What does it mean to be political? Is politics about adhering to certain principles in public life, like liberty, democracy, or equality? Perhaps the consequences of our politics matter more than any principles we hold dear? Or is politics just about competing with others to get what you want, and implementing policies that serve your self-interest? I think some competing answers to these questions can be found in an unlikely source, namely two rock songs from the late 60s/early 70s: firstly, Wooden Ships, by Crosby, Stills & Nash; secondly, For Everyman by Jackson Browne.
Both of these songs have apocalyptic themes, having been written against the backdrop of the Cold War and the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction – or M.A.D for short. Wooden Ships, which features on CSN’s eponymous debut album from 1969, was written by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Paul Kantner (of Jefferson Airplane fame) while the three of them were having a good time aboard Crosby’s boat, the Mayan. The song details a confused vision of the aftermath of a future war, in which civilization has been reduced to a radioactive husk. The initial protagonist encounters another survivor; someone who served on the opposing side in the war, though the old distinctions between friend and foe no longer apply. The protagonist simply asks this old-world enemy, ‘Can you tell me please, who won?’
They then exchange ‘purple berries’ – I’ve read that these are meant to be iodine pills, to prevent radiation sickness – and ask the ‘silver people on the shoreline’ (people clad in protective suits against the radiation) to leave them be. Out of the wreckage of the destroyed civilization, the protagonists decide to use their wooden ships (described as ‘very free and easy’) to sail off in search of a new land, where they can establish their own society, one that won’t make the mistake of blowing itself up:
“Go, take your sister then by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away, where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don’t need us”
The song ends as they depart, leaving the horror behind them:
“And it’s a fair wind
Blowing warm out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I’ll set a course and go”
One could point out that there would be no escape from the nuclear devastation in reality – wherever these stragglers wind up, the fallout will catch up with them sooner or later. But debating the feasibility of their plan isn’t my aim here; I’m more interested in what this song tells us about politics. If war is, as Carl von Clausewitz said, “not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means”, then the Cold War existed at the threshold where politics becomes war.[1] It’s debateable whether the division between the USSR and USA was first and foremost ideological, or whether it was simply a contest for power that any states of such size would have ended up in; regardless of how you view the Cold War, one cannot deny that politics was at its heart, as what is more political than the struggle between states to mass resources and power?
CSN (or CSNY as they’re known when Neil Young turns up) are a thoroughly political band – their music spoke to the counterculture at a period when the USA’s political leaders seemed adamant about the need to send young men to fight and die in Vietnam, all in order to prevent the spread of communism and protect the country’s position as a world superpower. Other songs they’ve written, such as Long Time Gone, express a clear rejection of the way politics is usually carried out:
“Speak out you got to speak out against the madness
You got to speak your mind if you dare
But don’t, no don’t, no, try to get yourself elected
If you do you had better cut your hair”
Such lyrics suggest that CSN favour rejecting conventional politics, which they see as requiring the surrender of a person’s individuality. Here is where I think the problem lies in the vision of politics we get from their music – not to suggest that this is necessarily what the band members themselves believe, but more what their music conveys to a listener. A person’s individuality is treated as inviolable, while politics is depicted as corrupting the individual. To protect your sense of self, it seems the best thing you can do is stay clear of politics. Similarly, for the protagonists of Wooden Ships, the solution to their problems is a withdrawal from the remnants of civilization and the formation of an entirely new society, one that isn’t tainted by history. The protagonists choose to save themselves, rather than going back to deal with the mess left behind by the catastrophe. At times over the past few years, I myself have found this idea appealing, because of how disheartening contemporary politics has become – although I’ve never got much further than a quick internet search for ‘communes in the UK’ before deciding that that sort of lifestyle is not for me.
This depiction of politics as threatening to corrupt or compromise the individual, along with the idea that we need to withdraw or escape from existing society in order to build a better one, misses what politics should be about. At its best, politics is about engaging with others in the public realm, doing what one can to improve or transform society as it is today, rather than planning for a utopia devoid of any of the messiness of the real world. It is indeed about compromise, but a form of compromise that aims at achieving goals that benefit the community as a whole, rather than any one individual. Engaging in politics should be about recognising differences of opinion between people, but then finding the common ground needed to make collective decisions.
This is where Jackson Browne’s For Everyman comes in. For Everyman was written in response to Wooden Ships (Browne and Crosby are friends, and Crosby even does backing vocals on the track!), and features on Browne’s 1973 album, also called For Everyman. The song simply asks about all the people that would be left behind by those sea-faring hippies in Wooden Ships:
“Everybody I talk to is ready to leave
With the light of the morning
They’ve seen the end coming down long enough to believe
That they’ve heard their last warning
Standing alone
Each has his own ticket in his hand
And as the evening descends
I sit thinking ’bout Everyman”
While the protagonists of Wooden Ships sail off to their new society beyond the horizon, Browne is more concerned about the world they are leaving behind. After the bomb drops, what will happen to all the people who aren’t immediately killed? How will surviving communities cope – or for that matter, will they cope at all? Browne rightly sees the need to stick together, rather than escaping from the situation. Besides, not everyone has the luxury of being able escaping the apocalypse:
“Waiting here for Everyman,
Make it on your own if you think you can
If you see somewhere to go, I understand.”
Here, I’m reminded of something that Hannah Arendt writes early on in her book, The Human Condition. While outlining her understanding of action, which she sees as “the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter,” Arendt mentions that “the language of the Romans, perhaps the most political people we have known, used the words “to live” and “to be among men” (inter homines esse) or “to die” and “to cease to be among men” (inter homines esse desinere) as synonyms.”[2] From this perspective, it is the protagonists of Wooden Ships who are sailing off to their deaths, while Browne recognises the importance of living among other people for survival.[3] Put differently, a human is not a solitary animal, able to thrive on its own. Instead, humans must engage in cooperation, discussion, compromise, and decision-making in order to survive. In times of crisis, we should be turning to each other for support, rather than turning away and sailing off into the sunset.
To me, For Everyman is a warning against utopianism, and a kind of political vision that situates itself outside of society. It suggests that we need to engage with politics as we find it today, rather than turn away from it to protect ourselves from being corrupted. It reminds us to live in our world, and to work with what we have to improve things, rather than dreaming up plans for the perfect society that we know will never be implemented. Perhaps most importantly, Browne shows that we should place greater value on the people around us and acknowledges that our lives would mean very little without them. While Wooden Ships dreams of escaping to a better world, For Everyman suggests that we shouldn’t turn away from politics at all, but instead get engaged to change things for the better.
[1] Carl von Clausewitz, 1918, On War, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co., Ltd, p. 23.
[2] Hannah Arendt, 1958, The Human Condition, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 7-8.
[3] The protagonists of Wooden Ships are in this sense comparable to those wealthy survivalists who own bunkers out in the woods, kitted out with enough resources to see them through the end of the world. I have little doubt that in an apocalyptic scenario they would be much safer and healthier than anyone on the outside, but I don’t think a stockpile of Twinkies, Spam, and powdered milk would be enough to re-build society.
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