The Humanistic Approach

After writing about Paul Simon's birthday yesterday, my mind still wandered over the memories and influence of Simon and Garfunkel. Simon and Garfunkel are no great philosophers, teachers or political activists, but their music was able to capture an emotional response to the upheaval and painful changing of the times.

A few weeks ago I was up late after work and happened to stumble on a documentary on the Ovation Channel (yes, a real channel.. who knew?) about the 40th anniversary of the making of the album "Bridge Over Trouble Water." I was exhausted but I became engrossed in the movie.

In late 1968, Simon and Garfunkel asked Charles Grodin to direct a prime-time documentary of their music. The clip from the more recent documentary reflects on the difficult process of getting their show aired. As they state in the clip, they wanted to present a piece that reflected where they were at their careers, what motivated, engaged and inspired them, their music. However, a conflict arose between the sponsors and the artists about what should be conveyed to the public. I was able to find the clip posted on YouTube.

The sponsor wanted a piece that didn't challenge the audience. He wanted background music with friendly images, without causing thought or introspection. The guy said that the Southern customers of AT&T didn't want to see integration of blacks and whites, they didn't want to see poverty, kids suffering, riots in the streets, images of assassinated political leaders.

What is astonishing to me is how marketing executives thought they had the moral high ground to decide what is acceptable and unacceptable for their public to see. I don't mean in the sense that they thought they might have been buying a Richard Lester Beatles movie or just another Monkees episode and ended up with a politically motivated attack piece.

The executive tried to make Grodin feel bad about presenting his ideology, but I also think it was a moment of absolute honesty. He basically said that some people don't want to be humanists. They did not want to not be exposed to the realities of their world, the beauty, the hatred, the happiness, the inspiring, the sad and the devastating. They don't want to be connected, they don't want to empathize with people who are suffering, or act like it's theirs to change.

The executive believed that AT&T's customers had a fixed view of their class, their place in the world and they did not want those views confronted. Their customers were not poor, black or dispossessed, they were from a separate class or even caste. Plus, if anything, their customers took pride in not being those people, which entitled them to not have conscious contact, recognition or empathy. In fact, the product that AT&T wanted to put out was devoid of any sympathy, guilt or responsibility.

All these decades later and nothing's really changed. Maybe a few laws, but people haven't. People see what they want to see: liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, assassinated people, poor people, lazy people. Some people see hope. Some people see the end of days.

We're indoctrinated in school with the notion that Americans are different, special. That we believe in equal rights, and freedom and higher ideals. That we're better than other countries. Yet, as in many other countries, we fall to similar thinking of internal divisiveness where there are castes, or rival religions or tribes, no different than countries in Africa, Eastern Europe and so on.

Not only do we actively look away from our fellow human beings, dismiss them, and justify our own actions or lack of empathy, but we expect to be protected and cocooned by the people and structure of society around us.