Us and Them

I was recently thinking about my days as a music student in Jackie McLean’s African-American Jazz Studies department at Hartt. I’m not sure why exactly. It might have something to do with recently reviewing my transcripts in the process of applying to graduate school (not for music). A great deal of the non-music education in that environment was about delineating hip from not-hip, white from black, or “European Western Classical” from “African”.

It might also have something to do with a book I’m reading called Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique by Michael Gazzaniga. He discusses something called “in group and out group bias”. We’ve evolved to prefer members we identify as being part of our in-group.

I also remembered an elementary school social studies lesson that involved a 16mm film with no words called, “Us and Them” – the film basically showed a group with signs that said “Us” looking across a body of water at a group with signs that said “Them”. Then some of the “Us” folks swam over to the “Thems” to find out that the “Thems” were now “Us” and vice versa. Kind of clever, even if it was a bit hokey.

It may also be that the more I read about religious belief, politics, and the like: the more I see these biases. So much so that the conclusions of otherwise seemingly reasonable people completely defy logic and fact.

Take an example at Hartt. A very famous jazz bassist came to the school for a master class one day. He became very angry and irritated when he saw a video camera in the room, placed by one of the students. The camera was turned off. He then proceeded to pronounce jazz as an African-American art form, which it is. However, it is born of ancestors who were both forced slaves dragged from Africa, as well as European music in the form of hymns, parade music, brass bands, etc. He proceeded to spend the next hour explaining that there were no significant white pioneers in jazz music and all of the contributions had been made by blacks. This particular musician is a graduate of a famed classical conservatory – and the entire time he clutched a 250 year old Italian bass violin in his hands… Another example from Hartt would be the statement in one class that “Western European culture is over-obsessed with analyzing everything…”, a statement made by a famous saxophonist, who’s instrument was invented in Belgium, refined in France, and has evolved in great part due to the study of acoustics.

Those are just two examples from school. Consider the people that claim the Earth is 6000 years old. Consider others who believe Noah’s Flood was a literal event, despite species that we now know reproduce asexually… and with no regard for dinosaurs, fossil history, and vast evidence to the contrary.

It is hard to argue politics or religion. I think a mark of a real intellectual, or maybe just being a real grown-up, is realizing there are many sides to everything. Nothing is black and white.

It is never Us and Them. We are all a little of both.

If I am to trust recent DNA studies and the ongoing study of paleo-anthropology (and I do), we *all* came from Africa 60,000 years ago – from common ancestors. The DNA evidence is there. The same DNA evidence that sends men and women to death row shows our common heritage on the African continent 60,000 years ago.

These are the facts that emerge. Science, unlike religion, undergoes a constant and welcome revision. We interpret the facts, make theories, test them… and when they no longer hold up, we find more facts, revise our theories and test them again. This is the problem I have with the criticism of John Kerry as a “flip flopper”… BRIGHT people flip flop. When the information changes, they revise and adapt. There is nothing noble about standing your ground when the evidence changes. There is nobility in being able to say you were wrong, despite your best efforts, and adapt…

Historically, religion has held our fact finding and theorizing back. Galileo was nearly put to death, and forced to live under arrest for supporting Copernicus’ theory that the planets revolved around the sun – despite his invention of something called the telescope. The church’s refusal to accept fact persisted even into the 1700’s, long after Isaac Newton – and long after the mathematics were in place to explain planetary movement around the sun.

I’ve been called an idealist (I’ve also been called a lot less nice things too…). It seems to me like the sooner people can give up the things that cause them these black and white, in-group/out-group, us and them biases the sooner we’ll have a peaceful planet to live on.

I never was a big John Lennon fan… and in my early years I though that “Imagine” song was a crock. But you know what, I actually think he had something there. Yes, I really do…

Imagine

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 that 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

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one