Althouse: "I'm sick and tired of hearing things/From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth."

January 9, 2015

"I'm sick and tired of hearing things/From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth."

"I've had enough of reading things/By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth...."

55 comments:

Revenant said...: "What isn't worth saying, is sung."
- Pierre de Beaumarchais; 1/9/15, 12:24 PM
Achilles said...: This guy wrote the song Imagine right? That is the most singularly evil song written. Atheistic socialism is responsible for over a hundred million deaths the last century and a half. I can only "imagine" what his "truth" is.; 1/9/15, 12:32 PM
Ron said...: The truth? Ol' Johnny was a mama's boy bully who may well have gotten his friend Stu in a stupid brawl that gave him brain damage.; 1/9/15, 12:32 PM
Gahrie said...: I thought Lefties like Lennon thought that there was no objective truth...; 1/9/15, 12:33 PM
Henry said...: All I got is a red guitar
Three chords and the truth
All I got is a red guitar
The rest is up to you

That's U2 updating Jimi Hendrix playing Bob Dylan. Posers.; 1/9/15, 12:44 PM
steve uhr said...: Achilles

"Imagine all the people living live in peace"

pretty darn evil. I assume you were pleased when such a vial person was assassinated.; 1/9/15, 12:51 PM
Elrond Hubbard said...: The "truth" is hearing politicians say what you want to hear.; 1/9/15, 12:52 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "This guy wrote the song Imagine right? That is the most singularly evil song written. Atheistic socialism is responsible for over a hundred million deaths the last century and a half. I can only "imagine" what his "truth" is."

You sound a bit overwrought.

If you look at the language analytically "Imagine there's no heaven... and no religion too" is not an assertion that there is no heaven or that religion is false. In fact the use of the word "imagine" suggests that there is a heaven and that religion in some form might be true. Lennon invites you to picture a world without these things... and then what?

The morality and love propounded by religion at its best should be something that we would arrive at even without the support of an authoritarian God or a promise of an afterlife.

What would Jesus want us to do? I think the Jesus that we read about in the Bible would want us to think that his principles would apply even if there were no God and no heaven.

It might be a good test of religion: Would I want people to live like this and have this moral structure even if I found out that these ideas that I've treasured do not come from God?; 1/9/15, 1:02 PM
Achilles said...: steve uhr said...
Achilles

"Imagine all the people living live in peace"

"pretty darn evil. I assume you were pleased when such a vial person was assassinated"

Lennon spit out all of the tired tropes Mao, Stalin, Marx, Lenin, and all of the other socialist state sponsored mass murderers used to lure people into utopia. Just imagine when government takes all of your troubles away! If you can't see the point of that song and the point of my post you are too stupid to discuss it with.

And yes peace in the way the left uses it, as a carrot to project apathy as a way to get people to ignore true evil in the world, it is evil. The peace movement is directly responsible for the killing fields in Vietnam. The peace movement looks past genocide everywhere it exists. The peace movement would have preferred the Jews to just go quietly.; 1/9/15, 1:04 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Lennon lied about the identity of the Walrus.

I still hold that against him.

I am Laslo.; 1/9/15, 1:07 PM
Revenant said...: Achilles,

Your argument appears to boil down to "Lennon was a jackass, therefore Imagine is the most evil song ever written". You're missing a few logical steps there.

There isn't a single line in "Imagine" that can be plausibly taken as evil, or even mean-spirited. The song is banal and silly, but it isn't evil.; 1/9/15, 1:08 PM
Achilles said...: Ann Althouse said...

"What would Jesus want us to do? I think the Jesus that we read about in the Bible would want us to think that his principles would apply even if there were no God and no heaven."

I am agnostic so take this critique as is.

No Jesus would not want us to think like that. Because if you took that advice according to him you will live in hell away from god. His goal was to get people closer to god so they could be with him for eternity. Making them better people was just an added benefit of being more like god and being able to live with him.; 1/9/15, 1:09 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: From Lennon's 1970 Rolling Stone interview:

What did you think of (Charles) Manson when that thing happened?

"I don't know what I thought when it happened. I just think a lot of the things he says are true, that he's a child of the state made by us. And he took their children when nobody else would, is what he did. But of course he's cracked, alright."

Helter Skelter in 2015, people.

I am Laslo.; 1/9/15, 1:10 PM
jr565 said...: Althouse wrote:
"If you look at the language analytically "Imagine there's no heaven... and no religion too" is not an assertion that there is no heaven or that religion is false. In fact the use of the word "imagine" suggests that there is a heaven and that religion in some form might be true. Lennon invites you to picture a world without these things... and then what? "
But this interpretation is undermined when you look at the lyrics of the bridge
"You may say that I'm a dreamer.mbut I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us and the world will live as one"; 1/9/15, 1:10 PM
Achilles said...: Revenant said...

