One of the many things I love about America is how big and differentiated it is. Federalism is not simply an instrumental convenience, a practical subdivision of our political order into administrative units. It is, rather, an essential part of our politics and of our culture, sustaining a polity with overall unity but, within it, great variety. States and their residents rightly pride themselves on their differences, their rivalries, their peculiarities.
It will come as little surprise to National Review readers who have encountered some of my stranger work that some of my favorite peculiarities about the states are the weird things and paranormal phenomena associated with each one. Every once in a while, for example, maps will circulate online showing a given state’s most-famous paranormal creature or some such. And I am here for it. I take pride in my own home state’s esoterica (one of my prized possessions is a book called Weird Ohio). And anytime I go to a new place, I try to figure out what strange stuff is associated with it. I’m a Front Porch cryptozoologist.
As a result of my “studies,” I knew that one of the strangest things about Georgia is its bizarre stone monument known as the “Georgia Guidestones.” Erected in rural Georgia in 1980, the Stonehenge-like configuration bears strange, cryptic messages, in multiple languages, about living in harmony with nature at a sustainable population and entering an “Age of Reason.” The identity of the builders is unknown, save for the name “Robert C. Christian,” who purportedly worked on behalf of a “small group of loyal Americans” to put the thing up. It’s an extremely mysterious structure (which is also an astronomical calendar); allegedly, it offers a kind of plan for rebuilding humanity after a future cataclysm. More-wild theories than that exist about the thing. And it has attracted its share of detractors over the years, being denounced both in Georgia and elsewhere as some kind of demonic conduit or as a keystone in various conspiracies, such as that old chestnut, the “New World Order.”
Well, all of the above description should be in the past tense, because the Georgia Guidestones are no more, as Diana Glebova reported for us. After an explosion destroyed part of the structure, the state government took down the rest, “for safety reasons.” Culprits are still being sought, but it seems likely that the structure’s controversial reputation (it has been vandalized before over the years) and place in conspiracy-theorist lore sufficed to ensure its destruction.
Though I found the structure’s messages (and overall existence) weird, I do not subscribe to any of the malicious theories about its purpose. So while I would not put it up myself, neither would I have participated in its demolition. Indeed, my abiding fondness for America’s variety of particularistic weirdness had made me want to visit the thing. Now, unless “Robert C. Christian” rebuilds it, I won’t get the chance. Oh well. It’s a big country, and there’s still plenty of weird stuff scattered throughout it. As for Georgia, well . . . anyone want to go search for Altamaha-ha with me?