An idle thought sent me looking on YouTube for Pete Seeger's performance of Cumberland Mountain.Bear Chase, and that in turn send me to the Wikipedia page on him. Seeger was one of the iconic figures of my youth. He died at the age of 94, just seven years old than I am now. As I read the long entry on him, I thought to myself "a life well lived."
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Seeger never fails. My personal favourite live video of his:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt2BkSjRZmM
Seeger has some great songs. I love "Hold the Line".
But no one who supported the Hitler-Stalin pact lived a life well lived. No one who recorded a song calling the war against Hitler a "war for JP Morgan" lived a life well lived.
He should have followed the example of Sartre's friend and fellow writer, Paul Nizan, who resigned from the French Communist Party after the Hitler-Stalin pact and was accused, in typical Stalinist fashion, of being an agent of imperialism, etc. Nizan died in battle fighting the Nazi invasion of France.
One of my solidly Top 10 Favorite YouTube videos is Seeger accompanying the Blue Ridge Dancers at Newport. I seize any chance to recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmJj6LZogms&ab_channel=JoeStead
In a recent episode of "Billions" (Amazon Prime), one of the characters touted the following as perceptions of "Dying Ages:"
Dying in your thirties or forties? “Tragic.”
Fifties? “Such a shame.”
Sixties? “Too soon.”
Seventies? “A good run.”
Eighties? “A life well lived.”
Nineties? “Hell of a ride.”
By this, purely quantitative reckoning, Seeger had a "Hell of a ride," to which in looking at the quality of his life, I agree we should probably add Samuel Chase's "mostly." And that's mostly what any of us can hope for or expect.
I was very sorry to hear of the death of your former student, Andy Levine. I'll miss him at Counterpunch. You're mentioned in this notice:
https://philosophy.wisc.edu/2021/03/22/emeritus-professor-andrew-levine-has-passed-away/
rm
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