"There isn't a single line in "Imagine" that can be plausibly taken as evil, or even mean-spirited. The song is banal and silly, but it isn't evil."

Don't make me go listen to the lyrics again please. The whole song boils down to "Imagine life without humanity" and "Imagine not caring about anything."

I know you don't like our involvement in various wars. I am on the other side. I see women beaten or genocide or state repression I want to involve myself.

The discussion about whether our government should do it or private enterprise should do it is interesting to me. The discussion about whether it is right to just sit there and watch is not.; 1/9/15, 1:14 PM
Revenant said...: Don't make me go listen to the lyrics again please. The whole song boils down to "Imagine life without humanity" and "Imagine not caring about anything."

I have better things to do than discuss lyrics with someone too lazy to look up the lyrics. :)

Suffice it to say that your memory of the lyrics is faulty.; 1/9/15, 1:17 PM
jr565 said...: I suppose you could look at Imgine as Lennon's song of innocence and Gimme the truth as his songs of experience (a la William Blake). Only I don't think he recognized that his Imagine was in fact naive or that he might as well be singing Gimme some truth to himself for putting out Imagine. "I'm sick to death of hearing things from short sighted pig headed, narrow minded hypocrites". Indeed. (As Instapundit might say); 1/9/15, 1:18 PM
Achilles said...: Ann Althouse said...

"It might be a good test of religion: Would I want people to live like this and have this moral structure even if I found out that these ideas that I've treasured do not come from God?"

99% of humans are incapable of that. That is why we need religion and why "Imagining" a world without it is merely a way to destroy the primary source of personal virtue. A population where the vast majority of individuals would return a wallet with $1000 in it to it's owner is the foundation of a free society. Progressives know this so they have always been at war with the source of that virtue.; 1/9/15, 1:21 PM
tim maguire said...: I don't want answers.

You want the truth?

I CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!; 1/9/15, 1:25 PM
Achilles said...: "Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace"

I have already lodged my complaints with this verse. I note that you wont engage. I took care of the lazyness excuse for you.

"Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world"

Are you seriously going to defend this paragraph after the millions that have died in socialist utopia?; 1/9/15, 1:26 PM
Gahrie said...: There isn't a single line in "Imagine" that can be plausibly taken as evil, or even mean-spirited.

But that is the problem with most ideas from the Left. They are simple platitudes no one could disagree with. Who could possibly oppose giving everybody access to quality healthcare? The problem comes when you start talking about the hows and the whos.; 1/9/15, 1:31 PM
jr565 said...: Islam also has it in its tenets that the world will live as one if we all change.
"Imagine no other religions
It's easy of you try...."
Only, Why is that any less offensive then demanding that the whole world be atheistic.
If we all agree on everything then we can all live as one. So we should all agree on this. (In Lennons case his peculiar brand of super rich socialism that has no possessions but he gets to live on the whole floor of the Dakota.).
I'll take McCartney and his silly love songs to,Lennon's simpering utopian pipe dreams.; 1/9/15, 1:35 PM
jr565 said...: Right now we live in Dar-Al-arb
But imagine a world where we are in Dar--Al -Islam. There would be no reason to fight. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us. And the world will live as one. until thet day, off with the unbelievers head.; 1/9/15, 1:38 PM
jr565 said...: My rebuttal for,John Lennon's Imagine:

no long haired,yellow belied, son of trickky dicky
Is gonna mother Hubbard soft soap me with a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope.; 1/9/15, 1:44 PM
Ann Althouse said...: So the key line "I hope someday you'll join us" is cited by jr565, and that raises the question join who, in what?

It seems we're invited to join the "dreamers" and those who are "imagining" various things. There's a visualization that were are invited to do, and a prediction that as a result of that mental exercise the world will "be as one" or "live as one," that is, we'd all be united in peace if we got inside this state of mind. There's no mention of what beliefs are actually true or whether outward reality would change or anything happens in the government.

We're simply invited into an attitude or frame of mind, a meditation about living "for today" and having "no countries," "no religion," "nothing to kill or die for," "no possessions," and "no need for greed or hunger."

Now, I think this is simply a meditation, something that occupies the place in the mind where religion lives in the mind of the religious. Whether this meditation can coexist with religious belief or evicts religious belief is a question for the individual.

