I Want What They've Got

Something I learned from Pete Townshend this week.

Recently I've started seeing short clips on my YouTube feed. For the record, I'm not on any social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.) but I do maintain a YouTube account and subscribe to a few channels. YouTube doesn't feel like social media, although you can comment on the video uploads, and I do sometimes. I don't get my news from YouTube at all, and I generally don't peruse the comments section. For me, YouTube provides an excellent resource for learning stuff, mainly how to improve my guitar playing, and also to hear lectures and interviews on a host of subject matter by some of the world's great intellectuals, both past and present. The videos I watch are usually quite long, anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes. 

But lately I've been seeing what they call "Shorts" on my feed. I guess YouTube has come up with these to attract folks with limited attention spans. They are bite-sized 'teasers', about a minute long, and I usually ignore them. Recently I've clicked on a series that feature interview segments with members of The Who (Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend) and others who were involved in the creation of the groundbreaking rock opera double-album Tommy. It coincides with the Broadway version of Tommy now playing, so the 'shorts' are obviously designed to promote the show.  

Something Pete Townhend says in one clip in particular struck me. He talks about the absurdity of people following the protagonist Tommy, the deaf, dumb and blind pinball champion, and says it suggests how all religious cults work, with a kind of absurdity at their core. 

A bit of background. It's a childhood trauma - Tommy witnessing his war-hero father (called the Captain) murder his mother's lover (in the film version the lover kills the Captain) - that leads to Tommy becoming deaf, dumb and blind. Then in spite of every unsuccessful medical intervention imaginable (and plenty of drugs and abuse) it becomes apparent, as he grows older, that in spite of his Helen Keller-like infirmity, Tommy possesses an inner 'vision' that allows him to play pinball at an expert level purely by 'feel'. Tommy's unusual talent garners him a rock-star-like following, which he  takes to the next level when he 'miraculously' recovers his senses by smashing a mirror into which he stares for hours, seemingly breaking the spell of his childhood trauma. Tommy sings "I'm Free" and this is when his fans and groupies transform into a religious cult based on the message that they can be 'free' too.

I'm free, I'm free / And freedom tastes of reality / I'm free I'm free and I'm waiting for you to follow me / If I told you what it takes / To reach the highest high / You'd laugh and say 'nothing's that simple' / But you've been told many times before / Messiahs pointed to the door / And no one had the guts to leave the temple! / I'm free-I'm free / And freedom tastes of reality / I'm free-I'm free / And I'm waiting for you to follow me / How can we follow? How can we follow?

Townshend's insight about the formation of cults is that they are always based on a promise of simple solutions to deep trauma, 'You'd laugh and say 'nothing's that simple'. In the clip on YouTube Townshend says something else, I paraphrase: Every cult is not much different than the youth who idolized us because we lived the so-called rock star life of money, fame, sex and drugs. It boils down to them thinking 'I want what they've got'. 

In the case of Tommy, it's the promise of 'freedom' however one defines it. It might be the promise of knowledge, immortality, and in some cases, power (that comes with belonging to a group) or impunity. It's hard not to see the obvious connection to one particular politician nowadays, especially as he plays up the victim card and trashes the justice system and rule of law. It's startling to see how many of his followers (and enablers) embrace his message of impunity (freedom from the law). 

In the end, Tommy's pinball cult fails and he is left alone. He sings plaintively See Me, Feel Me, (Touch Me, Heal Me) a song that expresses emptiness, the desire for validation from others, and in a way Tommy is back where he began, 'unfree' and fixated by his own image in the mirror, but now the mirror is broken. The hollowness of the cult leader is amplified and reflected back to him in the hollowness of his followers, a symbiosis of need. In the coda Tommy sings: 

Listening to you, I get the music / Gazing at you, I get the heat / Following you, I climb the mountain / I get excitement at your feet / Right behind you, I see the millions / On you, I see the glory / From you, I get opinion / From you, I get the story.