Still Building, then BURNING DOWN LOVE!

Day 2,047, 12:56 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Arjay Phoenician III

You’re counted as a reader, you might as well vote!



When considering an anthem for the Individualist Society and an alma mater for our School of Individualist Studies on the campus of eIrish University, I almost used the masterful ”Where the Streets Have No Name” by U2. It seemed a very good fit. On the surface, it was a song by the greatest band in Irish history, used by an online school for a fictitious college in a synthetic Ireland.

Of more substance, the song seemed to say what the society is about. It is about getting past the superficial aspects of a person, not caring about where he lives or what groups he belongs to, but the content of his character.

That’s what Bono was thinking when he wrote the lyrics. He was reflecting on the notion that you could tell a man’s religion and income in Belfast by what street he lived on; he juxtaposed that thought with a trip he took to a village in Ethiopia, where no one cared about such distinctions.



That’s what we’re also thinking at the Individualist Society. This is a world where everyone defines themselves by their group affiliations, their nationalities, and their alliance loyalties. We look at a person’s profile and, all too often, think that tells us all we need to know about him. We look at ourselves and consider our worth in medals and battle damage.

It’s a perception we’re trying to change, not in a holier-than-thou way, but within ourselves first. We are not preachers trying to cram a new belief system down the world’s throat; rather, we are pilgrims looking for a new homeland, one without conventional borders and with new ways to dream.

Which is a good segue into the song we indeed did choose to be our anthem. It is “Anthem” from the musical Chess. The song tells of a man who defects from the Soviet Union to the United Kingdom during the bad old days of the Cold War, and when asked why, he answers with all the honesty he can muster, that it doesn’t matter what country he lives in, what his heart loves and his soul believes is the only nation he recognizes.



The last triplet is such a powerful statement that I use it on my profile:

HOW COULD I LEAVE HER? WHERE WOULD I START?
LET MAN’S PETTY NATIONS TEAR THEMSELVES APART!
MY LAND’S ONLY BORDERS LIE AROUND MY HEART!

I had to pick it over the U2 song. I adore the song, it fits so well, but I said no. It seems, at least in the America where the guy who pulls Arjay’s strings lives, it’s becoming EVERYBODY’S intro song, especially in college and pro sports. It’s one thing when the Baltimore Ravens use it when they take the field for the Superbowl, but when the Vancouver Canucks use it every time they take the home ice, when the Wisconsin football Badgers and the Marquette basketball Golden Eagles use it for all their home games, it just seems cliché. It’s an unfortunate shame, the song still rocks after 25 years.


Belfast Lough Times: Issue #27