[Video: Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young,” covered by Johnny Cash. This song may be to Dylan’s entire oeuvre what “O Holy Night” or “Ave Maria” is to Christmas music: over-interpreted, -emoted, and -performed by dozens of artists, each seeming determined to show proper reverence to the songwriter rather than to the song itself. Cash’s offering seemed best for my frame of mind today, and I hope it sits well with you, too. I also considered using Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance,” especially for the line, “when you get the choice to sit it out or dance/I hope you dance,” which feels perfectly in tune with today’s theme. But the rest of the song is a bit too… syrupy? Or am I now overthinking things…?]
One of the things I like most about whiskey river: if you just drop in there once in a blue moon you can convince yourself that its sources are all scraps of, y’know, woo-woo philosophy, poetry, idle dreamings and speculation… but if you visit regularly, you get, well, poked pretty regularly. There’ll be a joke, a fiercely political exhortation, an overturned worldview. It’s never “news,” but the pot keeps stirring, and you can never know in advance what might turn up in your soup spoon. This week I’ve found two gems there, by way of illustration. First:
Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed.
He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled.
And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.
(Chuck Palahniuk [source])
…and here’s the other:
A child’s instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting; a child always stands for the good militarism as against the bad. The child’s hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression. The child’s hero is never the man or boy who attempts by his mere personal force to extend his mere personal influence…
But really to talk of this small human creature, who never picks up an umbrella without trying to use it as a sword, who will hardly read a book in which there is no fighting—to take this human creature and talk about the wickedness of teaching him to be military, seems rather a wild piece of humour. He has already not only the tradition of fighting, but a far manlier and more genial tradition of fighting than our own. No; I am not in favour of the child being taught militarism. I am in favour of the child teaching it.
(G. K. Chesterton [source])
Notice the unstated, perhaps unintentional interplay between the two very different passages: the first, angry and assertive in its warning against the traps of the modern world — its ceaseless distraction from What’s Really Going On; and the second, gently pointing out an approach to fighting the world, by modeling our own behaviors on those of children.
Omitted, though: what, well, to do at one critical moment or another? It’s one thing to acknowledge evil when you encounter it, perhaps point it out to others. And it’s one thing to act on your recognition of evil, to fight it, actively, with a child’s sense of right and wrong. But of what should that action consist? Should we take to the streets? Should we donate money? Should we join the [insert nationality here] Foreign Legion to do battle with evil on other shores? Should we meditate, do yoga, learn calligraphy, write a satirical novel or inflammatory op-ed article?
There’s a response to these questions popular among those of a Christian bent: What would Jesus do? (You may have seen this sentiment expressed as WWJD? on bracelets, tattoos, and so on.) The thing is, no one possibly has any idea what Jesus — or anyone else from then to now — “would” do at this moment, in our shoes. Furthemore at root, we don’t need to turn to religion (the gods know, a source of plenty of evil in its name) for answers. I think all we really need to ask ourselves as we confront evil in our world, in our age, is: What would a child do?
No matter the evil of the moment (there’s always evil of the moment): put yourself in a kid’s “the battle between good and evil” frame of reference. Don’t try to predict what specific course of action they’d recommend, and for gods’ sake don’t ASK them for advice. Just, well, adopt that state of mind.
And then… then act, or not. And don’t second-guess yourself, or the hypothetical kid. Take the next step, and the one after that, and so on. And don’t look back.
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