imagine- John Lennon
Uploaded by mr_vidal on Jan 31, 2006
The song "Imagine" by John Lennon from the Beatles is certainly one of the songs that affected the youth in the 60's and the early 70's. It is clear that the song is trying to present a certain ideal about the world in the future- and ideal of peace, harmony and no wars. It is hard to argue with the song about the necessity of the things, but it is very easy to revoke the possibility that this ideal will come true.
In this paragraph I would like to talk about the ideal itself. The ideal for sure indicates that religion, god and the religious officialdom is connected to war and to all of the evil factors on earth ("Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too"). Again, although I am a "believer" I can not argue with this fact, and it is a fact. The great scholar Barbara W. Tuchman wrote a book called "The Bible and the Sword" which confirms the fact that one of God's hobbies is to stir up war. It is obvious that many wars were made in God's errands, and the crusades are the most welcome example. In verse II, Lennon asserts that the existence of countries is the cause of war. It is not written directly but one can realize it from the following: "Imagine there's no countries; it isn't hard to do nothing to kill or die for…" This claim is totally unacceptable by any means. The first two men who fought with sticks about the skin of a mammoth didn't have countries but a conflict. Tuchman writes in her book "The March of Folly" that war always was a result of people's care to self-interests without thinking of reasonable ways to solve the problem (like cutting the mammoth into two). Lennon's claim was accepted later by the Hippies, but with all due respect, they were the only group who ideologically accepted this baseless claim.
Now, that it is clear that the ideal is good, but some of it is totally nonsense I would like to talk about the possibility of making it come true, which is almost insignificant- not mentioning the fact that no one can pass religion out of the world. I know it can bore, but I would like to mention Mrs. Tuchman again. "The March of Folly" says that a...