Neil Peart, the Bleeding Heart Libertarian...Pt. 2.

In Part 1, I gave a general background of the connection Neil (and Rush) had to Ayn Rand. My conclusion—there wasn’t much of a connection. And, like Neil said about it…he was a kid. How are we to understand Neil’s self-description as a bleeding heart libertarian? His own words are the best place to begin, so I return to the Rolling Stone interview from 2012. He said: 

“Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal – because I’m an idealist. Paul Theroux’s definition of a cynic is a disappointed idealist. So as you go through past your twenties, your idealism is going to be disappointed many many times. And so, I’ve brought my view and also – I’ve just realized this – Libertarianism as I understood it was very good and pure and we’re all going to be successful and generous to the less fortunate and it was, to me, not dark or cynical. But then I soon saw, of course, the way that it gets twisted by the flaws of humanity. And that’s when I evolve now into . . . a bleeding heart Libertarian. That’ll do.” 

So, Neil had a very “idealist” understanding of what libertarianism is and, to him, it included generosity to those who are less fortunate. Contrast this sharply with typical libertarian thinking, especially the Ayn Rand version, which basically says that if you are less fortunate you deserve to be. While something like a strong work ethic is a virtue, it gets twisted to say being less fortunate is always and without exception the fault of the one who suffers. It is not my job to help you when you won’t help yourself!

But for Neil, it would seem, human solidarity and care for others is not a contradiction to individual liberty and freedom. It is an extension of it. We may be individuals, but we are individuals who comprise a community. The health of the community makes it easier to be a healthy individual and healthy individuals invest in the health of the community (I can’t help thinking that Neil’s devotion to Aristotle was influential to him). 

Neil’s idealism was disappointed by life experience. Libertarianism turned out to be something other than he believed it was. He still held on to the ideal, however, which I am sure for him meant the freedom “walk our road together” or to “run alone and free” if we choose. But his life experience matured and tempered the ideal, leading him to call himself a bleeding heart libertarian (words that I don’t believe I have ever seen paired together anywhere else). 

No one, regardless of political convictions, wants to be impeded from “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We all want our freedom. But how much better to live that freedom with a bleeding heart than a stone cold one. Here I will conclude with a video made by Alex, Geddy, Tom Morello, and Tim Commerford contrasting United States health care with Canadian healthcare. My guess is that Ayn Rand would call them all communists.

Neil Peart, the Bleeding Heart Libertarian...Pt. 1.

 This first post will lay some groundwork that I will build on in Part 2, which is my read on Neil Peart’s libertarianism (and Rush’s outlook on the world as well). What libertarianism is, especially today, and what Neil was, I argue, are not the same. 

There is a repeating conversation I have from time to time. Different versions of it happen depending on whether my interlocutor is of a more conversative or liberal inclination, but the heart of it is the same. I’ll be talking about Rush (as is my way) and someone will say something to the effect of “aren’t they really into Ayn Rand?” My liberal friends tend to wonder, since I am very liberal myself, why I love this band so much as they perceive them to be followers of Rand. My conservative friends, on the other hand, frequently see Rush as an affirmation of their “individualist” principles and cite Rush’s devotion to Rand as evidence. 

Both are wrong. 

Did Rush, especially Neil, have an affinity or even devotion to Ayn Rand and her thought? Well, yes and no. My intention in this post is to offer my take on the “Rush-Ayn Rand connection” and I am pretty confident it is on target. It is not about being right or winning any arguments, but to try to see the truth of the matter. You and I—each of us—are free to be what we want to be and think what we want to think regardless of whether Neil Peart thought the way we do or not. I love Rush as, I assume, you do as well, dear reader. After all, here you are reading this blog. But I don’t need Rush to validate what I believe, and I think they wouldn’t want to be a validation. An inspiration, sure. But I think the fellows would want you to search for the truth and believe what you do despite whether it aligns with them or not.

Getting right to the point (before my own take), in a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, Neil was asked if the words of Ayn Rand still spoke to him. He replied, “Oh, no. That was 40 years ago. But it was important to me at the time in a transition of finding myself and having faith that what I believed was worthwhile.” A few sentences later, he went on to say, “For me, it was an affirmation that it’s all right to totally believe in something and live for it and not compromise. It was a simple as that” [emphasis mine]. On that 2112 album, again, I was in my early twenties. I was a kid.” 

As he related in the interview, this was near the time he had went to England with a dream of making it big, only to be disillusioned with the music industry there that he described as “factory-like.” The work of Ayn Rand spoke to him, as it did many of us as kids, that we could be creative and free as individuals and artists. We need not conform or do what others say we must do. As Neil said, he was inspired to accept that we could believe in something, live for it, and we need not compromise to please others. 
Indeed, this message spoke to a lot of us as kids. Needless to say, I was exposed to Ayn Rand because of the dedication to Rand’s “genius” in 2112 and started reading her books. I had read The Fountain Head and Anthem before I learned to drive. During the late teen to young adult years, we were all seeking our own identity. We want to define ourselves, not be defined by family, religious upbringing, etc. “I wanna be me!” was the call of the day. Ayn Rand, setting aside the full extent of her philosophy of selfishness, appealed to us in those days when we needed someone to tell us that we could be ourselves and define who we wanted to be. 

