‘Much as the scientists of Copernicus’ era recognized the necessity of standardized measurement, early Americans understood that democracy, as a man-made concept, was abstract at best. Unlike the iron resolve of their former monarchy, a ‘free’ state encouraging free speech and free interpretation of the Constitution allowed for the chance that an amount of well-natured ‘silliness’ could derail the thing entirely.
Silliness, at the time, existed in a country that suffered a perpetual ‘witching hour,’ when the veil between the spirit world and the world of mortals was at its thinnest. The forests of America remained untamed and were thick with darkness and superstition- superstition being the catalyst of a good, pioneering prank. Come April 1st, farmers would dress as witches and miners would dress as ghosts and, come April 2nd, it was a coin-toss as to whether those people had gotten a good laugh or been burned at the stake.
It was with these cautionary tales in mind that the nation’s founders instituted the ‘Fool-Safe Zone,’ an acre of land and a group of families that would dedicate their bloodlines to preserving serious discussion and curating a set of understood facts, acting, essentially, as a magnetic north to America’s reality. Theoretically, when the world churned out some new madness, the States could look to the ‘Fool-Safe Zone’ much in the way we grasp desperately for the bus’ handhold as it lurches over uneven terrain. In practice, of course, the founding reality of the ‘Fool-Safe Zone’ was more like magnetic north than could be understood at its creation- neither was as fixed as was imagined.
Now, the ‘Fool-Safe Zone’ serves as the exact opposite of its intended purpose. It lives on, almost cult-like, an inbred society of humans that holds to facts as they were understood in the 1700s. It is an illustration of what might happen if we take ourselves too seriously for too long.’
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
