A favorite of mine are the lyrics of "My Back Pages," a deeper cut from his 1964 classic, Another Side of Bob Dylan. I find most compelling the fact that this song is applicable to the life and times of Dylan in the mid 1960's as well as to us right here and now, some 58 years later. I also find the Byrds' 1967 cover a beautifully melodious complement to the lyrics themselves. That recording cut out some of the lyrics Dylan wrote, so I've linked Dylan's version and the full lyrics at the bottom.
In the song, Dylan expresses disillusion with parts of the protest movement for which he was seen as a leading voice. The folk music circuit of that period promoted an admixture of roots music and political engagement, and Dylan was looked upon as a paragon thereof. But by 1964, Dylan had made a perceptive realization: namely, that the exuberance of fighting for what one believes in may lead one into becoming what one doesn't - if one's argument takes precedence over compassion for whomever one is arguing with. Think in our own times about how cable news discussions are presented. Or, worse, read the comments section of any fringy news site. What you sometimes find is people trying to win a political argument (i.e. the convincing of another person to their viewpoint) while sprinkling in invective and insult. "If you don't agree with me about Issue X, you're a dumbass!" The contradiction becomes even more ironic when Issue X turns out to be, say, world peace, or legislative compromise, or some other position diametrically opposed to the very language and tone employed by the arguer. "Be nicer to people, you dumbass!"
Dylan, in a rare moment of explicitness, intimates this idea bluntly:
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
Such a realization of one's own tendency to replace discourse with contempt begs the question: what is the root cause of the over-the-top hand-wringing, arguing, and yelling that defeats the idea of discourse in the first place? Admirably, Dylan self-criticizes, implying that, in the end, his yelling and arguing haven't make the world a better place. And fighting for an issue loses its effectiveness when we lose respect and compassion for our "opponent" (a word loaded with this same kind of irony!):
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
The most famous line of the song is the capstone of each stanza:
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Dylan was only 23 when he wrote this song, and this heightens the temporal dissonance of the line. Here, Dylan is equating age with stubbornness of belief and a lack of empathy with others. The older generation, against whose views he had been protesting, he saw as uncaring elites who ran the country. The youth were protesting for civil rights, for an end to war, for drug legalization, etc. But after coming to the realization that he too was uncaring for the "other" in all of his vitriolic protests, he concludes that he must have been older at that previous time.
I don't interpret the song as suggesting that standing up for justice is itself useless; quite the opposite, in fact! Rather, it seems that blindly yelling one's talking points while holding contempt in one's heart for one's fellow human(s) does more harm than good. And if it is "good" that we're fighting for, why don't we first set out to love our "opponent"? And then how about continuing to love and respect them during and after we engage with them? That is how to change hearts and make progress toward justice. And perhaps it will also keep our back pages free of wasted ink.
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