A Father's Day lecture

On Father's Day, my three children and I drove up to my sister's place for the afternoon to see my dad. On the way, my son shared a number of songs from his iPod, one of which was by Linkin Park, "What I've Done." I rarely get the time to watch music videos these days, so my kids had to update me on the video for this particular one, which apparently features scenes about various social and environmental issues as well as individuals who have had an impact upon our lives.

I'm not entirely sure what message Linkin Park wanted to share, but my children thought the inclusion of Ghandi and Bob Geldof in the video meant that the two were somehow equal in stature.

Whoa...hold on a minute there.

Bob Geldof's inclusion was probably due to his work with Band Aid, which via it's song, "Do they know it's Christmas?", raised money to help alleviate the famine in Ethiopia. While a noble cause, he and Ghandi are miles apart. Geldof did what a lot of famous people often do - they use their influence to raise large sums of money which they throw at a problem. Entertainers and politicians are famous, if not notorious, for this.

While they usually acheive short-term success, throwing money at a problem rarely fixes the problem. It usually only address a symptom. In Geldof's case, they were trying to feed a people who had suffered from a terrible drought.

But we have droughts here in the United States too, don't we?

The difference is that when we have droughts, our economic model (capitalism) and government (democracy) give us the ability to address the symptoms, if not the root cause. We can't truly address the root cause (the drought) but we can prevent folks from starving. Indeed, in spite of some serious droughts here and there across the U.S., there's not been a famine in this country in quite some time.

On the other hand, Ghandi was an icon of social change through peaceful protest. Martin Luther King Jr. was another such individual. As were Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan.

I know what you're saying, "Betty who?"

Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan were the winners of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize. They stood up to demand peace - and yet did so peacefully - at a time when violence was the norm in Northern Ireland.

And yet their efforts, like those of King and Ghandi, were only the beginning. As Egil Aarvik noted in the presentation speech, "The road leading to lasting peace may yet prove long and arduous, and there are almost certainly a great many people who still doubt whether the Peace Movement can in the long run achieve anything."

Here we are, thirty years later, and peace is finally taking hold in Northern Ireland. Sometimes the road IS long and arduous.

So, as I occasionally do, I lectured my children about the lesson to be learned from people like Ghandi, and King, and Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan - as well as the lesson that throwing money at a problem is more like an asprin than a cure.

Rather than listen to me, my elder daughter wanted to turn up the radio. However, based on what I'm hearing from my 17-year old son these days, the message was probably received. However, like peace, the road of parenting can be a long and arduous one, and the efforts we plant now may take years before they bear fruit.

Happy Father's Day!