Revolution and lyrics: personal change versus structural change

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter John Tyler writes:

Speaking of the meaning of songs, consider John Lennon’s “Imagine,” which came out in 1971.

If one did not know any better, you would think the lyrics were written by Karl Marx or Lenin.
This song is probably the favorite of Bernie Sanders and AOC, among others.

That brings up something I’ve long thought about – and written about several times, at least in the comments – whether song lyrics influence people in terms of big life decisions or political positions, and if so how common that is.

I’m probably on one end of the spectrum in that regard. Although I like music a lot and certain performers or songwriters or composers very much, I don’t think a song has ever influenced my political life or opinions. The most I can say about lyrical guidance is that sometimes I’m affected in the sense of the philosophical and emotional (for that latter, sometimes acting as a releaser for a good cry about something). For example, some of the lyrical offerings of Leonard Cohen have a philosophical attitude that appeals to me – in particular the songs “Anthem” and “Going Home.” But I don’t think they change my attitude much if at all.

I know there are people who are quite different, those who look up to musicians and/or lyricists (or did look up to them when young) as thought leaders in the political sense.

And let me add that I’ve never liked the song “Imagine” – not even musically, and not lyrically. The lyrics have always seemed to be those of “a dreamer,” just as the song says – a fantasy rather than anything that could be translated into reality. Nor does the singer even suggest a way to accomplish such a transformation into something realistically possible. The song is indeed an anti-religious, anti-capitalist, New-World-Order-ish sort of thing, but in a very vague way.

Has it influenced many people? I wouldn’t be the best judge of that, but this page about “Imagine” calls it “one of the most influential songs of the 20th Century.” The essay doesn’t point to any particular backing for the claim, but if it’s true then yes, the song has probably done some damage. But I see it more as reflecting what was already strongly in the air at the time, and then perhaps magnifying it.

John Lennon apparently wrote “Imagine,” but he also supposedly had written “Revolution” three years earlier (1968), in which the lyrics say:

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re all doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait…

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You’d better free your mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow

At the time of “Revolution’s” release, I had taken a course in college called “Russian Intellectual History,” which was deeply influential for me in understanding the Sixties years I was experiencing. I no longer remember the names of the Russian writers I’m referring to, but the gist of it was that same argument between improving oneself versus improving the world.

And so I saw Lennon’s message in both songs – for what it was worth – as consistent, because both songs were speaking up for personal transformation. “Revolution” was explicit about the personal rather than the activist collective, and “Imagine” seemed to be dreaming about how personal transformation would lead to societal transformation if enough people practiced it, rather than the other way around.

Open thread 10/20/21

The New Neo Posted on by

Young people who do reaction videos to this song on YouTube have no idea what it’s about, although they usually like it. But even after they look up what it’s about, they still don’t what it’s about. How could they?:

The UK’s fundamental transformation through COVID restrictions

The New Neo Posted on by

On how COVID restrictions have transformed the UK – not COVID itself, mind you, but the response to it:

What was once the land of “keep calm and carry on” could now be the “most frightened nation in the world.” So says Laura Dodsworth, author of A State of Fear: How the UK Government Weaponised Fear During the Covid-19 Pandemic. Data seem to bear her impression out. According to an Ipsos MORI poll conducted in July, an impressive 27 percent of Britons want to impose a government-mandated nationwide curfew of 10 PM—not then in force—“until the pandemic was under control worldwide,” which might be years from now. A not-inconsiderable 19 percent would impose such a curfew “permanently, regardless of the risk from Covid-19.” Presumably, these are people who don’t get out much. While 64 percent want Britain’s mask mandate in shops and on public transport to remain a legal requirement for the duration of the global pandemic, an astounding 51 percent want to be masked by law, forever.

There’s more: some 35 percent want to confine any Briton who returns from a foreign country, vaccinated or not, to a ten-day home quarantine—permanently, Covid or no Covid. A full 46 percent would require a vaccine passport in order to travel abroad—permanently, Covid or no Covid. So young people today would still be flashing that QR code on whatever passes for smartphones in 2095, though they might have trouble displaying the device to a flight attendant while bracing on their walkers. Likewise, the 36 percent who want to be required to check in at pubs and restaurants with a National Health Service contact-tracing app forever. A goodly 34 percent want social distancing in “theatres, pubs and sports grounds,” regardless of any risk of Covid, forever. A truly astonishing 26 percent of Britons would summarily close all casinos and nightclubs forever. Are these just a bunch of fogies who don’t go clubbing anyway? No. In the 16-to-24 age bracket, the proportion of Brits who want to convert Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London’s Soho into a community lending library, even after Covid is a distant memory, soars to a staggering 40 percent.

I haven’t come across a poll in the US asking the same or similar questions, but my guess is that the numbers for permanent restrictions of this type would be somewhat smaller. Only somewhat, however. The US has a more robust history of valuing individual liberties (free speech, for example, and having no official state religion). However, the UK numbers are still shocking, because the UK certainly has some of that tradition as well.

