John Lennon’s “Imagine” reminds me of prison for two reasons.
The first comes from an experience I had when I was 17 years old. I volunteered
in my college public speaking class to apply what I was learning by speaking to
the inmates of the Utah State Prison. They had a weekly motivational speaker
come at that time to address those on good behavior, and my professor just so
happened to be a coordinator for the program.
I never actually got to give my speech, but I did go and
listen to one of the other speakers a few weeks before I was scheduled to speak
myself, as required by my professor to understand the audience. I had to surrender
my driver’s license at the visitor’s entrance, replaced by a clip-on, numbered
ID badge. I wondered if they would still let me out if I lost it. Then I had
followed my professor down the many cement corridors past thick steel
bulkheads. I didn’t want them to close while I was in there. Eventually we
arrived at the prison chapel, and I sat among the inmates, next to Bo. Bo was
in for killing someone. Most of the inmates were friendly and starved for
conversation. One showed me his sketch book, mostly pencil drawings of the five
books on his shelf. Another offered me guitar lessons after he got out, though
it’d be a few years before he did. All were dressed in white, which is why my
professor called them “the men in white.” I was wearing a white shirt; I hoped
my slacks were enough non-white color to get me out. Eventually, the program
started and the prison band played after the introductions were given and a
prayer said. The band played “Imagine” by John Lennon.
The speaker was boring and talked about avoiding
self-directed pity-parties. I was frankly more interested in watching the
guards, one of whom kept walking along the pews and looking anxious. My
professor noticed as well. When the speech was finally over, my professor
guided him and myself quickly out of the chapel and back through the corridors
to the entrance. I was relieved to trade back my numbered ID badge for my
driver’s license while the professor talked with the guards. He told me later
that one of the inmates had been misplaced and the facility was about to go
into lockdown. We just made it out in time. The guards searched my car
including the trunk, hood, and undercarriage, and when I drove out of the
prison, I was struck by the fact that the road into the prison was better paved
than the one leading out of prison.
That was the first reason; it has more to do with
association by experience than with the song itself.
The second is purely from the message of the song.
Lennon’s anthem for world unity is ambitious and admirable,
but hopelessly tangled up in bad reasoning. “Imagine” invites the listener to
picture a world where there are no borders and no causes worth fighting for.
His iconic line “Nothing to kill or die for” imagines a world where the
conflicts end because there is no cause for contention. But nothing to kill or
die for also means nothing to live for. This is not a world of peace, but a
world of apathy masquerading as peace. Another problem with this simplistic
vision of Lennon’s Utopia is that people die with or without good reasons. Even
with nothing to die for, you are still going to die. But if you were willing to
die for something, then maybe something is worth more than maintaining your
doomed pulse. The heart of conflict is a belief that there is something
valuable in the world, the idea that things matter. People fight because people
care deeply about things. Asking one to imagine a world without this fuel for
conflict not only destroys contention, but also everything worth living for.
Unlike animals, humans crave and need a reason for their existence; breathing
and breeding are not enough to live for. We must live for something higher to
believe that there is true and lasting value in our lives.
But the problems don’t end there:
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
As good as it is for people to live in the moment and
appreciate the life around them, paying no attention to the future is a recipe
for disaster. “Living for today,” at least in Lennon’s context, permanently disconnects
the present from the future. A world without questions about, and faith in, the
metaphysical nature of the human soul is one where this world and everything in
it is meaningless. Today only means something in the context of yesterday and
tomorrow. If people disagree about the nature of the soul and its fate beyond
the grave, at least in the midst of the conflict they can appreciate their
mutual faith that life is worth living. This very faith is only possible in a
consistent manner through a belief in the beyond.
Lennon sings of apathetic inertness, with no spark to
separate the living from the dead. There must always be right and wrong,
questions about the philosophical nature of man, and a belief in the great
beyond. Without these, Lennon’s world is not worth imagining.
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
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