A Deep Southern Throwback Thursday: The Destruction of the Georgia Guidestones, 2022
It was one year ago today that someone (or some group) destroyed the controversial Georgia Guidestones, a monolithic granite monument in Elberton, Georgia that was constructed, placed, and unveiled in 1979 and 1980. Just as the identity of the Guidestones’ creator was obscured from public knowledge, so was the identity of the monument’s destructor. The site had long been a source of controversy, some believing it to be a beacon for witchcraft, others taking exception with the content of its carved text.
News of the monument’s destruction came in this Georgia Public Broadcasting story, which explained:
The Georgia Guidestones have been a roadside oddity for more than four decades in Elberton, about two hours northeast of Atlanta. The monument stood close to 20 feet tall and has been a testament to the region’s granite industry — and a vector for conspiracies.
While most locals, passersby, and visitors would regard the Guidestones as just a “roadside oddity,” others have taken deep offense at the style of the monument, the content of the messaging, or both. With its four nineteen-foot-tall granite uprights and a large piece of granite placed roof-like on the top, the monument resembled Stonehenge and other early or prehistoric/pagan constructs, which has led some people to believe that its purpose had to do with animism, nature worship, or even satanism. Others disliked the ten “guides” that the monument offered. Chief among them was the instruction to keep the human population below five-hundred million. What has offended some people about that was: to achieve this, a majority of the world’s billions of people would have to die. Which begs the question: who gets sacrificed to achieve this vision of a sustainable future for humanity? Number two lent itself to this purpose: “Guide reproduction wisely.” Was that an endorsement of abortion or infanticide, or did it foresee something like The Handmaid’s Tale? Where guide number one gave a hard and fast number to adhere to, number two could be open to a vast number of interpretations, some kind of scary. But in its favor, it did add “improving fitness and diversity.”
The remaining eight seemed like a mixture of common sense rules, overly idealistic dreams, and ill-defined notions. Among those that might not invite argument were number five (“Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.”) and number seven (“Avoid petty laws and useless officials.”) A few might incite significant debate about what form they would take in real life, like number three (“Unite humanity with a living new language.”) or number eight (“Balance personal rights with social duties.”). Globally and politically speaking, number six would be a hard sell, since the United Nations kind of tries to do this: “Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.” Numbers four and nine deal with abstract concepts: “Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason,” and “Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.” Finally, number ten is a darn good idea, but would still get real blowback: “Be not a cancer on the Earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.”
In general, I see no good reason to destroy the Georgia Guidestones, even if someone was bothered by the ideas they expressed. It had been over forty years since they were unveiled in a public ceremony, and these somewhat apocryphal stones had not achieved notoriety nor gravity beyond being a “roadside oddity” in a small Southern town. Furthermore, I doubt that anyone on a serious quest for the secret to a good life and hope for humanity would go looking in a field in eastern Georgia. Unfortunately, though, the Guidestones had found a place among current conspiracy theories, including the fringe belief that COVID-19 was a government effort to reduce the world’s population to five-hundred million.
If you ask me, the tenets expressed and the way they are presented are not witchy or pagan, but seem vaguely Masonic and generally classical. Considering that Freemasonry in America hits its peak in the late 1950s and was prevalent throughout the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, a lot of Americans – including Southern men – were involved in Masonic organizations. My guess is that whoever had them created and erected was probably a relatively well-educated, well-read, wealthy white man with conservative social ideals, a solid knowledge of the Bible and classical literature, and personal experience with Freemasonry, the combination of which led him (and possibly a group of friends) to believe that they had things figured out. The Guidestones look to me like an attempt at a new Ten Commandments by a couple of old white dudes from the lodge.
Obviously, others – possibly these conspiracy theorists – must not have seen the Guidestones as being so harmless. Video surveillance footage showed a person placing the bomb at the foot of the monument, but no one was ever identified or arrested. In July 2022, a month after the destruction, the local DA was still expressing his intention to find and prosecute the offender, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was helping, too. But nothing ever came of it. Ultimately, the decision was made not to rebuild the Georgia Guidestones, and the remaining portion was brought down as a safety hazard.
For those interested in knowing more, the 2015 documentary Darks Clouds over Elberton tells a version of the story of the Guidestones. It even makes a pretty good case for the identity of RC Christian, the pseudonymous person who arranged for the Guidestones to be built.
