I was trying to figure out a story that’s told by one of the characters in Ozark about a hillbilly and a redneck This is the script for that part of the show:

A redneck and a hillbilly are strolling along a country lane, talking about the Garden of Eden. The redneck, drinking whiskey as he walks, believes that Adam and Eve had every right to take that apple for, if God were kind, why would he forbid them from partaking in that delicious fruit? The hillbilly listens and nods. Then the redneck finishes the bottle and throws it onto the path. When the hillbilly frowns, the redneck says, “Judge not,lest thee be judged.” When the hillbilly frowns again the redneck says, “You judge doubly, you sin twice.” Whereupon God smites the redneck dead. The Hillbilly, forever silent and diligent digs the redneck’s grave and fashions a humble tombstone from the empty bottle, and walks on. That eve he witnesses the most beautiful sunset ever ‘fore made.

Here’s a link to a youtube video of the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8B-bNrOLj0

The point of this parable seems to be that the Redneck has the wrong attitude about life and the Hillbilly has the better one, but I’m not clear on where exactly the two types differ. They both seem to agree on the apple comment (even though some would argue this should be “fruit” since in the original language Genesis was written in, the fruit of the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil isn’t of any specific variety.). So both seem to think that the knowledge of good and evil is a good and wonderful thing and that God, being kind, actually wanted mankind to take the apple, which runs counter to about 97% of Christian doctrine.

Now it’s possible that by nodding the Hillbilly is merely being polite and placating the Redneck while disagreeing, but if so, this isn’t made clear by the narrative. Let’s take the assumption then that they both agree on this odd assertion. The first point of disagreement seems to be when the redneck finishes his bottle and throws it on the path. The Hillbilly frowns. Why? Is it because the Redneck didn’t share the whiskey? Is it because the redneck was littering? Is it because the Redneck didn’t appreciate the path?

As a secular taoist I like this last interpretation the best, but it still isn’t exactly clear. The Redneck says “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” quoting Matthew 7:1. The bible verse later says that you will be judged in the same manner that you judge others. As far as context goes the quotation is meant for those who worry about the specks in other people’s eyes when they have planks of wood in their own. So it is a tad incorrect to use the quote when someone is merely frowning at an act of disrespect.

Is the Hillbilly committing an act of greater disrespect? No, not as far as we know. Also, the Redneck is being rather judgmental himself by saying this.

The Hillbilly frowns again, I suppose at the hypocrisy of the Redneck.

The Redneck says “You judge doubly, you sin twice.”  Now, no one ever said judging was a sin, just that judging invited reciprocal judgment. Still, after the Redneck says this, he is struck down by God. So first, God definitely exists in the universe of the parable. Second, God is of the opinion that the Redneck is wrong. So I suppose we can take the interpretation that the Redneck is being ironically hypocritical each time he uses the phrase “judge not lest ye be judged.”And it is he who “sins twice” as it were.

Still, this seems like a complicated moral stance for a story about a redneck and a hillbilly. Another idea might be that God strikes down the Redneck because the Redneck is saying a bunch of stupid crap about things he doesn’t understand.

This interpretation is buoyed by the  bit afterwards about the Hillbilly being silent and diligent. However, there is the larger context to take into account. The story is told by a Drug Dealer to the Owner of a strip club. The Drug Dealer was using the strip club to launder money, but the Owner sold the deed to the strip club (or more precisely took money for the deed after it was taken from him and he was arrested). The Drug Dealer told the story to the strip club owner as they were drinking lemonade. Then the Drug Dealer’s wife sticks the owner in the neck with a syringe full of heroin. As the Owner is dying, the Drug Dealer calls him a redneck. So the Owner of the strip club is supposed to be like the Redneck in the story, and the Drug Dealer like the Hillbilly.

So perhaps the whole problem is that the Redneck didn’t consult the Hillbilly before finishing the whiskey? And then got indignant when the Hillbilly was upset about that? But then how does that relate to the part about the apple and the garden of eden? And what about the judge doubly, sin twice part?

So here’s my own interpretation, developed from trying to get some sort of consistent meaning out of what is likely an unimportant string of dialogue whipped up on the fly to work as something cool to say before killing someone.  The knowledge of good and evil (the fruit eaten by Adam and Eve in the garden) is a wonderful thing. But knowledge of good and evil is only worth something if you use that knowledge. That is, if you use judgment. If you use judgment, you have to be prepared to be judged in turn, but not using it isn’t a moral option either.

In terms of Christian mythology, Adam and Eve were naked and shameless before they ate the apple, but afterward, they had to cover themselves up because they had shame. God, being a omnipotent and omniscient, but having granted humans free will, would have known that they would eventually eat the fruit, so it’s possible to believe that it was a gift to humankind, but one that came with consequences. For the Redneck to say that knowledge of good and evil was a wonderful thing and then subsequently perform a wasteful act (finishing the whisky and throwing the bottle in the path carelessly) is hypocritical. Then for him to disparage the  judgment of others, is doubly hypocritical. Using the quote from Matthew is ironic, because it would be the Redneck with the plank in his eye. The Redneck shows no shame when he should know better and so God strikes him down. So the moral of the story is “Don’t pretend you don’t know better, when you do.”

Or at least that’s the best I can come up with.

I did a brief search for other interpretations. My favorite comes from Popmatters.com in an article titled “An Ozarker Considers Netfix’s ‘Ozark'”. The author doesn’t really analyze the parable in any real detail, however he does reveal that, much as one might expect, the terms hillbilly and redneck are not really all that distinct, even in the Ozarks. Both are pretty much insults, but ones that may be embraced by certain groups as cultural identifiers. Furthermore, the Ozarks portrayed in the show are really a fantasy version of the real place made up of previous stories and memories of the area from the seventies. In short, the parable here is a tale made up by a made up character in a made up story in made up version of a place that doesn’t really exist anymore. Its possible relevance to the world at large is remote at best. And yet I still find it oddly fascinating. Way to hack my brain, dude or dudette in the writers’ room who came up with this thing.

Interesting fact: I learned a new word from the wikipedia entry on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: merism. A merism is a combination of items of a set of things to indicate the entirety of that set. For instance “the long and short of it” or “sword and sorcery”. Yay vocabulary!