Lennon and other dreamers of 'Imagine'

John Lennon's 1971 hit single 'Imagine' has inspired people for decades. It is a song about a dream that humankind should live at peace, without divisive barriers. Lennon lists three major barriers: religion, nationalism and possessions. In the lyrics, he envisions 'brotherhood of man' with 'nothing to kill or die for'.

'Imagine' is a song and in general, lyrics to songs should not be taken too seriously. It's poetry, and as a dreamer, Lennon wanted to convey his feelings that there should be peace instead of war and divisiveness. Still, he said he advocated socialism and atheism (albeit not in forms that, for example, Soviet Union represented), and there have been varying interpretations of what he actually meant or how literally the lyrics should be taken, or whether they are just a dream with no real connections or something we should actually strive for.

Stanley's comic

In 2013, artist Pablo Stanley produced a comic version of the song, which can also be purchased as a poster, and he included six examples of other 'dreamers'. On his website, he also has a small disclaimer about how he is aware of some unamicable qualities of Lennon and how the examples do not actually fit Lennon's ideal.

Excerpt from Stanley's comic

Albert Einstein - despite being a pacifist - advocated research of nuclear weapons and his letter to U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt was a key influence that led to the Manhattan Project. His groundbreaking work in physics made the nuclear bomb possible, and the next 50 years of Cold War were marked with constant fear of global annihilation by (accidental) nuclear war.

Bob Marley was a legendary guitarist who was known for his Rastafarian faith. He spoke of how important religion is in his life and how he sees Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, as messiah. His music is known for its religious themes.

Harvey Milk, before his career as a city administrator and an activist, was a professional soldier and an officer in the United States Navy during the Korean War. There have even been calls to name a U.S. warship as USS Harvey Milk in his honor.

Martin Luther King was a Baptist priest and a religious scholar (he held a PhD in systematic theology from Boston University). In his own words, he based his activism on teachings of Jesus Christ.

Anna Politkovskaya was a journalist and human rights activist who - like Milk, King and Gandhi in this list - was murdered. She wasn't known for opposing possessions or nationalism per se (but was a known critic or Russian political leadership), and was apparently Orthodox Christian, like a major part of Russians are.

Mahatma Gandhi was the father of the independent India and a legendary nationalist who advocated non-violent resistance against colonial oppressors. Still, he worked as an army recruiter during WWI. He was also known for his religious views - he was Hindu and was inspired by Jain, Christian and Muslim ideals.

Analysis

I think Stanley's comic was pretty good and he chose very distinguished individuals as his 'dreamers'. But would they be Lennon's co-dreamers? I think not. Much of these people's work and ideals go against Lennon's ideals. However, they all worked for a better world and - in Lennon's words just as Gandhi's - a 'brotherhood of man'.

In Stanley's comic, religious officials stay as religious officials, after settling their differences. There's a Muslim girl playing football. Perhaps Stanley doesn't take Lennon's song too literally - perhaps he goes against Lennon's ideals, as he was pretty radical.

Still, Lennon quite clearly says that in his dream world, there's nothing to kill or die for. To me, this sounds like an utopia where there are no important things to struggle for. Things are given for granted and people are not even willing to defend or challenge them.

You could take 'religion' as everything related to belief in supernatural, omnipotent and otherworldly entities and deities, and claim that it is all bad. Quite often this is how it is understood. However, religion itself could be seen, even by believers, as a man-made institution that often controls, subjugates and abuses its members and puts them against other people, and there exist fine examples of this type of religions. Is this what Lennon meant? Interestingly, Greg Graffin of the punk rock band Bad Religion has spoken about how their band's message is not anti-theist per se, but against institutions that divide and take away freedom, regardless of whether they are religious or not. In this sense, the 'anti-religious' sentiment of Imagine makes sense.

For Lennon, it seems countries are nationalist, artificial, political entities that justify violence. It would be interesting to see Lennon and Gandhi debate this. A national identity is important to people. Gaining independence is often a way out of oppression and violence, and it is a result of nationalism - the Finnish independence in 1917 is one example, the Indian independence in 1948 another. Can countries exist if there is 'brotherhood of man'?

Lennon composed this song using his super duper expensive Steinway & Sons piano, in his lavish house. Maybe he dreamed that these possessions would not matter. What would people play with, compose with, work with, build with, without possessions? Should there also be no ambition?

Interestingly, much of this dream of his resembles the Christian concept of Heaven.

Real dreamers

Stanley's examples of dreamers, as stated above, were very good. These three Americans, one Jamaican, one Russian and one Indian made the world a better place and advanced 'brotherhood of man', but I think not in the ways Lennon envisioned in his song, and direct analogies are naïve. Lennon describes a dream world but uses too specific examples of its features, and it throws me out of it, and distances me from it. There are and will be possessions, countries and religions, and I am not dreaming of a world without them, and neither did those six fine individuals.

Of these, Mahatma Gandhi is probably the closest of Lennon's ideal. He understood religious and ethnic groups, discussed with people and brought understanding and was prepared to take extreme non-violent actions - and died for his country. He built a nation.

There are numerous other individuals that would be in a list of real dreamers, to continue Stanley's list. Billionaires, soldiers, politicians, priests, and others who have made a contribution to advance peace and understanding. Mother Theresa, Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Andrei Sakharov, Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama), Malala Yousafzai, maybe even Bill Gates (even though I don't like Microsoft, Gates himself deserves praise for many things). I don't recognize them from Lennon's 'Imagine'.

