What Would YOU Do: Stand and Fight or Escape to New Lands?
War cries and skyscrapers for #FreedomMusicFriday
Back in a #FreedomMusicFriday post in August, I posed a question: Did You Start Listening to Harder Music During Covid?
Sometime after 2015, I began to notice more friends and colleagues talking about getting into hard rock and heavy metal. It was new for some. For others, it was just a return to the hard stuff they listened to in high school.
I believe this was a mechanism for coping with our descent into neo-totalitarianism. It started after 2015 when we began to be censored in social media, and then accelerated with the arrival of covid tyranny.
I noted that in the midst of all the lies, coercion, and control,
“Hard music just started to feel right. It gave us energy. The lyrics, the guitars, the drums, the rhythm—it all conveys a feeling of defiance. The left has kind of ruined the word ‘empowerment,’ so instead, I will say that the music gave us strength. It woke us up. It reminded us that we are still lions, and that that’s a good thing to be.”
I do not feel quite as on edge as I did during 2020–2021, but that feeling of defiance—and the desire to hear it amplified in music—does remain.
But fighting is not the only possible response to oppression. You can also try to escape it…
If we had to sum up the history of Britain in a single word, I think it would have to be invasions—first various neolithic peoples, then Celts, Romans, Germanic tribes, Scandinavians, and Normans, each making its cultural, linguistic, genetic, and political mark on the island.
By the early 5th century, the Romans had withdrawn and the various Germanic tribes began pouring in. The “native” Britons’ choices boiled down to three: fight, integrate, or flee. All of these happened to some degree.
There was no stopping the Germanic invasion, however. The Britons were slowly pushed westward into what are today called Wales and Cornwall, which became something of last redoubt for them. A testament to that redoubt still stands today in the form of a north-to-south line of castles along the Welsh border (mostly built to keep them in), and in the unique Welsh language and culture.
For some Britons, however, this was still too close to the action. A subset of these Celtic peoples said, To heck with this and just bailed out entirely. They got on boats, crossed the Channel, and (re)occupied the French peninsula of Brittany. Their response to to the pressure, in order words, was to leave.
One aspect of our nature as humans beings suggests that the response to oppression should always be to stand and fight. There are certainly times when we must make a stand, but is that always the right path? Were these Britons “cowards,” or did they just want to live a peaceful life?
At some point in the past, I would have insisted that, come what may, we must stand and fight. Today, I’m not so sure…
Once upon a time, it was (comparatively) easy to pick up stakes and make a new home in freer lands. That is far less of an option today. If it were—if there were some unoccupied piece of ground far away from tyranny—I would absolutely be lobbying my family and friends to relocate there.
I still have both impulses in me, and I suspect many of you do as well. Today’s #FreedomMusicFriday is a testament to both.
First, we have In This Moment’s “Comanche,” in which metal-Valkyrie Maria Brink screams,
We wanted peace but you brought this war
We took enough and we can't take any more…Will you come with me?
Will you stand with me?
Would you follow me?
Would you believe with me?
Tell me you'll bleed with me
Tell me you'll die with meCome on, come on
Let me hear your war cry
It’s hard/metal (and NSFW, FYI), so it might not be for everyone. But it does nicely encapsulate the stand-and-fight impulse. I like it.
Then we have Eivor’s “Skyscrapers.” In it, she certainly seems to be saying that she has grown weary of life in the city:
On these narrow streets from where I stand
I'm barely breathing, it's no place for me
However, every time I hear it, it conveys a general feeling of being pent up, and a desperate need for escape. And so I have adopted it for our purposes here.
For Eivor, perhaps it is simply a matter of wanting to get back to a simpler life. To me, “the city” and its tall buildings are a proxy for a kind of oppression.
And I know I’m not the only one. If I say, “Picture peace and freedom,” dollars-to-donuts the first thing that comes to your mind is some sort of rural scene: green grass and buzzing bees, blue skies and friendly trees. And if I ask you to “visualize oppression,” there is a good chance you will see the opposite: grey buildings looming over darks streets.
It’s like those dreams where you’re trying to escape—you’re not running to the gloom of a dystopian city, or to its post-armageddon ruins. You’re fleeing to a beautiful, peaceful countryside.
I wanna get beyond the skyscrapers
I know that freedom waits somewhere behind
The skyscrapers
So what’s your first impulse? If you could go, would you? Or would you stand and fight no matter what?
The studio version of “Skyscrapers” is below, but I also adore this live version:
I’d like to offer up a hybrid third option: exiting and building is the new “fight”. 🙌🙌
For years I’ve experimented with the “what you resist persists” phenomenon of energy exchange. It’s in accepting “what is” that one gains access to a new level of power to manifest resolution- as opposed to matching the problem with an “eye for an eye” type response.
Also, there’s a part of me that feels like “fighting the system” is, in a way, validating it. It’s unconscious consent. If the walls of our prison are mental in nature (which I believe they are) believing they are real enough to fight them gives them more power.
The matrix can matrix all it wants. I’m gonna live my life outside of it. Inside what is real. Inside my sovereignty- no matter where my physical self is located.
I can see how one would think I’m just rolling over and allowing the tyranny to continue...but I posit that much of “their power” is illusory.
The power of belief really matters here.
It’s like the $20 dollar bill. Technically, it’s just a piece of paper with ink on it. It’s only worth $20 because enough people BELIEVE that it is.
Thoughts? 🙂
Reason magazine has an article now with advice from Annie Duke, "Quitting Is Totally Underrated:
The psychologist and poker champion says too many of us don't understand the power of knowing when to walk away.”
https://reason.com/podcast/2023/12/13/annie-duke-quitting-is-totally-underrated/
We are taught to never give up, but when you have a losing hand, the smart thing is to lay it down. And if the game is fixed against you, walk away. For a long time, the left-right difference was a contest. Now the leftists have won, are making the rules, and they aren't playing fair. Their rule is, "We win. There are no other rules." Time for a different game, IMHO.