Being a Good Person was always part of being special. And when I was younger, I was sure I was special. I was special but hated conflict, hated raised voices, hated making anyone unhappy in a way that might cause a raised voice. I was special and wanted to be liked and what better way to be liked than to be a Good Person?
I still feel a certain tenderness for my younger self. All her constant pit-of-the-stomach insecurities and half-held breaths. But also a certain impatience. I want to give her a good shake now and tell her to get over herself already. The point is to limit harm in this world, not to be precious.
By certain metrics, Ed Sheeran is special. His catchy, inoffensive pop songs have been among the most streamed of all time. He is among the singers with the highest net worth. The variety of political causes which he has supported over the years suggest that he, too, believes being a Good Person is part of being special. For his latest tour he included Macklemore, of Thrift Shop fame, as one of his supporting acts. The same Macklemore who has filled his Instagram account with exhortations to free Palestine throughout these three years of genocide, who has released two singles--one about the student encampments at Columbia University, another about Palestinian liberation, and who has regularly worn his kuffiyeh and flown the Palestinian flag at his concerts. It's surprising, then, that Sheeran would be surprised and dismayed when there was controversy after Macklemore spoke about the issue at a concert in New Jersey. But dismayed he and the concert venue owners were. Macklemore was dropped from the tour. All remaining supporting acts--who stood to lose far more financially--then quit in solidarity with Macklemore and, ostensibly, the Palestinian people.
What does an aspiring Good Person do in such a situation? Continue with the tour--the show must go on, after all--but begin his next concert with a statement. Points off, Mr. Sheeran, for "the most complex political issue on the planet" (both because it's quite simple really--genocide is bad--and because it's so terribly cliched). Points off for "my concerts have always been a safe space for everyone"-- really? Clearly not safe for Macklemore. What about Palestinians wearing kuffiyehs and carrying flags? Hamas? Itimar Ben-Gvir? Points off for following with "that matters hugely to me" and "honoring my commitments to my fans is completely central to my sense of who I am" and "I want to address...where I stand..." Me, my, I. Points off for "I've always wanted my music and shows to be about unity not division" -- again, so cliched, so banal. Ah yes, imagine Khaled Meshal sharing a bottle of Coca Cola with Bezalel Smotrich as they listen to Perfect. Many, many points off for "what happened in Israel and the Nova music festival..." There is no both-sides-ing suffering here. Not after genocide. More points off for talking about Gaza as "catastrophic ... disproportionate ... unjustifiable" but never as genocide. I will grant you a point for mentioning the "systemic injustice that is happening in the West Bank" even if the better phrases would be ethnic cleansing and pogroms.
Despite my contempt for his statement, I can't help but feel the same tenderness for him that I feel for my younger self. And a profound sadness. He was rattled as he read his statement (off his phone?). Acknowledged "I do not know enough." Near tears by the end. It appears that at the end of the day, Ed Sheeran is not special. He's so very ordinary. And his desires are very ordinary: to be a Good Person and sing his songs. Except he finds himself in this extraordinary moment and it is simply too much, too heavy and vast for a very ordinary person. The problem with being a Good Person instead of doing the right thing regardless of whether it makes you a Good Person is that the being obscures the doing. The ego of the Good Person is too fragile to carry the weight of doing what is hard and requires sacrifice.
Or that ego may be far too strong. It craves the attention due to a Good Person. In the weeks after October 7th, I watched my Twitter feed fill with folks posting selfies wearing kuffiyehs--which I'm sure my younger self would have done too because it would have felt like an act of solidarity, what a Good Person does for Palestinians. One guy, after posting his obligatory kuffiyeh-selfie, seemed determined to become a martyr by making increasingly provocative comments until his university unsurprisingly fired him, his comrades now required to come to his defense on behalf of the freedom to defend Palestine. And there was the obsession with being "on the right side of history," the constant worry about the judgement of history. But history doesn't care about you. You'll be dead. Is there anything more self-absorbed than worrying not only about what everyone alive thinks about you but even those not yet born?
That there are no individual solutions to systemic problems is a theme peppered throughout the sci-fi and op/eds of that great theorist of enshittification, Cory Doctorow. Individual performances of being a Good Person may momentarily numb that terrible, gnawing, suffocating rage and anguish at our individual impotence. But yet another winter is coming. It will inevitably bring more fetid flooding and frigid weather to folks who are lucky if they have a tent to replace the solid homes Israel has destroyed. Every time the world's attention is diverted, Israel reduces the number of trucks with fuel and food allowed into Gaza. In the West Bank, Tevye's great-great-great grandchildren are routinely pogroming villages like they're Cossacks in the Pale of Settlement, while Israel has ethnically cleansed 40,000 people in the city of Jenin. We must get over ourselves. Get over our need for warm, fuzzy feelings about how good and special we are. We must look dispassionately and steely-eyed at power. How it works and where its weaknesses are. We must find a way to exploit those weaknesses. Find a way to MAKE. THIS. STOP.
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