I don't read the lyrics as a statement about what will happen to outward reality if everyone somehow joins him, because there will always be a need for hunger as long as we have physical bodies. And how could we have "no possessions"? Everyone sharing everything? He can't mean that's really what will happen. It's an invitation to empty your mind of all attachments and desires and to thereby enjoy perfect peace as you picture everyone sharing all of the world together as brothers.

Isn't that the same picture Jesus asks you to imagine in Heaven? And do not forget that Jesus said: "behold, the kingdom of God is within you."; 1/9/15, 1:48 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Why does everyone always want to revert to "Imagine"?

It's not a typical John Lennon song. The song quoted in the post is much more representative of his attitude (as I remember it, within his lifetime).; 1/9/15, 1:50 PM
n.n said...: Religion is moral philosophy, a consensus of opinions, governing classification and remediation of behaviors in a society.

Faith refers to affirmative statements about phenomenon outside of the scientific domain. It includes the universal and extra-universal domains, but also shifts of indefinite duration in time and space from an established reference, and remarks on phenomenon that are incompletely characterized and unwieldy.

In practice, every society has a state-established church consisting of both a faith and religion. In America, the state church is increasingly characterized by a universal atheist faith and a progressive, actually selective (e.g. "pro-choice"), form of libertine religion.

The problems Lennon observed stemmed from cults, which are directed by mortal gods (i.e. narcissists) who build their churches through promises of dissociation of risk and consumption of material opiates. Unlike religious alternatives, a cult promises rewards to its members in the mortal realm, where most people with an ego-centric faith expect a return.; 1/9/15, 1:58 PM
Revenant said...: But that is the problem with most ideas from the Left. They are simple platitudes no one could disagree with. Who could possibly oppose giving everybody access to quality healthcare? The problem comes when you start talking about the hows and the whos.

Which is why the histrionics about the song are silly. It isn't evil, it is simply naive.

I suppose you could say "well if you took his advice bad things would happen, so that makes the advice evil". But by those standards the Sermon on the Mount is evil, too:

"If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back."

This is an absolutely fuckwitted bit of advice, and I for one am truly thankful most Christians quietly pretend Jesus never said it.; 1/9/15, 1:58 PM
Gahrie said...: You are seriously trying to argue that Imagine was Lennon's endorsement of Christianity?

The song is an explicit endoresement of secularism and Communism, both of which require atheism.

The very idea that life on Earth could be perfected is anti-Christian.; 1/9/15, 1:59 PM
Revenant said...: Why does everyone always want to revert to "Imagine"?

Because it is the only song from Lennon's solo career that anybody remembers.; 1/9/15, 2:02 PM
Revenant said...: You are seriously trying to argue that Imagine was Lennon's endorsement of Christianity?

No. Learn to read.; 1/9/15, 2:06 PM
Carter Wood said...: Sam Phillips' version from her 1994 release, Martinis and Bikinis, is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV25atoI6T8 And I always liked The Godfathers' version of Cold Turkey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5nSsF9DvK8; 1/9/15, 2:11 PM
Gahrie said...: No. Learn to read.

I was asking Althouse.; 1/9/15, 2:16 PM
Michael said...: In an open letter to McCartney at the time, Lennon described "Imagine" as "'Working Class Hero' with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself." In other words, Lennon himself didn't consider "Imagine" to a straightforward declaration of what he "believed."

Then, again, Lennon was so mercurial in his views during those years that I don't think you can point to any one song or snatch of lyric as a clear-cut statement of his "beliefs." A few months after writing and singing, "How Do You Sleep?", in which he slimed McCartney from here to Thursday, Lennon actually told an interviewer, "It's not about Paul. It's about me. I was attacking myself."; 1/9/15, 2:28 PM
Michael said...: The first time Lennon sings the word "hypocrites" in this song, he pronounces it "hypo-critics." It might have been just a flub, but it seemed to me like a bit of typically clever Lennonesque wordplay.; 1/9/15, 2:29 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, you and your Socratic teaching style! I just finished a novel where the protagonist meets Hades down in the latter's abode. Hades tells the protagonist that Socrates is there, and his fate is that everyone asks him questions.; 1/9/15, 2:35 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Because it is the only song from Lennon's solo career that anybody remembers."

By "anybody," you mean people who didn't much care about Lennon.

And even then... every year at Christmas, "War is over" is in the mix, heard in all the shops, etc.

"Give Peace a Chance."

Some excellent ones that many people remember, even if they weren't give JL fans:

Beautiful Boy
Mind Games
Jealous Guy
Instant Karma
Working Class Hero
Watching the Wheels

My personal favorite is Instant Karma:

Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Everyone you meet
Why in the world are we here?
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you're everywhere?
Come and get your share; 1/9/15, 2:36 PM
Clyde said...: The irony, of course, is that our current president and his henchmen and cronies are even more uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded, hypocritical and dishonest than Nixon and his crew ever were. Lennon's probably rolling over in his grave.; 1/9/15, 2:38 PM
Achilles said...: Ann Althouse said...
"Why does everyone always want to revert to "Imagine"?

