I Come From Nowhere: The Georgia Guidestones (Elberton, GA)

The Georgia Guidestones

If a miniature Stonehenge, built with money provided by an anonymous donor, with an enumerated list of rules for a better planet, and built out in the middle of nowhere in rural Georgia is not American Weirdness at its finest, then I don’t know what is.

Some of our best suggestions have come from locals. Our friend Travis, who plays in a bitchin’ little rock combo out of Atlanta called New Terminus, said our trip to Georgia would not be complete without a visit to the Guidestones. The drive out to Elberton from Atlanta was roughly two hours, taking us through a part of the state we may not have otherwise explored, with lots of hills and small towns that still have some retention of their past – due in no small part that there aren’t a lot of Walmarts. (Yet.)

The Georgia Guidestones are shrouded in mystery, having been funded by an anonymous person (or possibly group of persons) using the synonym “R. C. Christian,” in late 1979. R. C. Christian hired the Elberton Granite Finishing Company to construct the monument. The town of Elberton is billed as “The Granite Capital of the World,” with plenty of local businesses providing some credence to that claim. The Guidestones were debuted to the public in the spring of 1980, and it has been a source of conversation, intrigue, and controversy ever since.

The Guidestones, in Swahili and Spanish.

There is a lot of astrological detail that went into the construction of the Guidestones, as well. Science was never either of our strongest subjects, so rather than try to explain all of the work put into the Guidestones’ construction, here is a link for those interested.

As the pictures here illustrate, the Guidestones are presented as four massive tablets, with text on both sides in eight different languages: English, Arabic, Swahili, Russian, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese. 

Chinese and Arabic, with Egyptian Hieroglyphs up top.

Atop the four tablets is a four-sided capstone, with inscriptions in four ancient languages: Babylonian cuneiform, Ancient Greek, Egyptian Hieroglyph, and Sanskrit.

Ancient Greek

Sanskrit, with Hebrew and Hindi below.

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Cuneiform, with English and Russian below.

The Guidestones present ten modern commandments and rules, with an accompanying in-ground tablet that proclaims, “Let these be guidestones to an Age of Reason.” Presented with commentary, here are the commandments laid forth by the Georgia Guidestones:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

And we are already off to an awkward start. This seems to be the one that rustles people’s jimmies the most, and it is easy to see why. I’m just as much of a misanthrope as the next guy – maybe even more so – but 500 million is not a large percentage of the planet’s estimated population, which is roughly 7 billion. In order to reduce down to that number, we’re going to need a lot more wars, drone strikes, superstorms, and famines. Wait, what’s that? Oh, global leaders are already working on it? Well, then, great!

2. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.

This one makes far more sense…though that last part lends itself to a potentially disturbing interpretation. I am a strong advocate for people not having offspring they cannot afford. The first step to eliminate this problem? For a segment of the populace to stop believing that some celibate old guy living in a palace in Italy has a direct phone line with the Creator, let alone has any right telling men and women what to do with their private parts.

[Gets off soapbox]

Now, for that second part – that is pretty nebulous wording. On the one hand, encouraging physical fitness is a good thing, and with the suggestion of “diversity,” I am all for intermarriage across faiths, cultures, and races. On the other hand, this can be read as advocacy for eugenics. No, thanks.

3. Unite humanity with a living new language.

The concept of a global language – or a global anything, as we’ll discuss later – is one that tends to bring out the conspiracy theorists, loudly pounding their New World Order drums. I tend to favor a more optimistic viewpoint of this, seeing the creation of a global language as an effort to break down cultural barriers and increase understanding among people. That said, I also recognize that it would be impossible to implement, let alone mandate, as has happened before in previous attempts to do this with Esperanto, Ido, and Interlingua.

4. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.

This one I like and can immediately get behind: you can still have your pet subjects, be religious, and connection to your own culture, only don’t be a self-righteous dick about it. Perfect!

5. Protect people with fair laws and just courts.

Here is another rule that I think can be as dangerous as it could be beneficial, given it falling into either the wrong or right hands. It is too vague – what makes a law “fair,” or a court “just?” The Code of Hammurabi was at one point considered the cornerstone of justice. In some countries, Sharia Law provides their legal code. Hell, the Bible – including all of its passages in favor of slavery, sexism, bigotry, and capital punishment – is still supported by members of the Right as their preferred law of the land. Too nebulous, this one.

6. Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court.

Sovereign nations maintain their autonomy, but disputes are resolved in what we can presume is a “just court,” rather than by killing one another or seizing land. This basically outlines what the United Nations was intended to be – but isn't  Assuming that this world court would be fair and just in the truest senses of each word, this is a good rule.

7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

Yes, please.

8. Balance personal rights with social duties.

Another vagary, this time urging people to find the pragmatic middle-ground between concern for themselves and for their communities…maybe? This one is too obscure.

9. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.

A fine example of stating a lot with a little: favor the best things in life, while also finding spiritual satisfaction.

10. Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.

