Request For People To Explain Their Morals.

I don't think I had unrealistic expectations of the Beatles when I expected them to be really nice guys and not wife beaters. I still like their music, and I'm willing to forgive John Lennon, but it'll never be the same music after learning that. It was once pure. Now it's just music.

 

Yeah, I was saddened to learn that also.

 

My parents were huge Beatles fans, so I've literally been listening to the Beatles since I was born. My dad was horrible to my mother. I'm sure John Lennon was a saint next to my dad. But my dad liked the Beatles and so did my mom. Pretty much the only time they were getting along was when they were agreeing that the Beatles or Cat Stevens or Paul Simon were great or hating Republicans. But the Beatles really were a pure, bright spot in an otherwise dark, dark place.

The Beatles were, strangely, role models for me. Even before I became mature enough to become a fan, when I thought love was stupid. The Beatles are the foundation of my morals. Not Jesus or God. My adulation of John Lennon is such that, even though I firmly despise people who hurt women and cheat on women, I still love him. So this whole John Lennon beating his wife thing is, ironically, teaching me to be more unconditional in my loving. So I guess you're right it's sort of still pure for me, but it's certainly not the land of sunshine and lollipops it once was.

Seriously, though, I don't think it's a lot to ask for someone not to beat their wife. We as men should really take more time to appreciate the fact that women are the greatest thing that will ever happen to us. It takes a seriously infantile dumbass to beat his wife.

And let's be honest, it's frankly hard to imagine John Lennon beating his wife. I can imagine throwing a punch, like a little boy. But we're talking about beating, aren't we? Standing over a helpless person and beating the shit out of them? I guess the truth is I really don't know what happened. Maybe John hit a girl. I wouldn't call that beating, per se, but a lot of people might. Or maybe he seriously beat women. Which is just nasty and pathetic.

 

Yes, in the Old Testament there is a thing that a man should marry his brother's wives if his brother should die. The Bible is very male oriented and wome were treated as property.

In regards to John Lennon, what young people today don't realize is that we hippies came out of a culture that still largely believed a woman's place was in the kitchen and the bedroom. Yes hippies pushed the envelope on roles and definitions of gender roles and nuclear families and what not, but they still grew up in homes where typically the mother cooked all afternoon and made herself beautiful for her husband who immediately plopped down on a chair and read the evening paper when he got home. While she set the table and got dinner ready. After dinner he sat down in front of the TV (or took off to the bar) while she cleaned and did the rest of unfinished chores from the day and got the kids in bed. Consider even the slang term, "My old lady..." You even see this expressed in the Rock Tribal Musical, Hair. It plays out in one of the subplots that leads into the song, 'Why do people have to be so cruel' (Or a title like that---I am not sure of the exact title).

The women's lib movement didn't come before the hippies, in fact it didn't even pick up real momentum till late in the game.

 

Being of the generation born in the 50's in the UK I grew up listening to the Beatles. It's hard to imagine these days just how big their impact was. My parents liked them initially, but my dad in particular went off them in a big way when they went 'hippie' and the music changed. My mum thinks John Lennon was 'a loud-mouth yob' whose influence helped push me and my bro off the rails as she sees it.

These days I rarely listen to them. Now and then I will put on one of George's solo albums, I can't say I like the way Paul has gone these days, and Ringo - well, he seems OK.

Anyway, I'm sure there are many musicians, artists and writers I like who had big skeletons in the cupboard. I don't really find it detracts from my appreciation of the work, as most human beings are flawed and imperfect creatures, and if moral perfection of the artist was necessary for artistic productions to be acceptable, what would be left?
For instance should I cease to think the Grateful Dead were OK because Pigpen was an alcoholic or Garcia was a junkie? Or Bowie who also had drug problems? Janis? The list goes on.

To me it seems better to have admiration for the work rather then the person who makes it.

 

Yes it did have a long history, and Gloria Steinem, for example, wrote her first article about contraception and women being forced to choose a career or a family in 1962, when the earliest kids were starting to make things happen in Haight. But the buzz word lib from liberation didn't come until the late 60's at the earliest, and the women's movement achieved the greatest critical mass, particularly in today's context, shortly after that time with the women's lib movement---I should have clarified that.