It's not a typical John Lennon song. The song quoted in the post is much more representative of his attitude (as I remember it, within his lifetime)."

Because the ideas behind statism/socialism and the propaganda behind it are one and the same. They start their machinations the same way. They start with ode's to peace and eqauality. Things nobody could ever disagree with and it ends with mass slaughter. It happened in Russia, Germany, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Nigeria, Venezuela, Nicaragua.

A lot fewer people will die if we kill this evil at the stupid song naivete level. If you want to wait you can, I don't mind killing statists. But that doesn't mean I can't call them out now for what they are.; 1/9/15, 2:47 PM
Achilles said...: Clyde said...
"The irony, of course, is that our current president and his henchmen and cronies are even more uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded, hypocritical and dishonest than Nixon and his crew ever were. Lennon's probably rolling over in his grave."

All statists live in this world. People who don't accept their dictates, their way of life are "narrow minded." Especially those tyrannical libertarians who don't want to tell anyone what to do or how to live. They are the worst sort of narrow minded.; 1/9/15, 3:00 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: It is fun deciding the meanings in Lennon's songs. Beatles lyrics, as interpreted by Manson:

• Happiness Is a Warm Gun
Significance: The Beatles are telling blacks to get guns and fight whites
Sample lyric: When I hold you in my arms/ And I feel my finger on your trigger/ I know no one can do me no harm/ Because happiness is a warm gun/ (Bang bang, shoot shoot)[7]

• Revolution 1
Lyric: You say you got a real solution/ Well you know/ We'd all love to see the plan
Meaning: The Beatles want Manson to tell them how to escape the horrors of Helter Skelter.[37] They are ready for the violence; they want Manson to create his album that will tell them what to do. Its songs will be "the plan" whose subtle messages will be aimed at the various parts of society that will be involved in Helter Skelter.[3][7]

• Revolution 9
This is the White Album piece Manson spoke about the most,[37] the one he deemed most significant.[3] An audio collage more than eight minutes long, it has no lyrics.
Significance: Manson hears machine-gun fire, the oinking of pigs, and the word "Rise." The piece is audio representation of the coming conflict; the repeated utterance "Number 9" is reference to Chapter 9 of the Book of Revelation. Revolution 9 is prophecy, paralleling Revelation 9.[37] "Revolution 9" = Revelation 9.[13]
"Rise" is "one of [Manson's] big words"; the black man is going to "rise" up against the white man.[1]:241–2 While playing "Revolution 9," Manson screams "Rise! Rise! Rise!"[36] (From 2:33 to 2:50 of the recording, a voice that could be that of John Lennon does, in fact, repeat what is possibly the word "Right," not "Rise."[38] About twenty-five seconds before that word is first heard, a voice says something that seems to include the words "lots of stab wounds";[37] but Bugliosi and Gentry, who mention this in Helter Skelter, do not indicate whether Manson or any of the Family members heard it.)
Manson also hears the Beatles whispering: "Charlie, Charlie, send us a telegram."[36] (See Honey Pie, above.) At approximately 3:45 of the recording, a voice that could be that of George Harrison does, in fact, seem to be saying something about a telegram.[38]

I am Laslo.; 1/9/15, 3:14 PM
jr565 said...: "Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Everyone you meet
Why in the world are we here?
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you're everywhere?
Come and get your share"

He doesn't believe in God or Heaven but he does beliee in Karma? If he's an atheist, there is no why to answer. And If you do live in pain and fear there is no fairness in the universe that will give you karmic justice. And if you cause pain the same applies.; 1/9/15, 3:17 PM
Jay Vogt said...: First to get it out of the way: I'll stand behind no one in acknowledging the man as a genius.

That out the way, he (as does everyone) hit a bad patch here. He was 30 at the time. Old enough to know that the truth isn't given, it's found.