The Guidestones end on a great note. As the dominant species on the planet, we have a responsibility to take care of it and all of its inhabitants. (Did I mention that we both voted Green Party in 2012?) This one, along with Rules 4 and 7, are the rules that have the most immediate and practical validity in the present day.

My overall impression of the rules presented is mixed. I find myself agreeing with most of these, though several of them are too nebulously worded to provide any actual guidance, and then there is the first – and easily most controversial – rule, the one about maintaining a population. The idea that our global population be decimated, down to roughly one-fourteenth of its present number, is simultaneously impractical and (in the age of neutron bombs) disturbing.

Naturally, it is that first commandment that has generated much discussion. Noted conspiracy theorist, Anti-Semite, and sentient slab of raw beef Alex Jones featured the Guidestones in a movie he made about how the world’s elite is conspiring to enslave us all – an event that, five years and counting, still has yet to happen. In it, Jones claims the Guidestones were funded by the Rosicrucian Order. 

The Temple of the Rose Cross, 1618 illustration by Theophilus Schweighardt Constantiens

The Rosicrucians were an ancient hermetical religious order that is now extinct, but according to the likes of Jones and other gadflies whose actual aim is separating the gullible from their money, they’re one of the great shadow organizations pulling the world’s strings – along with the Illuminati, Bohemian Grove, the Skull and Bones Society, the Bilderberg Group, the Freemasons, and the Rothschild Family. (By the way, that is a total of seven secret organizations who all somehow manage, individually, to run the world. Or maybe they’re conspiring together. Or perhaps it’s an alliance thing, like Survivor. Or, perhaps, to paraphrase Frank Zappa, these imaginations only exist in the imaginations of the imaginer!)

The unknown identity of R. C. Christian provides ample cover for Jones’ loony allegation about the Rosicrucian Order. It is a classic case of Bertrand Russell’s Teapot – because we can’t disprove the bullshit, the other side can claim the possibility of being right. Another conspiracy asshole named Mark Dice claims R. C. Christian is a member of the New World Order and belongs to “a Luciferian secret society.”

I hate conspiracy theories and the demagogues who propagate them. It is upsetting to see otherwise smart people exhausting their faculties and resources to wage an argument that is, to use the antiquated British phrasing, pure codswallop. Jones, Dice, Glenn Beck – and forebears like Hal Lindsey and his Late, Great Planet Earth in the 1970’s, not to mention countless doomsday types throughout modern history – have proven to be little more than a moneymaking sideshow distracting from actual societal ills. There are real conspiracies hiding in plain sight – the Keystone Pipeline, corporate welfare, and the power of Super PAC’s, to name three – and I am just as ready to finish writing about these dopes as I am sure you are of reading about them. The only reason they bore mentioning is that in 2008, the Guidestones were vandalized and spray-painted with graffiti.

Thankfully, Elbert County owns the Guidestones, and this was quickly removed.

“THE ELITE WANT ALL OF US DEAD – SEE #1!”

“YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED – JESUS WILL BEAT U SATANIST”

“DEATH TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER”

“NO ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT”

So what we have here is obviously somebody who buys into this notion that the world’s wealthiest and most powerful interests, someone who also thinks that the Georgia Guidestones were planted to openly display the manifesto of this top-secret New World Order. Idle hands are one thing, but this is a case of someone with a very idle mind.

Oh, and then there’s this one, just for good measure: “OBAMA IS A MUSLIM.” Just to repeat what I said earlier, the Guidestones were erected in 1980, when that Kenyan Marxist President of ours* was an undergrad at Occidental College (or so the New Illuminated Rosicrucian Masonchilds would have us believe!). So there’s that.

For anyone reading who still has any lingering concern that the Guidestones are some sort of document with great influence over the fate and future of humanity, I end with this anecdote:

As we walked around and snapped photos of the Guidestones, a two-door jalopy from the early 1980’s with North Carolina plates pulled up. The driver was a fried old hippie with the hair of an early 20th Century composer and the beard of a Unabomber. He got out of his car, wearing torn-up jeans and a tattered Hawaiian print shirt with nothing underneath. In his backseat and trunk was enough stuff that it was safe to assume his car doubled as his home.

“Hi there,” he said, getting out of his car. He was barefoot, and his nails were overgrown.

“Hey,” I said. “The Guidestones are pretty cool, have you ever seen them before?”

“No, this is my first time. I would have come yesterday, but it was raining.”

At this point, the drifter began to remove his shirt. Alexa and I began moving towards our car.

“Yeah, it’s great weather today, though,” I said, maintaining, thinking maybe the dude was just getting some sun.

“Sure is. I’ve been wanting to come here for a long time,” the drifter said, beginning to unbutton his pants.

Conversation over. We were in the car and zipping away ten seconds later.

*To dispel all doubt, paired with the fact that the irony mark has yet to become a standard button on computer keyboards, I should add that I firmly believe our President is who he says he is. It’s Alex Jones that I’m worried about.