I wrote a new song for this weekend's (tomorrow's) performance and though it's a little rough, I'm generally quite pleased with it. And there's a word in it I've never heard in a song before, which officially puts the song nebulously into wonky/silly/perhaps even a little clever territory. No title yet, but here are the lyrics (as best I can remember them ... I'll actually be going off a lyric sheet tomorrow night since we have so much new material we haven't had time to memorize) ...
You say it's the will of God,
You say this is shock and awe,
You speak only absolutes,
You stay strong and resolute
But you only speak in simple sentences
As you impose your death sentences
You lean on the podium,
Oblivious to opprobrium.
If your lies didn't cause such hurt,
They'd sound only too absurd
But you only speak in simple sentences
As you impose your death sentences
And you wonder why they hate you ...
It's not because of freedom, they hate us less than you
It's because in the name of freedom you
Lied and cheated and maimed and tortured and raped and murdered and bombed and burned
And built profane things in their holy land.
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep?
Don't slumber too deep
Because you have to decide
Is God on your side or are you on God's side?
In defense of truth, we're coming for you (x2)
3 comments:
OK, let's see, I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, but I'll address it as well as I can. And I'm not entirely sure what your comment has to do with my post, or, by extension, my song.
Morality is a social phenomenon. Morality must be shared in order to be effective. An individual sense of morality, in its extreme, becomes vigilantism. There are things that I, and I think pretty much everyone, can agree are absolutely morally wrong. They are so self-evident and basic to someone living in this country, at this time, that it's pointless for me to name them. The problem is, life is complicated, and moral goods and moral evils frequently come into conflict. Resolving those conflicts is largely an individual decision; judging the rightness of such resolutions is a communal one.
If you're referring to the line in the song where I berate the pResident for speaking only in absolutes, you're missing my point. Historically, he (and I'm using him as the embodiment of his whole administration because it's a bit unwieldy in a song to go into too much detail) speaks in false dichotomies. Either you support his agenda across the board, OR you're unpatriotic and on the side of terrorism and the evildoers. Either you support his tax cuts, OR you want the economy to collapse.
But more than that, he gives evidence nearly every day that he has no concept of the complexity of the world, his country, or the issues facing America and its electorate. He speaks only absolutes. And in the face of changing realities, a changing world and changing situations, he sticks resolutely with decisions and courses of action that, at the time they were decided upon may have seemed wise but become hopelessly outmoded as events change. As an example, he clings to his tax cuts the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver, even though they've had no measurable effect on the economy and they are robbing the government of money it needs to pay for its war. He is a stubborn and unsubtle man. Stubborn and unsubtle men make lousy leaders, because these are Protean times. Change or die. Be flexible like the blade of grass and allow the hurricane to pass over, or be strong and inflexible like the telephone pole and snap like a twig.
And as an aside, you're flat, dead wrong about moral relativism. Animals have no morals. They are incapable of higher thought. Moral thinking, be it relative or absolute, involves assessing a larger social good or ill as it relates to an individual action.
Morals change over time and from place to place. What is right and good and moral now is different from what it was, say, in Spain in the 15th Century. And scholars and philosophers from each of the respective times and places can tell you, in detail, why their moral code is correct. And they're both right. It IS all relative. To think otherwise is to ignore the vast ebb and flow of history and the vast rainbow of world cultures that surrounds us. There is certainly a nebulous and emerging world culture and world moral code, but that, too, changes over time and does not and cannot assert its will over all the earth.
Further, in a 'morally relativistic' society, things are judged as moral and immoral based on their effect on society. That, to my mind, it the soundest yardstick by which to measure anything. It adapts to the times. It allows for advances in thought and philosophy. It allows a complex moral calculus that enables us to discover with both more precision and more fluidity the truth of our time. Beware simple answers to complex problems.
Your thoughts?
intense!
love,
jason mulgrew
internet quasi-celebrity
Why, thankyew!
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