Of course, these 'dreamers' are not a matter of imagination - they have lived, worked, and some still work in an imperfect world, as imperfect people, but not towards a utopia because the brotherhood of man cannot be one.

Battle Los Angeles Is the Most Predictable Fight Ever

After a tiresome school week, I went to Goodrich Quality 16 (Ann Arbor, MI) with my classmates to see a movie. Battle Los Angeles features tough marines fighting extraterrestrial invaders who are ugly and they want to kill us. Lots of explosions, destruction and death. The always wonderful and handsome Aaron Eckhart starring. What could possibly go wrong?

It is worth noting that this is not the recipe for success. Take Independence Day and War of the Worlds, for example. Oops, I just spoiled almost everything about Battle Los Angeles. I am sorry... or am I, really?

The idea about making a movie just about a group of marines fighting in an urban environment was good. The whole movie is focused around this small group of men (and a couple of women) who fight an unknown enemy that has already brought down most of the planet's defences. The city of Santa Monica is dirty and in pieces, the biomechanical aliens are tough and the human soldiers are brave and they form a team whose members trust each others. Like professional soldiers that they are. "Remember your training!"

There is a plot. Before a planned air strike (or carpet bombing), the marines are tasked to evacuate a small group of civilians from a police station. This turns out to be difficult and many of the soldiers die. One of the civilians dies as well. They learn something about the aliens. Even though their home base is destroyed, they are able to land an attack on the enemy's control and command center, which (probably) leads to the extraterrestrials' defeat. Just like in Independence Day.

Almost every single element of the plot is executed in the most predictable way possible. It must have been hard for the scriptwriter to put all the well-known cliches of war movies in one script, but I must applaud him for having success in that. I have not seen Platoon, so I can only assume that some of the moments have been borrowed from there, but if I say Independence Day, Aliens, War of the Worlds and Apocalypse Now! came to my mind while sitting in the theater, that covers most of the content. Also the Finnish war classic The Unknown Soldier could be in the list, but I doubt that the American filmmakers ever saw that.

I have a temptation to disassemble the whole script and point out from which movies each scene was taken. I have a temptation to list all the annoying cliches here. Then again, I could make a shorter list and list all the war movie cliches that were not used in this movie.

• The main guy is a veteran, deciding to retire, but drawn into battle one more time, realizing his place is there.
• The main guy is haunted with his past, where the brother of one of his men died.
• The superior of the main guy is a young, inexperienced Lieutenant. You know he will die soon, so that the main guy can take the lead.
• Helicopters mainly explode.
• Aliens are biomechanical.
• Marines have a gung-ho attitude and they make a big deal about it.
• Both of the women in this movie are really beautiful. They do not die.
• The black guy survives and he is a really nice person.
• Some guy loses his mind during the battle and gets killed.
• The civilians have an innocent, about 10-year-old boy with them. This boy is 100 % normal and typical.
• The civilian man dies because that is the only way to get anything sensible for him to do, and it provides a nice emotional moment for his son, who now looks up to the main guy.
• One soldier proves his worth by blowing himself up (wounded, of course).
• When the aliens' control center is destroyed, ALL alien craft stop their movement IMMEDIATELY and drop to the ground and explode, instead of, say, hovering around trying to reestablish connection to some backup command center or flying to San Francisco where the next nearest command center is located. I think this is a deadly sin.
• The marines save the whole planet by doing something entirely trivial.
• The aliens have antigravity (their craft just hover), but they are still using humanoid soldiers to combat humans.
• The aliens are after our water, for no believable reason.
• All TV broadcasts have horizontal lines and analog distortions.
• Aliens cannot just land here, they must have some visually impressive way to arrive.
• Aliens emit horrifying noises.
• Aliens are very ugly.
• Even though it is very noisy in the battlefield, nobody ever says "pardon, can you repeat?".
• Even though they are firing big guns all the time, they never lose their hearing even though they wear no hearing protection!
• Sometimes the grenades and bombs have pressure effect, but mostly none at all.
• You can see that there are tons of shrapnels flying around but they never hurt anybody. Only straight gunshots do.
• There is no blood anywhere, even though people are supposedly blowing apart everywhere.
• Nobody seems to be really worried or sad that their friends just blew up, not even the "sensitive" young guys.
• United States wins, of course. Marines are tough and they know it.
• If you write a letter to your wife, you will be killed.
• The Lieutenant has a loving wife who is pregnant. He will die.
• Did I already mention that helicopters mainly explode? Though not all of them in this movie.

I need to stop. This list serves no purpose. When you watch the movie, you just know what is ought to happen. You know it, because this is how things happen in war movies. No explanations needed. Even without seeing this movie, you could probably come up with a couple more.

Also, sound waves reach you immediately when you see the explosion. But that is the default, of course. All things produce exactly the kind of sound you would expect them to emit.

There were many cool things about this movie. The cliches and general bad drama and dialog just spoiled all the good things that they borrowed from other movies. Aaron Eckhart, as good an actor he is, is not the proper choice for a professional soldier and a war veteran. He is also too handsome for that! This was probably the first film I have seen at the theater where I had difficulty not to burst in laughter while watching it - the absurdity of knowing everything that would happen was just too much.

As a motion picture, Battle Los Angeles was not as bad a The Day After Tomorrow, for example, but it is very difficult to guess what the producer was thinking when he got the script. Did he think that he could produce a good war movie based on that piece of... work? Apparently he did, and secured a hundred million dollar budget for it. He should have donated that money to The Mikko S. Tuomela Graduate Studies Fund (which I just founded for this purpose). Why? Well, I don't know, but it sounded proper and would have served Mr. Eckhart's career better.