and terrible enough to scare anyone from ever questioning his authority and omniscience. In the end, however, it really just was inflation. He was undone by a Cairn Terrier, a young girl, and her three misfit friends. All they did was hold him accountable and then recognize the truth when they saw it.
The modern state, as illustrated by the case of Facebook, is no different. And it is just one of countless examples. Facebook is not a problem because people are not required to use it. And for those who do, there is no requirement to post embarrassing, risky, or otherwise compromising personal information. The only required fields are name and email address and those can be faked. Just like the witch in Wizard of Oz, Facebook is not a threat to people in any way. But Congress says it is and they say that only they can protect us. Their credibility rests on their own mythology of omniscience, which was tested when the great and powerful congress people of Washington forcefully compelled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to come before them and confess his “sins.” The green curtain was pulled back. These guys were idiots asking dumb questions about something over which they have no knowledge. Just like the wizard who was unexpectedly confronted with the broom he said he needed, these Washingtonian fakers had no idea how to maintain their fragile persona of all-knowingness once they had to talk authoritatively about this topic in public with someone who actually is an authority. Their intent was to create imagery of a young man, presumed guilty, hanging his head in shame before their great and powerful and righteous assembled selves. Just like the wizard, they wanted to scare him away with fire and noise, without any challenges to their false authority. And I guess, that unlike the Wizard, Congress succeeded.
That Zuckerberg apparently folded is too bad but not surprising. We can’t all be Dorothy. He did not concede because he recognized that the government actually stood on the moral high ground. I assume he was just being pragmatic. Like thousands of companies before him, he agreed to surrender terms rather than engage in a battle that would potentially drag on for years and cost millions. It’s disappointing, because a guy like Zuckerberg could actually have had a shadow of a chance in a prolonged fight. And maybe others would have joined: like a me too movement against regulatory predators.
Probably not, but we can dream.
For now, just enjoy the film, which is brilliant foremost because it is a marvelous story – above and beyond any political metaphor we may find.
And when not watching the film, seek the Wizard of Oz, all of his smiling, blustering, slyly endearing self, in every publicly funded action you see. Ye shall find.