Welcome to Musical Moondays, a semi-random community series for sharing melodious creations of our choosing, which may or may not relate to our personal lives and/or society.
The Dalai Lama was at my campus last week and I got to attend the Scientific Explorations of Compassion and Altruism conference sponsored by Stanford's new CCARE center, with various researchers in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, bioengineering, and neuroeconomics describing their research on the underpinnings of human compassion with the spiritual and secular leader-in-exile of the Tibetan people.
Karl Deisseroth, a pioneer in the new field of optogenetics, described his experiment for enhancing the social activity of mice by stimulating specific neurons with pulses of blue fiber-optic light. The result was a mouse who took a much greater interest in his companion. Whether the ability to induce this mousy compassion extends to other species is yet to be determined. However, an interesting point was raised. If compassion could be stimulated, could anger be suppressed? The Dalai Lama said that “anger is really of no use, it creates all the problems. So here we need investigation. Can you remove anger through electricity in the brain?” The researcher replied that he thought it might be possible, but perhaps anger serves an evolutionary purpose. For example, he offered, anger at injustice might be a useful trait for human survival. I thought it was really ironic that this guy was suggesting to the Dalai Lama that anger was a useful reaction to social injustices like the kind that the Tibetan people have endured in comparatively peaceful acquiescence. Do you think one should stand up for what's right, or sit down and peacefully protest? Are anger and compassion compatible? All thoughts welcome.
With that notion in mind, I would like to offer a showing of Rage Against the Machine's cover of The Ghost of Tom Joad, starting with a clip from the classic 1976 Academy-Award winner, Network. We begin with the famous monologue from a cynically deranged ex-TV anchor whose rants are exploited by the very media he denounces:
Howard Beale - Network
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad - worse than bad, They're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone!' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! I want you to get MAD! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!
Rage Against the Machine - The Ghost of Tom Joad
Cover of Bruce Springstein
Man walks along the railroad tracks
He's goin' someplace, and there's no turnin' back
The highway patrol chopper comin' up over the ridge
Man sleeps by a campfire under the bridge
The shelter line stretchin' around the corner
Welcome to the New World Order
Families sleepin' in their cars out in the Southwest
No job, no home, no peace, no rest
No rest!
The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody as to where it goes
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad
He pulls his prayer book out of his sleepin' bag
The Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
He's waitin' for the time when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
With a one way ticket to the promised land
With a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand
Sleepin' on a pillow of solid rock
Bathin' in the city's aquaduct
The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody as to where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Waiting on the ghost of Tom Joad
Now Tom said, "Ma, wherever you seen a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Wherever there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Ma, I'll be there
Wherever somebody's strugglin' for a place to stand
For a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, you'll see me"
You'll see me (x8)
The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody as to where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of Tom Joad