The Singer or the Song?

There are many forms of communication. Animals are said to communicate using signals, of which there is a wide variety, the common types being: pheromones, auditory, visual, and tactile cues. (cf. KhanAcademy ) According to an article in the May, 2014 edition of Scientific American, "we have yet to find direct evidence of [pheromones] in humans." That said, there can be no doubt that human beings employ auditory, visual and tactile forms of communication. A hug helps to make one feel loved, a smile cheers one up, and how welcome it is to hear the voice of another when we feel alone? Or, as the great Les Dawson quipped, "I haven't spoken to my mother-in-law for two years. We haven't quarreled. I just don't like to interrupt her."

For all the technological wonders of this information age, can there ever be any greater achievement than the acquiring of language? Human language: spoken with so many different tongues, seemingly infinitely adaptable and yet readily understandable. The great tragedians of Ancient Greece wrote their works of wonder in a language no longer spoken, yet they are still read and enjoyed and hugely influential in our present day. Where would modern psychology be but for Freud's formulation of the Oedipus Complex, where computer hacking but for the Trojan horse; where the development of AI without the Deus ex Machina? (Deus ex Machina: the language may be Latin, but the original concept was Greek. Cf. TV Tropes)

What need for pheromones when we have language?

Yet, for all its rich variety, language is, frustratingly, also a sometimes too complex way of basic communication. For example: 'The passerby helps dog bite victim.' Of course, in normal communication between human beings such ambiguities are avoided in our desperate desire to be understood. Hence we rarely listen to the great poets for they perplex us with their delight in endless meaning. Keats, for instance, with his "still unravish'd bride of quietness,"-  teasing us to decode his meaning.

Language may be the pinnacle of human achievement but it is also too often the bane of our lives.

How about another example? In most Western cultures, if one uses the word 'alien' there will be little confusion; it will be understood that one is talking of the possible existence of lifeforms beyond this planet. But, in American culture, things are not quite so straightforward. Does the word 'alien' refer to extraterrestrial life or Mexicans? Let's face it, a willingness to fork out anything up to $15bn for a wall represents a serious fear of alien invasion. And with kidnapping almost a national past-time in Mexico, the fear of alien abduction is so real that the US State Department warns U.S. citizens about it on their website.

So, when Duane Barry fearfully tells Dr. Hakkie that "They're coming again. They're coming again, I can feel it", one is left to wonder why he isn't taken more seriously.

But, of course, the singer of this song is not what he is thought to be. A former FBI agent, Barry was shot in the line of duty, "the bullet piercing his bilateral frontal lobes." To, erm, 'Gage' from history, it is natural to assume this wounding will have dire consequences on Barry's very identity as a human being. Certainly, Scully is ready to accept that Duane Barry, rather than being controlled by aliens, is in fact more likely to just be a pathological liar, prone to acting out his fantasies.

In a sense, the X Files itself is the acting out of a fantasy - the belief that beings from distant galaxies are, for their own nefarious reasons, interfering with life here on Earth.

If this is your reading of the X Files, if you buy into this idea as a record of actual events, it is the song that you are listening to. If, on the other hand, you are willing to read the metaphor, recognise the deep-seated suspicion that, strangely, Americans feel towards non-Americans, the singer is what you are more interested in. The same song takes on whole new meanings depending on the singer's interpetation (cf. Carl Perkins & Elvis Presley's versions of 'Blue Suede Shoes" Or, Aeschylus' Oresteia and John Paul Sartre's The Flies.)

So, what should we make of Duane Barry's rendition of the 'Alien Abduction Blues'?

First, we should note that Duane comes from a family of immigrants - likely an Irish family escaping the Great Famine of 1845-49. ('Duane' being an Anglicised form of O'Dubhán and 'Barry'  an Anglicised form of  Bairre, which, in turn, is a diminutive of  Fionnbharr. cf. Behind the Name).

By 1850, New York had more Irish born citizens than did Dublin. With such numbers arriving, it couldn't be long before those Americans who traced their ancestry back to the Mayflower would sit up and take notice. After all, Protestant America was apparently being invaded by the Catholic horde. And could there be anything more alien than those Catholics who ate the body and drank the blood of Jesus Christ? It was an accusation first leveled by the Romans and it has stuck ever since. The Puritans had left Europe in search of religious freedom in the New World, only to have that old world they'd left behind come chasing after them, bringing with it the very edifice that had inspired the Protest-ants to break Europe asunder in the first place.

To cut a long story short, the Irish immigrants were not welcome, just as every new influx of immigrants are not. The Puritans didn't welcome the Irish, the Irish no doubt had very little welcome for the Italians and nobody seems to want the Mexicans. But with this pattern being recurrent throughout its history, Americans shouldn't be too shocked that new approaches to hindering the invasion should be tried.

Nor should they be too distressed to hear voices raised against immigration; it is a song which has always been sung in America - even as the Irish and the Italians and the Jews were arriving in their millions.

Duane Barry, in 1994, may be singing his song a little late, but there is still some truth to his claim that "They are coming again." Between the 1980 and the 1990 censuses, the population of the United States increased by some 23.1 million, or around ten percent. During the same period the foreign-born population grew by over 40% - or four times that as the country as a whole (cf. Center for Immigration Studies).

There is no shame in communicating a message one feels to be important. It isn't even shameful to warn against any new large influx of immigrants. There is nothing inherently evil in warning that the nation is in danger of being swamped with undocumented aliens. Nor is there anything wrong with believing that the nation that was built by immigrants should be more welcoming of all new arrivals. It is somewhat foolish, though, to resist the singer for the sake of the song just because the times they have a changed and the image no longer fits with what people are currently listening to.

Just like George Ellery Hale, in Episode Two, who built the world's largest telescope after being visited by an elf, so Duane Barry may well be a pathological liar with fantasy issues.

But they did come!