One of the homepage tabs on my internet browser includes the day’s three most viewed YouTube videos. It provides a peculiar – and sometimes, even, disturbing – window into the wider world beyond the little corner of it where I sit. And, it must be said, after reading the notes thrown against that window, I am rarely tempted to open it.
But the other day one of them pointed to a video of a young Utahn, a contestant on a talent search television program called “American Idol,” singing John Lennon‘s “Imagine.” It turned out to be a high quality recording of a really remarkable rendition of the song. Just as wonderful as the beautiful voice under masterful control and mature artistic expression, was the thought that all of this was coming from a seventeen-year-old. Those of you who don’t receive or who missed the show really should see at least this performance.
While I listened to the powerfully emotive interpretation of the soulful plea in this song, I began to notice things I had clearly missed when I first heard it some 30 years ago. It asks the listener to imagine a world without the divisive elements that cause so much discord and misery. From property to countries, “nothing to kill or die for” – just everyone living in peace.
But when, from the scarred and battered perspective of some experience, you do try to imagine such a world, it may begin to appear as desolate as it does peaceful. After all, what would a life without things one cares for really be like? How would we define who we are, determine our own paths, burnish our identities in the rough and tumble of contact with those following other voices, some of whom are openly critical of our choices?
Famously, Thomas Hobbes described such a hypothetical world as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. And, indeed, it’s easy to imagine why, if you try.
Discord and conflict actually can add both definition and traction for advancement to our lives, spurring innovation and creativity. But a world (or a workplace) in which we get rid of all the sins seems too beautiful to be true; more than being, as we have noted, merely undesirable, it may even be impossible to achieve without first, as the saying goes, getting rid of all the sinners.
Imagine that.
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Technorati Tags: American Idol, John Lennon, Imagine, experience, Thomas Hobbes, conflict, innovation, creativity, Michael Wade, Utah
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8 Comments
Very well said, Jim. It reminds me of what Seth Godin said recently about stress.
“Stress is an essential part of the human condition. It rises when we’re about to buy something or sell something or interact with someone. We spend money to avoid it and we spend money to embrace it. And we almost never talk about it.”
Thanks, Cam.
I agree with Seth Godin’s observations about stress, and I find his comment that we almost never talk about it interesting. We talk about it, but we seem to do it by dancing around the caricatures we make of it – we never really come to terms with it, and in that sense, we really aren’t talking meaningfully about it. Why is that? Interesting.
Thanks!
“Discord and conflict actually can add both definition and traction for advancement to our lives, spurring innovation and creativity.”
I love this line, by the way. It’s as if our struggles give us both our shape and texture. Conflict can also help us define our relationships, as we are able to then ascertain our friends and foes.
I love your last phrase, Cam. It’s always seemed to me that you know a man not only by his friends, but by his enemies. It takes character to make – and to keep – both.
Jim,
Interesting post. I’ve often thought about heaven. One of the things believers look forward to about heaven is that they will be reunited with loved ones. But my question is, will there be partiality in heaven? If we will all be perfect, free from sin, free from sadness and grief and if we are all “brothers and sisters”, won’t I feel the same love and affection for someone I never met as I do for my grandmother?
What does love feel like if there is no contrast with dislike or hate?
I ran down this same line of reasoning with hierarchies. People often bash hierarchies as mechanisms of abuse and inefficiency, but what would we have if we had no hierarchy? (Even two levels of reporting in an organization constitutes a hierarchy.)
No Hierarchy?
-All decisions need be made by vote or consensus – hiring, firing, strategy, marketing, research investment, vendor selection, who receives personal development opportunities, what the logo looks like, which benefits we offer.
-Everyone is accountable for creating global strategy, answering the phone, cleaning the bathroom, and everything in between.
-Everyone is accountable for all decisions, even ones they vehemently opposed.
-Everyone gets the same pay.
Imagine. My full post can be found here: http://www.missionmindedmanagement.com/our-superstitious-fear-of-hierarchy
Thanks for the thought stimulation.
Regards,
Michelle
Hello Michelle,
Thank you for you visit and your comments – and for the link to the terrific post. I hope everyone will visit it – it is all of engaging, even-handed, and unmistakable in its position on the topic. And thought-provoking – well worth reading.
The Chinese Red Army was once forced to exhibit communist purity in a number of ways, including the abolishing of rank and all indicators of it. But, as you point out, decisions still had to be made by some and followed by others. No one mistook who was in charge, rank insignia or no.
But the lack of control nevertheless did cause problems, including a poor performance in a border war with relatively tiny Vietnam. This spurred a new movement for modernization and professionalism – beginning with rationalizing its organizational structure.
Structure should arise from the purpose to which it will be put – not from some sort of ideological purity. But we still get a lot of that, and a lot of it also comes, of course, from the superficial, spurious cause-and-effect thinking you identify and lambast.
Thanks again for this incisive thinking and for sharing it with us!
I know some people can’t imagine a world worth living without there being some kind of conflict as through the conflicts we advance much like in the theories of personality in psychology but this is a limited perspective as challenges can be there even if the violence is taken out of the game. The dualistic perspective of life is just one of many and not nessecary the best one.
Hello Stacey,
Thanks for your visit and your observation. I certainly should point out that I have always been impressed by this song, and have a lot of sympathy for the underlying sentiment of its message.
My main point, however, in the post isn’t necessarily to suggest that we ought to celebrate conflict for its own sake, but that we should try to come to an appreciation of the ineluctable relationship between the diversity of our beliefs, callings, and ambitions, and the likelihood of their generating conflict. The question then becomes: what is the strength, and the meaning, of our choices, or even of our disapproval of those of others?
Certainly we all want to live in peace. But I think it’s a fair question to ask what sort of life, and what sort of peace, that would be.
Does that make any sense to you? Is it responsive to your point? If not, I’ll try again.
Thanks again for your visit!
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[...] Along these lines, consider the following remark I made in a comment to a recent post: “It’s always seemed to me that you know a man not only by his friends, but by his enemies. It takes character to make – and to keep = both.” [...]
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