One of the very first things I said to a friend when the COVID restrictions began was: “We’re all going to end up with OCD.” “OCD” is obsessive-compulsive disorder, and although I was making a joke I was also somewhat serious. My early sense was based on the tenaciousness of OCD symptoms, once induced and adopted. If a person has any tendency towards OCD at all – and a lot of people do even though they haven’t actually displayed OCD symptoms prior to COVID – and that person has been doing a bunch of things that the person thinks has kept that person safe from disease, it can be very hard to give them up. It generally requires an active decision and effort to do so. It’s an effort a lot of people won’t make.

And for some, all of these restrictions offer secondary gains. For example, if a person has any sort of social anxiety, it’s easier to stay away from people, once you’ve gotten used to it. Computers make isolation less onerous, too.

Lastly, youth has been so protected compared to earlier generations. So many diseases have mostly been vanquished that were horrific scourges even in my lifetime – polio, leukemia (which was virtually always a death sentence when I was young, and struck a considerable number of children), and mumps and measles (the latter of which had the possibility of significant and highly serous complications such as encephalitis). These advances are great, but they have made the younger generation less willing to shoulder any health risks, and that makes them more susceptible to advocating restrictions on liberty in the name of health.

The Capitol breach

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter Barry Meislin.]

Most of us here have seen similar videos of January 6th before. We know that a certain number of demonstraters – a large number, actually – were let in, and that they almost certainly thought it was allowed, and that they were not violent.

What we still don’t know (at least, I haven’t been able to find it although the intensive investigation must have uncovered it) is how many people were actually violent, where that happened, whether anything provoked it or whether they started it, who they were, and where they all are now. We also don’t know who let them in; some seem to have been Capitol Police, and some were anonymous masked people dressed in black. Those are important questions, and although it’s been over nine months since January 6th, we still only have inadequate bits and pieces of the answers.

Instead, the misinformation and outright lies about that day’s proceedings still hold sway. For example, in that very thread I just embedded, you can see the following replies:

We are pushing the idea that they were let in, but I think we’re forgetting the assault and violence outside that broke the line of defence and killed police.

Note the word “we” – even though I doubt that this person (if it is a person rather than a bot) is part of the “we.” Note also the spelling of the word “defense” as “defence.” Although that might just be an error, it’s actually the Australian and UK spelling. Interesting, no?

Here’s another from a different user (for some reason I can’t get the specific link, but it’s in the thread from someone who calls himself “Miles Q Black”):

y’all missed the part where the savages #MAGATerrorists brutally attacked police officers- murdering a police officer.

The original narrative about Officer Sicknick’s death is the gift that keeps on giving to the left. I have no idea whether these replies are from actual people, but they certainly might be, and at any rate I have little doubt that the sentiments therein are shared by huge swaths of American voters.

And another thing about COVID and multiple myeloma patients

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday we were discussing how a disease like multiple myeloma almost certainly made Colin Powell susceptible to dying from COVID despite having been vaccinated. Now I see there’s even more to it:

Patients with active chronic lymphocytic leukemia or multiple myeloma mounted lower antibody responses to mRNA COVID-19 vaccination than healthy individuals, according to data from two reports published in Blood.

The findings suggested the lower antibody response may be a result of both the cancer and its treatments…

“Patients with CLL are predisposed to develop infections due to inherent immune defects related to their primary disease and as a result of therapy. The mechanisms underlying the immunodeficiency in CLL may also reduce response to vaccines,” Herishanu told Healio. “We found that the antibody response to BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in patients with CLL is markedly impaired and affected by disease activity and treatment.”

Double or triple whammy.

How to run America…

The New Neo Posted on by

…into the ground: do what Biden and company have done. They deserve kudos for speed, as well.

Is it intentional? If it’s mere incompetence it’s even more astounding.

As commenter “huxley” writes:

…[A]s Biden has shown, apparently it takes competence to run America from the White House, and not just a group of wannabe technocrats, who check the right identity boxes, plus their Deep State helpers.

Who knew?

Of course, if you have all the cultural institutions in your corner covering up for you – the media, social media, entertainment, the arts, education, the “deep state” (have I missed anyone?) – perhaps you can get away with it. But how much destruction can you accomplish before enough people notice? And even after they notice, can they vote their way out of it or do you have enough control over the voting process to make that impossible?

[NOTE: This post is related to the two posts directly under it today.]

China tests hypersonic missile

The New Neo Posted on by

As if we didn’t have enough bad news, there’s this:

China secretly tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile, the London-based Financial Times reported. The report said that the missile, which adds a new capability to the Chinese arsenal, “flew through low-orbit space” and may be able to “negate” the U.S. missile defense systems.

“China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught U.S. intelligence by surprise,” the newspaper added.

I’m not at all sure that the Financial Times is aware of what takes US intelligence by surprise, although I have no trouble believing that US intelligence might indeed have been surprised. After all, they are so busy with policing and eavesdropping on the right, what else do they have time for?

