Then, Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
Four tracks on Reflektor propose an approach to social ethics for a reflective age by way of critique. “We Exist” confronts us with our capacity to alienate people. Whether the categories are rich-poor, gay-straight, conservative-liberal, foreign-national, or some other “us-them” social construction, people have a propensity to categorize others – even within our own families – in oppositional categories and then act “like [they] don’t exist.” Sometimes this desire to alienate is so deeply rooted, it turns religious, and we find ourselves “praying that [they] don’t exist.” The alienated singer in “We Exist” appeals to his “Daddy,” which can be heard as an appeal to his actual father as well as God, echoing the “Abba” from Scripture. In either case, the central question is: Why do people ‘treat me like this’ just because I am different?
The singer acknowledges that God understands because of the same alienation and rejection God experienced in the betrayal of Jesus (“not the first betrayed by a kiss”). In fact, for the singer the experience of Jesus seems to be the paradigmatic experience of alienation. While the singer does not understand the rationale for the way people treat her/him, s/he clings to the father’s/God’s love (“I’d lose my heart if I turned away from you”). There is a core familial and theological identity, the singer claims, that endures the experience of alienation. It is this foundation that enables the singer to say, “Daddy it’s fine I’m used to them now.” But it seems in the song that this foundation is jeopardized (“Oh Daddy don’t turn away…will you watch me drown?”).
The resolution from the singer’s perspective is to “just let us through,” which is another way of asking those who alienate to acknowledge our existence. The “young” and “confused” in the song appeal for grace to become what they are becoming, regardless of the apparent differences. This existential dilemma faces the youth culture in every era to a degree, but is particularly relevant in our time where a different way of being human is being shaped by the significant social, political, economic and technological shifts of the past century. Those who feel the alienation wonder of those who stand over against them, “What are you so afraid to lose?” This question unveils the fear that lies at the heart of the “us-them” distinction and attempts to initiate a dialogue, which points a way forward to mutual understanding and, possibly, reconciliation.
This possibility for mutual understanding is played out in the final stanza of the song, which is difficult to hear because it echoes behind layers of sound and whispering voices. “Maybe if you hang together you can make the changes in our hearts.” This is a call to communal witness. A durable way of being in the world is defined within communities. As a community lives in particular ways it shows itself to be life-giving/nurturing, prohibitive (in either positive or negative ways) or destructive. The appeal in this claim from the alienated is that if a particular community, for example, the Christian community, can demonstrate a nurturing, positive way of being that does not alienate differences, then it becomes attractive and can make a compelling case for a good way to live. It is interesting in the song that the alienated open this possibility. However, it makes sense since to assert themselves as the alienated over against, let’s say, the normal, would be in itself a form of alienation. In “We Exist,” the disenfranchised have the mercy to help those opposed to them to make a start at reconciliation.
[11.29.2013 – Another interesting possibility on this stanza that applies here and below: The phrase “hang together” could be literal. Imagine a revolution of the alienated that results in a public lynching of the cultural powers that be. In that case, the horror of the act of “hang[ing] together” could serve as a witness to “make the changes in our hearts.” Thinking Christianly, Arcade Fire could have in mind the crucifixion, where Jesus “hung” with thieves and the result set off a social and ethical revolution that continues to impact the world. In this reading, which is more compelling the more I think about it, I don’t know what to do with the phrase, “just where should you start?” The greatest possibility is the alienated in the song present this possibility as an option to those who are “praying that we don’t exist” if reconciliation is not otherwise possible. Regardless, the moral impact of the phrase in the song is the same, the onus is on those who alienate to make the changes needed to rectify the cultural imbalance at play. Whatever means those who alienate demonstrate a change of heart and action may compel those who have experienced alienation to also change.]
In sum, “We Exist” declares that any society – a church, a family, a city or a nation – that eschews differentiation in favor of mass conformity to particular way of being is not a healthy community and needs to be rethought. The song is a warning against the influence of mass cultures driven by normalizing technologies and economic systems that narrow human personality, creating a way of being “normal” that excludes those who are different.
And it is this unfortunately common social phenomenon of normalcy that is under scrutiny in “Normal Person.” Interestingly, the link between these two songs is not simply thematic, but also poetic. In a brilliant lyrical move by Arcade Fire, the exact same possibility for mutual understanding articulated in “We Exist” appears again in “Normal Person.”
“Maybe if you hang together
You can make the changes in our hearts
And if you hang together
You can change us, just where should you start?”
The central issue in “Normal Person,” articulated with Mick Jagger-esque moxie in its opening verses, is the unintentionally (in most cases) violent and cruel way in which a society instantiates its communal norms. Now, it is essential to the existence of particular societies and cultures that they embody and communicate a set of internal norms. In fact, it is this complex set of internal norms that gives a particular community its identity. Communities cultivate these norms by reinforcing them among one another by the way they talk and act; that is, through a negotiated social ethics. So, the issue in “Normal Person” is not the existence of norms. It would be easy to read this song quickly and hear it as a deconstruction of all social norms. The singer clearly realizes (particularly in the verse cited above) that norms are essential to the particularity of human cultures. The question is the way in which these norms are instantiated and whether there is a possibility within its social ethics for accommodating differentiation.
