Imagine by John Lennon.....

[Kinser79]

(10-07-2017, 11:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(10-07-2017, 12:08 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: I figured I'd leave this here.






I thoroughly enjoyed watching Ben Shapiro take a dump all over this song.

OK, Imagine better fits an attitude than it expresses great musical value (it is melodically simple and the lyrics have no philosophical depth), but is it as evil as Ben Shapiro says?

For real evil in a song there is the infamous Horst-Wessel-Lied of the Nazi SS, praising the enforcers of what many considered the worst political order to have ever existed. I could imagine a Klan group (because of increasing affinities between Ku Kluxism and Nazism) adopting it, replacing the (Nazi) banner raised high with a cross raised high and burning bright. Themes in the song outlawed in Germany, Austria, and some other places since 1945 include allusions to marching as an objective  and the trivialization of the tragedy of death even for a heroic cause.

So what is so bad about Imagine? Imagine that there is no Heaven or Hell? That is an atheist position. In a feudal or capitalist order of thorough nastiness, Heaven is a reward for people who comply with their own repression and exploitation, accepting misery in This World on behalf of entrenched elites in return; Hell is punishment for any sign of rebellion. In effect, God becomes the enforcer of selfish, rapacious elites who deserve ... to burn in Hell. I'm not saying that the concepts of heaven and Hell are without their utility; it might be reassuring to the loved one of a good person who loved to golf that after that person died, he is enjoying much golf. You can imagine what sort of behavior I can imagine leading one to Hell.

Living for the day? I question whether Lennon really meant sacrificing all future bliss for the immediate moment. No, that does not mean committing crimes for some drunken, doped-up debauchery. The really-satisfying happiness, the sort that one can recall frequently, involves planning, scheduling, budgeting, and even exertion. There is a next day and there may even be 'fifty years from now'.

Good to know that your signature fits you PBR.  This entire post demonstrates you did not even watch Ben Shapiro's arguments.  I'm fairly certain being a practicing Orthodox Jew he is neither a Nazi nor in the Klan.