Hypersonic missiles are faster, more maneuverable, and harder to detect compared to conventional missile systems. “Hypersonic missiles are much faster and more agile than normal ones, meaning they are more difficult to intercept,” the BBC explained. “They can fly at more than five times the speed of sound and, much like ballistic missiles, can deliver a nuclear warhead,” the broadcaster added.

While the Chinese official denied testing a hypersonic missile, the Chinese state-media taunted the U.S. as it bragged about Beijing’s growing cutting-edge military capabilities…

Besides China, other rogue regimes are also joining the race to acquire hypersonic missile technology. In recent months, Russia and North Korea have also tested their versions of hypersonic weapons.

Trump apparently spoke a number of times about the need to counter such developments. But since everything Trump did was awful, according to the MSM:

The mainstream media, complacent about the Chinese threat, mocked the president for mispronouncing the missile as “hydrosonic” and describing it as “super duper” fast.

The New York Times even dismissed the technology as a hoax. [See this.]

The Biden administration is telegraphing abysmal weakness, both on the military and intelligence fronts (and hardly limited to that; really on all fronts). Whether the weakness is intentional or not, it is a dangerous situation.

“When I was a lad I served a term…”

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.]

A new US Maritime Administrator has been appointed:

…[D]uring the worst shipping crisis of the century, the US Department of Transportation, has appointed someone to the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) who is not a captain and has no commercial shipping experience.

Yesterday afternoon, President Biden announced his intention to nominate Rear Admiral Ann Phillips, US Navy (Retired), as the next US Maritime Administrator, a position that has been vacant since Rear Admiral Mark Buzby stepped down following the insurrection [sic] at the U.S. Capitol in January.

Phillips is a highly decorated Navy leader with a long list of accomplishments and is highly respected by everyone gCaptain has interviewed. She was head of the Navy’s Climate Change Task Force and is a highly sought after consultant on climate security issues. She holds an MBA. She was chairman of a local government Sea Level Rise Preparedness and Resilience project. She once captained a Navy warship. The appointment looks great on paper except for one kinda big problem. This is not a warship position. It’s a commercial shipping appointment and she has zero experience aboard any commercial ships. She does not even have experience leading navy military sealift ships.

I’d wager that one reason she has been nominated is that she’s a woman. Another is that the Biden administration couldn’t care less about experience and the actual competent running of government.

And of course the whole thing puts me in mind of Gilbert and Sullivan. Phillips was never “a lad” and she seems to have actually “gone to sea” (“once captained a Navy warship”) so it doesn’t quite fit, and yet it still seems rather apropos for our times. I knew this song by heart as a very young child and loved it although I didn’t quite understand everything that was being said. But it’s just another illustration of Gilbert and Sullivan’s genius. “HMS Pinafore” premiered in 1878, nearly 150 years ago:

Colin Powell dies of “COVID complications”

The New Neo Posted on by

RIP Colin Powell, who was 84 and reportedly died of “COVID complications” despite being “fully vaccinated.” I’ll leave others to discuss the ups and downs of his career, except to say that, to the best of my recollection, he was mostly admired for his role in the first Iraq War and often condemned for his presentation regarding WMDs in the second.

When I saw the phrase “COVID complications” it immediately raised a familiar red flag because I’ve heard the phrase before and speculated about it. It’s vague and seems to blame COVID for everything that might happen when a person is diagnosed with it. I wondered what else might have been medically wrong with Powell, and sure enough I later saw that he’d had multiple myeloma for several years. The article says he’d been “successfully treated” for it, but I think that’s quite misleading.

I have some knowledge of that disease because I’ve known three people who had it (all now unfortunately deceased), two relatives and one acquaintance. “Successful treatment” doesn’t usually mean a cure or even that the person is out of the woods. MM is a cruel disease with many and varied systemic results, and one of them is that a person can easily fall prey to almost any infection. MM patients commonly die of pneumonia, but they can die of almost any bacterial or viral disease (see this, for example). Multiple myeloma is also not often diagnosed early, and once the diagnosis is made the patient is usually considered to be in late-stage illness. Older patients – such as Powell – have an even poorer prognosis, and if he’s been treated for MM for “several years” I’m going to assume that at this point he was on borrowed time anyway.

So anyone who uses his death to make a more general point about COVID is walking on thin ice. The only think I think it’s valid to say about his case is that demonstrates that vaccinated people can contract COVID despite being vaccinated, but we already knew that. I don’t think the severity of Powell’s COVID is relevant to anyone except other severely immunologically-compromised patients.

The Bee Gees’ musical evolution

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an overview of four-plus decades of the Bee Gees’ careers.

I wouldn’t have made exactly the same choices. There are two Beatles covers and a Carol King cover that I’d eliminate, as well as some obscure and some not so great songs that are included, while other really great ones are excluded. But it’s still a nice quick – very quick, sometimes too quick – sampler that shows the changes in their sound and the changes in their sartorial and tonsorial styles: