We don’t say what we should and there’s no new Dylan to sing it either

There is a harmony of sorts in watching the new biopic of Bob Dylan in February 2025. The film, set in the early 1960s, takes us back to another time of great social and political unrest. And it was instructive to watch how someone could move fast and break things because they had a dream…for the greater common good.

And yet, as Dylan said, sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.

In watching the film we know that the convulsions of our time are not like those of 60 years ago. The film showed that 2025 is emphatically not the 1960s (for deeper reasons than the fact that smoking cigarettes is no longer a sign of healthfulness and cultural cool).

Our time is arguably marked by more declarations but fewer certitudes, especially the idealistic vision that we will overcome. Some of the problems that existed 60 years ago are still with us today. What’s changed is that now we seem less sure about how to solve them or whether they can even be solved. Young people are arguably realists now. Back then, they were idealists.

Particularly noteworthy is the changed approach to the future. When Dylan was starting out, the achingly young but awesomely talented singer-songwriter did break things in the world of music but all the while, he was also building something new and true.

Today, far too many seem to believe the only change necessary (or possible) is to burn it all down and go back to the past. Rather than looking at tomorrow as a new beginning, we are told that the only glorious future is if it’s like yesterday.

Is that because of momentary frustration and/or weariness at the scale of the problems? Or is it a deeper and more debilitating cynicism, one that smothers idealism and hope just as it is starting to draw breath?

We don’t say what we should and there’s no new Dylan to sing it either. Meanwhile, the answers to today’s questions are still blowing in the wind. No change there.

And how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?

Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com