OddThinking

A blog for odd things and odd thoughts.

Some thinking is more smokey than others.

I recently heard a radio interview with the King of Motown, Smokey Robinson. The interview was recorded last year when he was in Australia.

He made a throw-away comment that has been bugging me ever since – to a degree that is surprisingly to me.

I don’t remember the exact context – I think it was about lessons from Woodstock, but he explained that we should all “question authority that isn’t enlightened by God.”

I understand the suggestion (recommendation? duty?) to question authority. It is the implication of the qualifier that staggered me.

Why did this expression catch my attention? Is it merely that I disagree with it? No. That’s not it.

Oh, to be clear, I certainly think you should especially question authorities that claim to have God’s backing; no matter what your faith (or lack of it), it is clear that many unhappy events have been caused by people being misled by such claims.

However, I don’t think that is what is bugging me.

What I kept thinking about was how much artful thinking and rationalisation it took to get to the point that he could automatically rattle off this qualifier until it sounded natural. Taking a cliche like “Question authority” and carefully modifying it to protect a subset of authorities from its glare takes deliberation (whether from Smokey Robinson, or someone he was parroting).

I finally realised what was really niggling me. It was Animal Farm all over again.

Question authority, but some authorities are more equal than others.


Comment

  1. Good call. The very first thought that popped into my head when I read the quote was that he was contradicting himself.

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