During my work days this past week, I have been listening to the entire line-up of songs on my MP3 player: over three days worth, if you play them non-stop around the clock. When I loaded all my music onto it, I was sure to include all the one-hit wonders, and all those songs that were the only tracks I liked from artists who had many other songs I never cared for. Among these was “Seven”, by Prince and the New Power Generation.
Upon new consideration of this song, I decided to view the video on YouTube, and discovered once again just how much I really love it. But then, true to my curious and analytical nature, I applied myself to determining why.
In the end, what I discovered was that it is a song of liberation. Of course, the subject matter of the song itself is liberation; the story being that when this mysterious “seven” were defeated, the belly-dancing, black-square-lace wearing people would live in a utopian world of splendor and enlightenment. Knowing that Prince fancies himself a spiritual fellow, I always interpreted this as defeating the seven deadly sins and spending eternity in the kingdom of Heaven where the “streets are paved with gold” and where “there is no death”. I’m assuming there was a deliberate diversion from this interpretation on the part of the makers of the video. Perhaps it was too controversial. Instead of a biblical theme, they included a preface with the belly dancer telling the hero about seven shady men who were after her father.
Whatever the case may be; what struck me more about the song was its liberation from guilt. The moral trends in current society bend toward the enlightened sympathetic. For these people, doing harm to an enemy is less than civilized and makes us as bad as the enemy themselves. These are the people who cried “shame” at anyone celebrating the deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. They are also the people who hold the justice system captive by challenging every detail of the treatment of known criminals. Murderers have more people practicing the hands-on protection of their rights and treatment than you or I will ever have. To take this philosophy seriously, we’d have to imagine they would rather endure evil than eliminate it, if eliminating it meant to kill it. The thing they don’t understand is that when Evil learns there are no consequences, Evil runs rampant and unchecked. They are enabling evil by protecting it from harm. Are these people then truly the moral ones? Who is more righteous? These who would enable evil in the world, or those of us who would see it eliminated, by force when necessary? They gray area, of course, is the definition of evil and the moral reluctance of those who would challenge it. More often, we see the overzealous, eager people stepping up first to smite evil, but they should be the last ones to do so. Their definition of evil seems to be pretty wide and loose. After all, that was Hitler’s philosophy behind exterminating the Jews. What’s the saying? The best leaders are the ones who do not want the office? The same could be said about whoever makes the decisions on smiting evil.
There is an imaginary line somewhere in the future of the human race. Thinking logically, this line will never exist. After all, humans are mammals; subject to all the instincts and urges that come with that distinction. But if this line were to exist, it would be the divide between humanity as we know it now, and a human race that is enlightened, free of sin and at peace with all its members. Those people who wish to protect the wicked are the same ones who believe in that line. More than that, they believe humanity has reached that point.
The fact is it hasn’t. Yet, they would still hold us to its ideals. Because of this, we feel guilty when we find joy in the suffering or elimination of our enemies or of the wicked. Guilt never has been and never will be a healthy condition. It results in depression, feelings of worthlessness and can lead to acts self degradation and destruction. Guilt can also manifest as insomnia and physical pain. A healthier outlook would be to dispense with the guilt trip. It may not be an enlightened view, but it’s more realistic to the nature of our species to rejoice when we have been freed from the grip of an enemy, even if that freedom came at the expense of the enemy. It’s the difference between the ticker-tape parades that welcomed home our World War II soldiers, and the disdain that has welcomed our soldiers ever since. It is a healthier, happier, more liberating point of view. And in my book, happy trumps guilty and miserable any day of the week.
So, back to the song. No guilt to be found here. “All Seven, and we’ll watch them fall. They stand in the way of love and we will smote them all.” Not only are they celebrating joyously the life that will come after the enemy is defeated; they are even celebrating the act of defeating the enemy, in no uncertain terms. It’s a celebratory, guilt-free, jubilation of killing their wicked enemies – with the liberating message that it’s more than okay to feel that way.