Following the bitter election contest in Heaven — which was purportedly poisoned by massive fraud — Satan found himself in Hell, literally.
One of the first things he did was to call a meeting of his followers.
He call’d so loud, that all the hollow Deep
Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates,
Warriers, the Flowr of Heav’n, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can sieze
Eternal spirits; or have ye chos’n this place
After the toyl of Battel to repose
Your wearied vertue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav’n?
I am here extrapolating certain facts from Paradise Lost, the 1667 epic poem by John Milton, and I will readily admit that I may have formed some mistaken impressions. For one thing, Milton’s spelling is atrocious, to say nothing of his grammar. But the general idea, I think, is that Satan wanted to hear from his closest political advisors: what went wrong…? and where do we go from here? They had botched the election — or maybe, had it stolen? — and the Heavenly Father was secure on His Throne.
Can we turn this thing around?
Satan didn’t just call a select few to attend the meeting, however. Everyone was invited. When you want things to feel ‘democratic’, you invite everyone, and Satan wanted — more than anything, I think — to appear democratic. But he wasn’t stupid enough to allow ‘public comment’. When you have a certain agenda, you want to limit the conversation as much as possible, to your selected consultants.
Milton wasn’t entirely clear (as far as I can understand the story) about whether the fallen angels were allowed to participate via Zoom. But we are, after all, talking about Hell… so probably.
As the story goes, Satan has an agenda. No doubt about that. But he wants this thing to be a group decision, or at least appear that way. He opens the floor to debate, and four arch-demons step up to present their strategies. Moloch advocates “open Warr”. But of course, that’s pretty much the strategy that had landed them all in the fiery lake in the first place.
Belial, apparently something of a cynic, recommends that they just wait around, act like nothing really happened, and see if God will forget about the whole mess and welcome them back upstairs.
Mammon says they ought to forget about returning to Heaven, and build an empire in Hell instead.
Beelzebub proposes that they send a demon to Earth to seduce and corrupt ‘Man’… this new animal God seems so proud of… created in His own image.
The issue is put to a vote, and the majority favors Beelzebub’s plan. Someone will go to Earth and trick Adam and Eve into royally screwing up their club membership in the Garden of Eden. Looking back on human history, we can see how the whole thing has turned out. If revenge is sweet, Satan and his followers have been eating dessert for a long, long time.
But what’s most interesting to me about this story is the idea of allowing public debate, at a meeting. In Hell, no less.
Probably, Satan was already in agreement with Beelzebub — that messing with Adam and Eve would be equivalent to poking God in the eye with a sharp stick. But Satan nevertheless allowed his followers to cast their ballots.
Certain scholars, who claim to be able to understand Paradise Lost in spite of the challenging spelling and grammar, have argued that Satan manipulated the vote.
On the other hand, maybe Satan was simply really good at running a meeting.
Some Daily Post readers may have attended a meeting over the past year? After working out most of the bugs, our community leaders have figured out how to allow us to watch them make their decisions through Zoom, and the amount of attendance at these meetings (based on what I can discern from my home computer) has occasionally been rather astounding. Like, dozens of people, watching a three-hour meeting where almost nothing gets decided.
Personally, I hate meetings. According to an article in 1843 Magazine, “On any given weekday some 50 million meetings are held in American workplaces alone. The average executive now spends 23 hours in them each week, a figure that has more than doubled since the 1960s…”
Thank heavens I’m not an executive.
Especially, I hate Zoom meetings. For so many reasons, but mainly because I can’t tell if the people in the meeting are still wearing their pajama bottoms. A meeting is bad enough when you can actually see what pants people are wearing.
But the worst meetings are when everyone agrees. I ask, honestly: What’s the point in having a meeting, if you aren’t going to argue?
No point at all, I’d say.
At every meeting, we desperately need someone advocating “open Warr”, and someone else suggesting that we do nothing at all. Someone should advocate building an empire in Hell. And somebody else ought to propose the corruption of all humankind as the best possible solution.
Most of all, we need Satan running the meeting.
So we can all get a chance to vote.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.