“Most people dont believe that there can be such a person. You can see what a problem that must be for them. How to prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge the existence of.”
No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
Anton Chigurh is what you, Dear Reader, would call a homicidal psychopath. That is not what he would call himself. The difference between your description and his description reveals much about how you see the world.
(Side note: Chigurh is pronounced something like “sugar.” There is no way to really know how to pronounce it. Anybody who ever asked him is probably no longer among the living.)
The plot of the novel follows the actions of four men near the border of Texas. Llewellyn Moss, mid-30s, married, living in a trailer park, driving a pickup truck. Sheriff Bell, a small town sheriff, the old man of the title. Carson Wells, a rather cocky bounty hunter. And Anton Chigurh, a force of nature. It is Chigurh who interests us here.
Chigurh moves through the novel with an unflappable stoicism. You can imagine him delivering all his lines in a cold and patient monotone. You can imagine him shooting a man with zero hesitancy or doubt or even a twinge of guilt. You can imagine him accomplishing the task in front of him with a cold, almost mechanical precision. Who is this guy, you ask? You’ll never know. He shows up with no backstory. He just is.
At three points in the novel he explains his philosophy to a person who simply cannot comprehend what he is saying. It is hard to believe that such a person can really exist. What type of person is he? You are now thinking he is a cold-blooded psychopath. Maybe you are right. Maybe.
Twice, Chigurh takes a coin out of his pocket, flips it, and demands that the person to whom he is talking call it. He doesn’t explain what happens if you call the coin the right way, but neither the person of whom the demand is made, or you the Reader, have any doubt that calling the coin is a matter of life and death.
At this point, Chigurh sounds a bit like the Batman-villain Two-Face, who leaves his decisions up to chance by flipping a coin. But, that is not at all how Chigurh sees the coin flip.
Put yourself in the position of facing Chigurh. Is he there to kill you? Your immediate reaction is that he is deciding whether to kill you or not. So, you appeal to him. You tell him he does not have to do this; he does not have to kill you. His reply: “Everybody says that.” Everybody imagines that Chigurh is making a choice. So he takes out a coin, flips it, and tells you to call it.
You now think that your life is being decided by the random flip of a coin. But as Chigurh will explain, it isn’t. The coin has been flipped. Nothing you can do or say will change the outcome of the flip. You can appeal to the coin all you want, but whether it is heads or tails will be totally unaffected by your pleas. So, call it. (This is the Reader Participation portion of the essay—call the coin. The result will be revealed shortly. The whole message of this essay depends on you calling the coin flip now. So, do it. After all, what do you have to lose by calling this coin flip?)
Was your fate just decided by how you called the coin after reading the last paragraph? If you called it wrong, will bad things happen? You think the coin has absolutely nothing to do with whether your future is good or bad, whether you live or die. Calling the coin wrong will not cause bad outcomes in your life. Chigurh pulling a trigger is what causes the death. But, this is where Chigurh will explain that your view of the world is wrong. “Look at it my way. I got here the same way the coin did.”
As Chigurh explains, the coin flip does not determine what happens to you. The coin flip merely reveals destiny. You were either going to say the same thing as how the coin came up or you were not. If you are destined to live, then obviously your call and the coin flip will be the same. “It doesn’t have to be that way” makes no sense. What is is what is. Nothing you can say or do will change what is. Nothing you can say or do will change whether the coin was heads or tails. And just as what is is what is, what will be is what will be. You call the coin wrong, then you will die. All Chigurh is doing is acting out what will be. You cannot change the coin. You cannot influence Chigurh. Both are impersonal forces, implacable and unchangeable.
Most people don’t believe that there can be such a person. You can see what a problem that must be for them. How to prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge the existence of.
Why don’t you believe there can be such a person? Why do you call him a homicidal psychopath? You don’t like the idea that whatever will be will be. You don’t like that idea at all. But what if your preference does not affect what will be. What if no matter how much you plead, the coin will still be what it will be. What if there is a person who is just like that coin? What if the whole universe is just like that coin?
You called the coin above. It was Heads. There is nothing you can do about the fact that you either called it correctly or not. And now you have to live with the consequences. You have no say at all over what consequences will come from whether you called Heads or Tails above. You scoff. You insist that nothing will come if it. You say it is just a silly trick in an essay. Maybe you are right. Maybe. But there is nothing you can do about it, is there?
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