In “Normal Person,” we find a crack in the fabric of normalcy in the opening verse, “Do you like rock and roll music? Because I don’t know if I do.” Alternative music has tried since its inception to, as Thom Yorke profoundly put it in interviews surrounding Radiohead’s album Kid A, “break rock and roll.” In its inception, rock and roll music revolutionized popular music by shattering just about every available norm. It blended discrete musical styles and, for a time, was a creative arena for the continuing evolution of music. Like most cultural revolutions; however, the existing social powers (in this case the FCC and the music industry) used their influence to normalize or mainstream rock and roll music. It took the punk revolution and later alternative streams of music to infuse creative possibilities into rock and move the music forward. And, of course, Arcade Fire locate themselves along this music trajectory that operates in musical forms that seek to continually innovate and duck the label “rock and roll,” and sometimes even “alternative.”
With this musical norm questioned in its opening lines, the song continues to problematize the category of “normal” with questions like, “They want to know if you, if you’re normal too, Well, are you?” and “I’m so confused, am I am normal person?” While raising these questions, the singer points out the oppressiveness of the norming norms of cultures, noting that those called “normals” “break you down, till everything is normal now” and declare with a sense of achievement, “look how you’re just the same as me.” In the face of the social power of these particular norms (“they take their tea at two,” “they burn the jungle down,” “you dream in English now, in proper English”), the singer rejects them (“Mama don’t make me go,” “If that’s what’s normal now I don’t want to know”) and offers the alternative resolution we encountered in “We Exist” that I cited above. Instead of a culture enforcing a particular sense of normal that squelches individual expression, the singer calls, again, for a reassessment of “normal” that allows for the potential and possibilities that comes from a consideration of a wider range of human existence. Only by trying this approach with some measure of success (“if you hang together,” in which I hear a combination of community and sense-making) will those who are alienated because they have not considered “normal” in the past consider any sort of change or acceptance of cultural norms.
The insights of these two songs apply immediately to Christian communities, which are defined by a set of very complex and often very specific norms. Recent studies of the church from the perspective of “outsiders” have shown a strong animosity toward Christians, particularly in relation to the way we have engaged the broader culture. Particularly in the arenas of American politics and dealing with the LBGT community Christians are perceived by outsiders as closed-minded and militant. Even Christians within these communities who have a more liberal political vision and approach the LBGT community more openly feel alienated from their faith communities. The proposal in both “We Exist” and “Normal Person” could be directed specifically at the Christian community saying, in essence, that if those outside of the Christian community can see that it is a community defined by the grace, love and forgiveness by which it was formed, then there may be a willingness to listen and even a possibility that those once outside will adopt some of the established theological and ethical norms that make the Christian community the powerful force that it is and could be in and for a watching world. But, as the song says, the onus is on the church and not on them. We cannot wait for the world to change (to quote John Mayer) because the issue is with us (“just where should YOU start”), and particularly us when it comes to the Church, those who know they should examine the speck in our eye before seeking to remove the log from someone else’s.
Because, at the end of the day, those who believe they are normal have their own idiosyncrasies (“I’ve never really ever met a normal person like you”). These differences, as the singer indicates, are just suppressed (“they try to hide it”). The way to move forward, as we have seen, is to negotiate a social ethics that is able to normalize creativity and personal differences on a broad scale.
Both “We Exist” and “Normal Person” are ultimately further meditations on Kierkegaard’s essay, The Present Age. Alienation and subjugation to social norms are two indicators that we exist in a reflective age. As Kierkegaard notes,
“Envy which is establishing itself is a leveling, and while a passionate age pushes forward, establishing new things and destroying others, raising and tearing down, a reflective, passionless age does the opposite, it stifles and hinders, it levels. This leveling is a silent, mathematical, abstract process which avoids upheavals…. The leveling in modern times is the reflective equivalent of Fate in the ancient times. The dialectic of ancient times tended towards leadership (the great man over the masses and the free man over the slave); the dialectic of Christianity tends, at least until now, towards representation (the majority views itself in the representative, and is liberated in the knowledge that it is represented in that representative, in a kind of self-knowledge); the dialectic of the present age tends towards equality, and its most consequent but false result is leveling, as the negative unity of the negative relationship between individuals.”
Kierkegaard suggests positively that the way to overcome losing one’s self in a reflective age to remain passionate, but faithful and wise, in the face of forces that seek to “level” or normalize and, thereby, alienate those who either do not or cannot fit in. I contend, beyond the texts of these songs, that we can do this if we embody Jesus’ intention in loving our neighbors as ourselves not only as individuals, but Christian communities. Only then will we have the possibility of any sort of positive social witness to a watching (and eagerly waiting) world.
To this point, we’ve only worked through two of the four songs on Reflektor that implicate a social ethics for a reflective age. In the next post, I will tackle the other two.