Rynick on Lennon and/not vs Bannon, me on clap-trap

Can't make the hyperlink thingy work, so back to cut and paste:

http://davidrynick.com/john-lennon-stephen-bannon-and-a-middle-way/

We might wish we lived in Lennon's world, but we don't. (I really don't want to live in Bannon's world -  a state of affairs he and his C-in-C could bring about, if they're not careful.)

Putting all our identity into opposing something may make us feel better, but what does it change? It empowers that which we are opposed to, because it enlarges its presence in our state of being.

Specific action may change things, though we should be humble enough to admit the probability of unintended consequences. I respond well to those who tell us (in the UK) to stop banging on so much about Trump, it simply strengthens his power over our thinking. Coretta King was right about that psychological process. 

In my darker moments, I find a degree of clap-trap in some left/liberal emanations. "Clap-trap," I've just discovered, is an 18th century expression from the theatre, meaning something superficial which is merely intended to provoke applause. It's a trap for clapping, nothing significant. Easy emotion, easy responses.

There is, I'm sure, a value in an in-group strengthening its own morale. The Natural Voice movement is an example. Many of us enjoy singing songs about harmony across the world, nations will cease to be, we are one people. We aren't, of course, and I can't see any way in which we (human-kind) ever could entirely be so. 

We can sometimes touch the deep things all people share in common, but those things are not to be found in Lennonism, or Bannonism. We can certainly avoid tearing at each other in rage and fear. We can yearn for a more harmonious world in this world, not just in our hearts.

So inevitably there is sometimes a pleasant feeling of claptrappiness about our singing. That's not the same as the powerful communality that comes from singing together, and I believe that communality does change people by pulling them together.

And singing pleasant clap-trap is not the same as, though it might help with, raising money for useful work by singing at events like Sing For Water, Cardiff June 18, London in September. (You don't have to go there and sing, just contribute, please.)

Or The Cold Concert in Bangor Cathedral last night to raise money for people locally without homes - a number which is inexorably and disgracefully rising. In our wealthy-for-some country. And you could say that any clap-trap at that event helped bring the donations in.

It's called the Cold Concert because homeless people get wet and cold in this weather, and because the cathedral is a bloody cold place to sit in for a couple of hours in February - good. A useful reminder. Contribute, and stop whinging, I told myself.

But in the end, real change comes from widening our states of being, understanding others, looking for any common ground for right action, as Rynick (and Ghandi) argue. Real change comes from inner work as well as outer action.

Lennon (particularly with McCartney) was, I think, one of the very few truly original artists of pop, so no disrespect intended to his shade. Nothing wrong with a bit of cosy clap-trap sometimes, so long as we don't mistake that pleasant warmth for the difficult fires of real personal and social change.