In a 2014 lecture on the social world of the Ancient Near East, Borg cited four distinctive characteristics. I’m indebted to historian of Christianity Marcus Borg for the following prescient insights. Yet today we are in danger of falling back into those oppressive, pre-democratic days. The seeds of this democratic experiment called the United States of America were planted in the soil of the Democratic Revolutions that began in 17th century Europe with calls for government by consent of the governed, not government ordained by God. “Today we are in danger of falling back into those oppressive, pre-democratic days.”
What has caused this widespread belief is way beyond my paygrade, but I do know, as you probably do, some of the ground from which it springs. There’s not room here for the next 50 years of American protest songs, but the point is clear: There’s a bright through-line in those protest songs since 1940: unfairness - a belief that I am being treated unfairly and I’m not the only one. Marvin Gaye picked up the mantel of protest with “What’s Goin’ On” in 1971 - “Mother, mother/there’s too many of you crying/brother, brother, brother/there’s far too many of you dying.” In 1970, protesting students were shot and killed by National Guard and police at Kent State in Ohio and Jackson State in Mississippi. What was the world coming to, you might ask. That was a year before the Kennedy assassination and six years before the King assassination. It looks like it’s a-dyin’ an’ it’s hardly been born. Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song ‘bout a funny ol’ world that’s a-comin’ along Seems sick an’ it’s hungry, it’s tired an’ it’s torn. The second verse of his “Song to Woody” goes like this:
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Twenty plus years after Guthrie declared, “I ain’t a-gonna be treated this way,” in 1962, Bob Dylan was equally despondent about the state of his world. How far ya make it, that is, after “carjack(in’) an old lady at a red light,” “cuss(in’) out a cop” or “stomp(in’) on the flag.” Unlike Anthony, Jason Aldean is speaking for himself and like-minded “good ol’ boys raised up right.” They’ve “got a gun my granddad gave me” and they’ll “see how far ya make it down the road.” He’s “workin’ all day/overtime for bullshit pay,” while “we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat” and “young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground/ ’cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down.”
Today, nearly 85 years later, Oliver Anthony sounds a whole lot like Woody. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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