Most of us, including Neil Peart, grew out of that. That message of individual freedom and liberty, the permission to be creative in our own way and not have to conform to anything or anyone else was the affirming message we wanted to hear. That is all it was. Neil Peart (and all of Rush for that matter) never bought in wholesale to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

The Trees on the Hemispheres album is often cited as Rush’s continuing commitment Randian style libertarianism. Some have taken it as a shot at labor unions. After all, the Maples formed a union, demanding equal rights, their equality being secured by “hatchet, axe, and saw.” Neil has certainly said in his books that the song is about being against all forms of collectivism. But keep in mind a very important point…The Trees is an allegory. Warning: DO NOT TAKE LITERAL. I can’t speak to Neil’s intention, but I don’t think it is a song protesting labor unions. 

Consistent with Neil’s desire to be creative and not make the music he was told to make, and given his disillusionment with what he saw in England, I take The Trees to be much more about the creative freedom of the individual artist over the industry and its pressure to make mediocre music just to sell. In that same Rolling Stone interview, he said that the attitude of making repetitive songs because that’s what people want is the attitude that had been his lifelong enemy. He followed that with, “Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play music that I liked, and even when I was in cover bands when I was a teenager we only played cover tunes that we liked. That was the simple morality that I grew up with. It’s hard to think of the number of bands that just do what they want.” 

Even though music in the post-1978 catalogue revealed a Rush that was anything but Randian disciples, even songs like Closer to the Heart from 1977 starts off with a line about the importance of “the men [and women] who hold high places” who must “be the ones who start.” Yes, we are all individuals and should be free to pursue a life of satisfaction and creativity as we choose, but we are still never alone. Each of us must “know our part” in the larger community. 

So, with that background, the next post will specifically address what Neil meant by describing himself as “bleeding heart libertarian.”

Stay tuned!

Coming to Our Senses in these Dog Years

My last post focused on some of the lyrics from the song Dog Years, specifically concerning how time rolls by all too quickly and, therefore, we ought to spend our time as best was we can. This post is also inspired by the song Dog Years, but with a little different twist. From the last verse:

It seems to me
As we make our own few circles ‘round the block
We’ve lost our senses
For the higher-level static of talk

Let’s zero in on that third line. We’ve lost our senses…. Now, let’s zero in on that last word of the line—senses. It is interesting that the song after Dog Years is Virtuality. We do live in a largely virtual world. From the attachment to those little screens on our phones to Zoom meetings and working remotely (especially after Covid), much of our lives are now spent in that fantastical land of Cybernia (this will be my term for the cyber world).

I am no Luddite. I am happy with so many of the conveniences that technology affords for human life. But it is difficult to deny that our lives are also shaped and ordered to a great degree by technology, mostly in ways we don’t even consider as we “Zoom” through life. One of the things we tend to lose in Cybernia is our senses.

A recent strand of thought in philosophical hermeneutics is referred to as “carnal” hermeneutics. Interpretation theory is often centered on texts or language, but carnal hermeneutics explores the role of the body in how we construe the world, the senses especially. And of the five senses, there is a large emphasis placed on the sense of touch. Richard Kearney, Professor of Philosophy at Boston College (and the leading thinker in the area of carnal hermeneutics), identifies three “senses” of the word sense.

The first is simply our five senses through which we receive the world—things we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. The second refers to meaning. For example: “I get a ‘sense’ of what you are trying to tell me….” The final is the root meaning of the word “sense” in many romance languages as orientation or direction, that is, how we are placed in relation to the world around us. In all three of these “senses” of sense, the common denominator is that we interpret and understand the world through and with our bodies.

Thinking back to my previous post drawing from the song Dog Years, the fundamental point is that life moves way too quickly. The lesson here is that we should savor every moment to the extent that we can. Even the word “savor” has a metaphorical connection to the idea of living in our senses. What is better? Greasy fast food that you consume for the sake of calories and feeding your hunger, or to enjoy slowly a thoughtful and well-prepared, flavorful meal, especially with those we love? Ironically, in a life that goes by so fast, the slower things are usually the better things.

So, yes, time moves quickly. But, as Neil wrote, it seems we have lost our senses. And for what? For the higher-level static of talk. Talk, or verbal language, is often considered “higher” than the base bodily life that we share with other animals. Speech implies rationality, which supposedly makes us higher live creatures. But so much of that talk is static. As many philosophers throughout the ages have said, all humans have the capacity to reason, but that doesn’t mean that we all equally use it well or even much at all. Many individuals, philosophers have also said (with a hint of sarcasm), consider themselves so amply endowed with reason and logic, that they don’t seek to have any more.

I am all for reason and logic, for talk and communication. I have benefited from the technological means of communication and information. These, used well, have been and can be good for human life. But not at the expense of our senses. We may be rational animals, but we are still animals. We live in our bodies among bodies. And we truly should live in our bodies and not just reside there as an empty shell. Since we don’t have much time and because what we do have moves so quickly by, I think it will do us immeasurable good to get back to our senses.

Take time so see the world around you. Take time to hear it as well. Listen closely. Take time to smell the flowers and everything else that is good to put your nose into. Take time to touch and feel the leaves or the water, and especially the embrace of a dear friend. Taste life and savor it, literally and metaphorically. I think it is long past time we come to our senses, don’t you?