. . . . . an by their own proclamation, artists are the ones who do the finding. If they're not good for that what are they good for.; 1/9/15, 3:17 PM
jr565 said...: “The song ‘Imagine,’ which says, Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics is virtually the communist manifesto, even though I am not particularly a communist and I do not belong to any movement. You see, ‘Imagine’ was exactly the same message, but sugar-coated. Now ‘Imagine’ is a big hit almost everywhere; anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it is sugar-coated it is accepted. Now I understand what you have to do” - John Lennon.; 1/9/15, 3:31 PM
Goju said...: Nothing to kill or die for....? Great. But if you are into that nonsense, why not go full Crowley? Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Ann:
Jesus did say that heaven is within us, he also said no one comes to the Father but through me. To reject the existence of the Father is to deny yourself Heaven.; 1/9/15, 3:38 PM
Goju said...: Didn't JL describe himself as a follower of the Maraheshi? Thus a Hindu of some sect. Yoko was raised Buddhist, although she may have given that up.; 1/9/15, 3:40 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Lyric: Lennon or Manson?

"Cease to resist, come and say you love me
Give up your world, come on an' be with me"

"In the stair of breathing air.
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me."

"Well, say, you're lookin' for a world of truth
Trying to find a better way
The time has come to see yourself
But you always look the other way"

"I'm scratching peace symbols in your tombstone
I'm scratching peace symbols in your mind"

"How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing?
How can I go forward when I don't know which way to turn?
How can I go forward into something I'm not sure of?
Oh no, oh no"

"It's in, side
It's in the back
The front
No it's in the back
No it's in the front
No it's in the back"

"I had a little monkey
And I sent him to the country
And I fed him on gingerbread
Long come a choo-choo
And knocked my monkey cuckoo
And now my monkey's dead"

"Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes, she is, think about it
Woman is the nigger of the world
Think about it, do something about it"

"So bring only your perfection, for there love shall surely be.
No cold, pain, fear or hunger. You can see, you can see, you can see."

"I'll never say never to always. I'll never say always to none.
To seem is to dream a dream aloud cause one is one is one."

"'Now I'm lookin' right here, inside myself
I've got my eyes closed
I'm looking backward through my brain
Thinkin' about what I'm thinkin' about"

Peas in a pod.

I am Laslo.; 1/9/15, 3:42 PM
Goju said...: Mike,my favorite take on hellis Sartre's "Hell is other people."; 1/9/15, 3:50 PM
jr565 said...: In defense of Lennon, despite being a complete ponce while an activist he eventually soured of his buddies on the left.
in 1980 he admitted that his activism was a Marrakech and he basically only felt that way because he felt guilty about having so much money
"We said, 'We ain't buying this,' " John told Playboy interviewer David Sheff in 1980. "'We're not going to draw children into a situation to create violence -- so you can overthrow what? And replace it with what?' ... It was all based on this illusion, that you can create violence and overthrow what is, and get communism or get some right-wing lunatic or a left-wing lunatic. They're all lunatics."
And in Newsweek in 1980 "When you stop and think, what the hell was I doing fighting the American government just because Jerry Rubin couldn't get what he always wanted -- a nice, cushy job."; 1/9/15, 3:58 PM
Known Unknown said...: I think most people give Lennon too much credit.

He's a guy who could write some really good songs, and some crappy ones.; 1/9/15, 4:07 PM
Revenant said...: By "anybody," you mean people who didn't much care about Lennon.

Pretty much all the people who cared about Lennon have forgotten most of his post-Beatles career, too.

I was a little unfair, though. He had two memorable solo songs, not one -- "Instant Karma" still gets airplay.; 1/9/15, 4:38 PM
Revenant said...: Because the ideas behind statism/socialism and the propaganda behind it are one and the same.

It takes a special kind of mind to hear a guy singing that the world would be better off if there were no countries and interpret that as a defense of "statism and the propaganda behind it".; 1/9/15, 4:41 PM
eddie willers said...: This shows that Lennon needed McCartney more than McCartney needed Lennon.

To be fair, though, they are one of the best example of the saying: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts".; 1/9/15, 6:56 PM
Dave in Tucson said...: No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.

FRANK HERBERT, God Emperor of Dune; 1/9/15, 7:07 PM
Achilles said...: Revenant said...
Because the ideas behind statism/socialism and the propaganda behind it are one and the same.

"It takes a special kind of mind to hear a guy singing that the world would be better off if there were no countries and interpret that as a defense of "statism and the propaganda behind it".

They never sing those songs in China or Russia. It is the same reason that if Ghandi tried to free the Ukraine from Russia rather than India from great Britain he would be a rotting corpse in a dungeon.

The only countries they want to get rid of are the free ones. Partially it is cowardice because they know what would happen if they tried to pull their shit in Saudi Arabia.

The other thing is they ignore what would happen if the US was the only country that "disappeared." I know you want the US to stop influencing the world. But to ignore the historical significance of our country and its founding is silly. I would say a special kind of mind and be condescending but that is unnecessary. Your posts on this subject are really devoid of any thought in general anyways.; 1/9/15, 11:59 PM