 

My morality is base on majority rule. So, if a bunch of people say something is right or wrong, I'll either agree with it, or follow it with an indifference, because I don't want to really agree. It has been working for me quite well. However, if I'm in any position of power I think the best morality to have is the morality of greater good. Kind of like Kohlberg's post conventional. If I wasn't so concerned with being accepted, liked, fitting in, being normal, being like everyone else, so I can be invisible, I would think I would have post conventional morality, because when I was younger people often didn't agree with me during conversations of morality, or worse when we were thrown into situations where our morality was tested. So, I reconditioned myself to do what the majority does. So, yes... I will press that button over and over and over. I would love to say I would be above all the BS, but I have to think about my survival. Because morality is just base on survival. Not right and wrong.

 

Majority rule and survive...and become an uh-huh person, whatever you say to avoid any daggers thrown your way...i have done that, but I have also stuck my neck out too many times.....to be a different voice...a voice of different reason....and it has gotten me into so much trouble too many times.....but if nothing else, at least it gives something for some people to think about...or maybe not....Solo voices get my respect....not crowds just all all going along with each other...but it definately would have made my llife easier if i just kept shut up...which I can do, too....depending on the day or my state of mind that day.

 

A defeatist view if ever there was one.

 

I'm curious aoabai, where do you live? Why do you think you most follow along when you obviously have differing feelings? Are you in such a toxic environment that it would be a danger to speak out?

 

That's different from beating your wife. That's a good question, though. Can we really separate an artist's personality from their art? How do we know if we've truly been successful?

Do we judge Hitler's art fairly?

Whenever I experience a piece of art, I can't help but contemplate the artist. Maybe the artist's personality should be kept separate in one's mind from their art, but truth be told, the personality behind the art is the biggest part of an artist's appeal for me. I absolutely love thinking about these artists that I am a fan of. So the music does come across very different to me when I find out something bad about the artist, because as much as I'm listening to the music, I'm usually contemplating the artist. If I found out Vincent Van Gogh was a wife beater, I probably wouldn't like his artwork anymore. It would just be my reaction to be like, "You're a fucking dick and I reject you." I didn't grow up on Vincent Van Gogh, though. John Lennon's a different situation for me. But I still can't help but hear a different voice than the one I had become familiar with.

I guess it's sort of like, would you enjoy listening to Ode to Joy if you knew it was played on a violin that had a double purpose as a rifle and had actually killed lots of innocent children? I would get a gross feeling from listening to that. And I can't help but feel a little bit of contempt when I listen to the Beatles now. At least John Lennon's parts. I'm not saying he wasn't a genius songwriter. He was. But if we're being honest, I can't completely separate the music from the identity behind it.

I guess I'm a little bit of a hypocrite anyway, because we're all morally corrupt next to Bernie Sanders.

 

I'm not in any toxic environment. I guess I used to be, but haven't we all been in some sort of toxic environment? All in all, I don't really involve myself in conversation of morality, like this one. Besides this one, of course. And I haven't in awhile been in a situation where it was life or death, pain or no pain, for myself, or others. So, my morality mainly is tested in a socialogical sense, these days. Pretty plain and normal stuff. Like should you bitch out that pharmatist that won't give you the medicine you really need for your grandmother. But, it's not so serious, like would you break into Walgreens to steal medicine for your grandmother? I won't lie, it used it like that. And that is why reprogrammed myself. Sometimes, it's better not to fight, especially if when you fight others get hurt, or even though you're fighting the hardest you can fight, it's just a pinch to the person or institution you're fighting against. I do miss people who I have helped, as best as I could have, telling me that I would do great things someday. Oh, how wrong they were. Lol! I miss it becuase it was kind of them to say becuase I don't feel, or think that way. I never did. I miss that. But, I have to think about my survival. I'm not young anymore, and hopeful, wanting to save the world. I probably never really was, if I can change and repress myself so easily. However, I do admire post conventional thinkers, that can see the wrongness of a normal environment, and not just realize it, but go into it, and change it.

 

Maybe you should just relax and try to take a lighter approach to life. You seem very stressed. Just an observation.

 

I'm not stressed. Unless I am in a stressful situation, which is likely to happen to anyone. So, I am not stressed any more or less than anyone else. Sometimes I think I am less stress than most.

 

Is this a culturally-based conclusion? or is it just, as you say, survival? In other words, are you living in a culture that puts larger emphasis on the group?

For example, I could see many Japanese growing up with this kind of ethical conclusion to life. (Your avatar name almost suggests a Japanese name----ao being green, blue, or fresh, but I could not make sense out of abai----sounds almost like the slang yabai, but...)

