Sympathy for the Devil

Songs for our times.

Original album cover

I have always been partial to rock song lyrics that include irreverent references to God, like what Bob Dylan wrote, in Highway 61 Revisited:

God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son.”

Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on.”

God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”

God say, “You can do what you Abe

But the next time you see me coming you better run.”

Abe says, “Where you want this killin’ done?”

God says, “Out on Highway 61.”

Dylan irreverently captures the essence of the Biblical story of God’s test of Abraham in a few short lines.

Leonard Cohen, who was also Jewish, wrote about Jesus one of his earliest songs, Suzanne:

And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water,

And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower.

And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him

He said, “All men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them.”

But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open.

Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.

Everyone knows the greatest story ever told. Leonard Cohen takes a small part of the story and uses metaphor to show the big picture.

Then there is “The Song of Job” by Seatrain. Every time I hear it I think about all those instant experts on the internet who may have expertise in one area but never hesitate to give their in-expert opinion on other subjects. Let me explain before you listen.

It has been widely noted lately that expertise is no longer being valued. With the advent of the internet and a robust Google search engine, along with the availability of huge amounts of information online, anyone can be an instant expert just by flashing through a few web pages and finding the information most of interest to answer their particular question. It is possible to find a Youtube video on almost any topic from how to change the battery in the key fob for your car to old Three Stooges TV episodes.

Add the availability of AI chatbots like ChatGPT to that already robust information source and anyone can find out anything almost instantaneously and format it into a nicely worded argument in favor of their own point of view. Amazing!

We do live in an amazing world. For someone like me, born middle of the last century, it frequently feels like I am living in the future, but like most of my Baby-Boomer cohort I am still waiting for flying cars.

I went medical school for 4 years and then did a 4-year hospital based residency to become expert in Internal Medicine. I spent the first 10 years in practice learning more about humans and their diseases, their psychological and emotional reaction to illness and the various micro and macro-organisms that affect them. I became a proficient doctor, able to listen to patient complaints, reassure those with innocent symptoms and diagnose and follow up more serious complaints.

Towards the end of my practice, when I began seeing patients who had access to the internet, a new syndrome became more frequent. With a little bit of information, they had it all figured out. A woman with atypical chest pain could no longer be dismissed so easily saying, “Don’t you know that women have unusual symptoms when they get a heart attack? How do you know that I am not having a heart attack?” Well, of course I knew about unusual chest pains, and I could be pretty sure that the patient in question was not having a heart attack, having seen hundreds of patients with chest pains and dozens with real heart attacks, but now in addition to making my diagnosis I had to manage a patient who thought she had some important knowledge and therefore, expertise.

Any non-medical person faces an insurmountable difficulty when looking up their own symptoms on the internet. They have only seen one case, their own, and they have no perspective on the subject. Looking stuff up on the internet, without some experience to sort wheat from chaff, often gets the wrong answer. Strange, also, people almost never look up hysteria, depression or anxiety, which is often the right diagnosis.

Some patients can be correct in their self-diagnosis, even with no help from the internet. One patient with dementia began to suspect her disease long before it became apparent to me even after careful psychological testing. Ten years later, it was obvious.

In medical diagnosis, I have been taught to “listen, and the patient will tell you the diagnosis.” If course, it helps to listen with an educated brain, trained mind, a mind full of knowledge and experience from years of study and practice, to help make the right call. (And we still often get it wrong on the first try.)

I really worry about RFK, Jr. serving as the head of HHS. He is a non-medical person. He has no scientific background. What’s worse, he is a lawyer! He has shown that even after doing extensive research, which he supposedly did before he took on the case of vaccine related injuries, he is unable to make correct judgement from the facts. He often follows the conspiracy thread and gets sucked down the rabbit hole. Doctors and scientists are natural skeptics. We resist complicated explanations. Show us the data!

For the patient who has the whole thing figured out (wrong) after looking up their symptoms, I remember Elihu, from the Book of Job. If you haven’t read the book of Job recently, the story is quite simple. Job is a very happy, righteous, blameless and successful man, a husband and a father and a herdsman with cattle and sheep and goats. With God’s permission, Satan afflicts Job with the death and destruction of his farm and family and with many skin sores and painful conditions. Job was suffering, but he continued to claim that he was blameless and upright. He still believed in God. He refused to blame God for his problems. Instead, he questioned why.

Job’s friends think they know why but they are careful not to say it directly. Then the youngest friend decides to speak up. His name is Elihu. Elihu can’t believe that Job is innocent. Why would God punish and innocent man? Obviously Job has not been innocent. Why doesn’t he admit it? Elihu’s lecture goes on for 3 pages and many verses in the bible. Poor Job. In addition to everything else, he must suffer Elihu’s lecture until even God can’t stand it anymore. God interrupts Elihu to save the day.

In “The Song of Job,” after all of Job’s suffering, Elihu makes his appearance. I love the way the music swells to emphasize Elihu’s ignorance. It is this line from the song that I always think of when some young whipper-snapper comes along with the simple answer to a vexing question:

And at this time, down the road comes Elihu,

Who took one look and thought he had the whole scene covered!

You might have to listen to it to appreciate the way the lyrics and music capture the problem that is the Book of Job, but if you pay attention, you will hear many people who have no hesitation to throw their contrarian and uninformed opinions around. Opinions like, “From the river to the sea,” when they don’t know which river or which sea. Claims like “apartheid” and “colonialism” when the terms do not apply, and other claims like, “All the employees of USAID are criminals!”

Donald Trump himself blurted out (on live TV) his own ignorant and thoughtless opinion that Gaza should be emptied of people and made into a “Riviera” of the Middle East. In his unique fashion he refuses to admit that he made a mistake. He saw Gaza just like any real estate developer would – it’s underdeveloped land. Who cares who is living there? (Also see Robert Moses, in The Power Broker by Robert Caro, about displacing communities to build his vision.)

Donald seems to think that he was saved from close-call assassination by God. Some of his followers agree. Others think he may be the antichrist, the one who will bring about the next resurrection. Apparently American Protestants once thought that the Pope was antichrist. Go figure.

Satan is a figure who makes frequent appearances in popular culture, from Dante’s Inferno and Dr. Faustus to Ray Walston in Damn Yankees to the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil. Have you noticed that the Devil is often presented as a gentleman, wearing expensive clothes, sophisticated and worldly? These days he may wear a black tee shirt and a baseball cap.

Mick Jagger - Sympathy for The Devil by Jason Koza on DeviantArt

Listening to Sympathy for the Devil recently, I was prompted to think of a couple of well-known political figures as Mick Jagger sang,

“Just as every cop is a criminal

And all the sinners saints

As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer

‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint.

So if you meet me, have some courtesy

Have some sympathy and some taste.

Use all your well-learned politesse

Or I’ll lay your soul to waste.

Mmm, yeah.”