man & nature # 145 ~ it's all good
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 09:07AM 
Dandelion shadows • click to embiggenThe Resident Contrarian has struck once again.
Relative to Monday's entry, man & nature # 139, wherein I opined that it pleased me no end that "Bob Dylan, on his latest album, takes a rather unsubtle (for him) swipe at the relativists in the crowd ... [I]n his song, It’s all good ...", the Resident Contrarian parried with:
What truly baffles me, though, is Mark’s assertion that this is an “unsubtle swipe at the relativists in the crowd”. Huh? Are we looking at the same words? If Dylan is indeed doing that, it’s not exactly what I’d call an in – your – face indictment. It may, in fact, represent one of the most subtle uses of language in the history of songwriting. That is, if that’s the message he’s trying to convey.
Most certainly, reasonable people might disagree about Dylan's message / meaning in this song. However, thoughtful and curious people might have a leg up, message / meaning-wise, on those who only hear it as a stand-alone bit of word-smithing.
Now it should be stated that, while I do not consider myself to be a Dylanologist, not by a long shot - although I have been to a fair number of his concerts, own most of his recordings, and have a few of his published writings, I must admit to having made a rather continuous effort to read as many interviews with the man as I can get my hands on. It is also worth noting that IMO and that of many others, Mr. Tambourine Man has become quite a bit more lucid of late when speaking with the press. Maybe it's all part of that late-in-life desire to "set the record straight" that many engage in, or, maybe not.
Whatever. Nevertheless, Dylan has been engaged in a great deal of "straight talk" recently. In this month's Rolling Stone interview, he makes a pretty clear case regarding his thoughts and feeling regarding "relativism" when he talks about the American film director John Ford (he considers him to be a great American artist):
I like his old films. He was a man's man, and he thought that way ... (he) put courage and bravery, redemption and a particular mix of agony and ecstasy on the screen in a dramatic manner. His movies were easy to understand.
He also added:
Some say you can't legislate morality. Well, maybe not. But morality has gotten a bad rap.
Now, without a doubt, one could parse those words from here to hell and back. However, it seems pretty damn clear to me that Dylan is advocating both "morality" and a morality that's "easy to understand" at that. Hell, there's even more than hint of the notion of actually codifying, aka - legislating, morality in those words - that is to say, stating rules and principles in a systematic form or code - just in case the relativists don't find them "easy to understand".
So, here's what I'm suggesting re: Dylan's message / meaning in it's All Good - when one looks at the author of that song in a wholistic manner and then applies that knowledge - some might call it "insight" - to the work in question, it requires only the smallest of leaps - if any are needed at all - to deduce that Dylan is not a fellow traveler with the devotees of relativism.
As for the Resident Contrarian's view that I wouldn't "know a 'Relativist' if one came up and bit him in the ass", let me just say that I'd be around the corner and halfway out of town long before a relativist could figure out - if he/she could ever come to a firm conclusion - exactly what "bit" or "ass" actually means.
gravitas et nugalis
PS I forgot to mention one reviewer's opinion of It's All Good (relative to the RC's notion that it's "... it’s not exactly what I’d call an in – your – face indictment. It may, in fact, represent one of the most subtle uses of language in the history of songwriting." -
The word "caustic" takes on a whole new meaning in Together through Life's final cut, the sure-to-be-canonical "It's All Good." Dylan belittles all those arrogant narcissists who constantly say it all good, even when the world crumbles around them. Drums and guitar rumble in a mad-attic rush of grunge blues while Dylan spits out sarcasm with such lines as "Big politicians telling lies / Restaurant kitchens all full of flies / Don't make a bit of difference / Don't see why it should ... it's all good." It's a raucous affair. ~ Douglas Brinkley
Reader Comments (3)
Nudity, modesty, the proliferation of pop-culture, cussing and swearing, sexual orientation, alcoholism, recreational drug use, working mothers (among other issues) are conflated by the moral nut-jobs to a question of morality, when none of them represents anything close to a moral dilemma. Many of that same crowd would be the first to defend the torture conducted by the past administration. The relativists take the bait and argue that the above issues have a moral angle, which they do not.
Sam Harris makes this point in a roundabout way, criticizing relativists without noting they are often suckered into morality debates that have nothing to do with morality by the morality police of the US (William Bennett and his ilk).
Most of us know that killing your kids for talking back, while officially sanctioned by the bible, is morally wrong without being told so because of the moral imperative we all feel towards fellow human beings.
I like Dylan, but does he not now dabble with Christian nincompoopery? Could this lead him to his mocking song title, “It’s all Good?” I personally don’t know, but I’m just saying. Just because something is NOT good, does not mean it violates a moral imperative. It’s not unlike cheap hotdogs or bad hairpieces.
AW, GEE. COUPLE YEARS AGO LIKE ONE OF VAN MORRISON'S SONGS, THE STATEMENT "IT'S ALL GOOD" WAS FLYING AROUND ALL OVER THE PLACE. PERHAPS THAT PEICE OF MUSIC IS ONLY REFERENCE TO THAT MISERABLE PEICE OF BOURGEOUIS(?)BRIGHTNESS. THANKYOU VERY MUCH MR. D
Man, you just don't get it, do you. Maybe if I increase the volume a little....
IF SOMEONE SAYS THAT THEY ARE SKEPTICAL OF THINGS REFERRED TO AS "ABSOLUTE TRUTH", IT DOESN'T LOGICALLY FOLLOW THAT THEY ARE SOMEHOW ETHICALLY OR MORALLY CHALLENGED. IT'S LIKE SAYING THAT IF SOMEONE IS AN ADMIITED ATHEIST, THEY ARE THEREFORE GODLESS AND, BY DEFINITION, "EVIL". IT'S THE SAME OLD EITHER / OR CONUNDRUM THAT YOU SEEM TO BE FOREVER STUCK IN (REGARDLESS OF THE TOPIC).
SAYING THAT YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN "ABSOLUTES" DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU BELIEVE THAT "EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE". THIS IS UTTER NONSENSE. IT ALSO DOESN'T MEAN THAT WE JUST SORT OF MAKE THINGS UP AS WE GO ALONG. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT A WORD CAN MEAN ONE THING ONE DAY AND ANOTHER THE NEXT.
DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND LOOK UP THE TERM "PROBABLE TRUTH". IT'S KIND OF MATHEMATICAL AND SCIENTIFIC, SO YOU MIGHT HAVE TO READ THROUGH IT A FEW TIMES. BUT WITH A LITTLE LUCK, PERHAPS A LITTLE INSIGHT MIGHT BEGIN TO SEEP IN. IF, THAT IS, YOU ACTUALLY OPEN YOUR MIND.
With respect to "codifying morality": Now you're getting really scary. That puts you squarely in the camp of the religious right with folks like Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter. Are you sure that that's where you want to be? Are these guys really your "role models"?
Even if you want to be in that august group, I wouldn't be so quick to pull Dylan in as well. He just might have ideas of his own.