Get Together

(from Get Together,
song by the Youngbloods)

“If you hear the song I sing
you will understand...listen
You hold the key to love and fear
all in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
Its there at your command

Come on people now
smile on your brother
Everybody get together
try to love one another right now”)


(from For What it’s Worth,
Song by the Buffalo Springfield)

“…What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down”


“…why has our own species become engaged in behaviors that not only undermine the survival of other species, but the integrity of the system at large—when no other species has done this.”?

Recently, I ran across this question. Since then, these two songs as well as snatches of others out of the ’60’s have been running through my mind, as if I had a virtual radio in there, listening directly to the music as a youth. In fact, to be perfectly honest, tears flowed uncontrollably as I listened again, as this music rings such a deep chord of my upbringing.

As a part of that generation, I grew up amidst a sincere and radical questioning of the principles which grasped a broad American culture, themselves formed by the decades of war, industrialization and religious organization that preceded it. Also, as part of that generation I rebelled, knowing in my heart that there was more than the general models of culture and understanding in which I found myself, and I was right… as so many of us during the latter part of the century, and this early part of this new one have come to realize.

This question is a good one: why do we undermine the system at large, and each other, when no other species does so? I do not think I have a ready answer to this. It is a question that is one of those ‘big questions’ about which entire lives and even generations are involved in finding an answer.

One of the ways, however, to approach an answer would be to look first at how and where we differ from the other species, for from here it seems reasonable to suspect that differences arise. And, the ways that we do differ, at their root, appear based on something psychological. I say this only because what it is that is psychological, is a crucial underpinning of whatever comes out of being human.

Another way of approaching an answer would be to look at how and where the other species do not undermine the system at large, and each other, and for this, I have to start from the position of ‘devil’s advocate’ and determine if this ‘non-undermining’ is indeed true. Sadly, the history of biology forwards a picture that is not so simple. The initial overconsumption of the microbial nitrogen-eaters led to massive starvation and demanded genetic change in order for survival. In essence, this is certainly not caring for the system at large, and it created a mad scramble to develop alternative approaches to survival.

It is been a good many years since this mad scramble began, and a lot of reapproachment between members of the same species and those from different species. The outcome of this has been a balance, never stable, always in motion, and always changing. But, a general balance nonetheless.

Now enter humans: banding together, harvesting, building, and developing a reflective brain. Whatever it is that we as humans have done to become the ignominious ‘poster child’ of Earth’s undermining is probably a consequence of our differences, and possibly also our greatness, vis-à-vis Earth’s other inhabitants.

It is with these reflections that I listen again to the lyrics that I grew up with, the words that formed so much of the ‘me’ who has grown through and from this ever since. The words hearken to an awareness that grew wildly with an equally wild generation, that we needed to cease saying ‘hooray for our side’ and ‘come together’ to correct an imbalance that we recognized yet were only starting to understand.

In these lyrics, we are reminded of the crucial importance as a species to work together. What a huge task thus awaits: helping an entire species shift its self-understanding and relationship with its Earth into one that encourages balance: even helping one person find such a way of being can be an investment in time and energy. Now, a whole species! In the years since, we have come more and more to recognize that this reapproachment and growing relationship extends far beyond that between the members of one species alone. But there is so much more, for such balance needs to be found between all species and their Earth.

And between the species.

Come on people now, smile on your brother. Everybody get together, try to love one another.

Right Now.