This is interesting because I see Japan as a culture that is traditionally group oriented, but is struggling with a modern shift to a more individually oriented culture. An example of this is a commercial in Japan where if you drive a certain car you are a rugged individual who is at home in the wild as much as at a party in the city, and everyone looks up to you. This is not much different from our Dr. Pepper commercials which tell us that if we drink Dr. Pepper we are a unique individual...

Japan is a country where many children are of a different culture than their parents, and almost as if they are from a different country altogether than their grandparents.

 

A little bit about my morals--truthfully this time-----they are very much hippie morals, if I say so myself... ...and I do...

I believe that life should have the greatest value over anything else. This is very different from the world we live in where everything has a market value, and intrinsic values---such as life----are practically meaningless. I therefore believe the individual is more important than the group. In fact, I believe that the universe itself is structured for, and to, the subjective----the individual.

I do not believe in universals such as good and evil. These are human constructs. We can do good things or bad things to other people, and that is either, from our human (or existentialist) perspective good or bad. We therefore should live a life that values each individual and therefore does not inflict pain or suffering upon others. But who are we to conclude that such concepts of right or wrong are universal. We cannot understand what is in God's mind (or that of the Great Mystery, or whatever you want to call it)---not from our limited and puny view of the universe which is largely limited to conscious physical reality across a very short physical life.

Now you might think that valuing life and so forth, that I would be a vegetarian that is against fur coats and what not----not exactly, and that may seem contradictory. It is nature that animals eat animals, and that the destiny of one living thing is to be consumed by another. If we are vegetarians, we are still killing and consuming living things. Again---who are we to decide what is in God's mind when the course of nature moves in such a manner.

Now if you will excuse me, I have my neighbors severed torso in the refrigerator and I am getting hungry...
I'M JOKING! I'M JOKING!

Seriously---we have achieved a level of sentience where we understand pain and suffering and doing good at a level different from that of animals (and yet you see cases of animals raising and caring for other orphaned animals that would normally be their prey, for example). But we still have to eat. Certainly we can treat our prey with respect and kindness----rather than the horrible factory conditions we place them in. But we still have to eat. Cruelty to animals is one of many problems of the Modern World that needs fixing.

We need to value individuality and promote the individual. Not everyone will have the same values as you, the same feelings as you----and this is how it should be. We are all individuals.

I also think we should break down the dualistic zeitgeist that we have carried down from our planter culture ancestors----and replace it with a multiplistic one.

 

Being a junkie or a coke head when your an influential rock star seems pretty bad to me for 2 main reasons. I mentioned Garcia, so let's use him as an example.
Hundreds of thousands of deadheads idolized Jerry to the point of almost declaring him a god. With that level of following, it's sending out the wrong message. I'm not saying kids started to use smack or coke because Jerry did, but there's always that possibility. Jerry did it, Brent did it, so it can't be that bad.

Second there's the whole issue of the rather nasty side of the way heroin and coke get produced and distributed. Many people have been killed by drug gangs, Columbia was ripped apart by the coke industry to the extent of whole villages being liquidated.

If a person knows all about these issues, and it's impossible to think Garcia didn't, it's hardly acceptable to use those drugs, especially when you are also far from a poor man, blessed with immense musical talent, and in a uniquely influential position.

Does that mean I think the Dead's music is tainted because of that? Not really. No more then the Beatles by Johns bad behaviours. Personally, I'm thoroughly bored with both bands, not because of the actions of the members but because I've simply heard it all way too much, and to me it seems to belong to an era that has departed.

I think that probably there are a lot of artists whose work is admired by people who know next to nothing about the character of the artist. And when you do find out it can be a shock.

But show me the morally perfect human being - I can't say I ever met one. Sanders won't do, as I'm a Brit and know little of him other then that he leans a little to the left. I'd prefer that to right wing leanings, but that's as far as I could honestly go.

 

To me it's not as bad as beating your wife. I'm not much of a follower, so I don't really hold influential artists responsible for their fans. I wouldn't feel it's okay to beat a woman because John Lennon did.

That said, listening to the Grateful Dead would be different for me knowing Jerry's drug habits than if he was straight edge or something. Knowing things about the artists does change the way I experience the art.

I just can't help but hear the voice of a man who beats women when I hear John Lennon sing now. If I heard Jerry sing, it would be like hearing, at worst, the sound of a guy with a weakness, a vulnerability. Not a malicious intent. I'm becoming so jaded with people that all music is starting to bore me. It's great to create art that aspires to the best qualities of human nature, but when everybody acts like a fucking dick in real life it all just starts to seem masturbatory.