The ONE Thing
I never planned on listening to an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, but Bono recently sat with him for a three hour interview so I listened. To the whole thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have been all that surprised; Bono talks a lot about leveraging his fame as currency toward a better world in his memoir, Surrender, which was the foundation for his movie, Stories of Surrender that he was promoting.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge U2 fan, starting from when I was 14 years old when I discovered their music for the first time. This is now a thirty-year love affair and I celebrate their entire catalogue–and yes I actually do think that Pop is a great album. PopMart was my first U2 concert–I’ve seen five in total–with the latest at the Sphere in December 2023 when I finally, FINALLY got to the front row. I love the band, and I love each member individually for what they stand for and for the work they’ve done in service of those values. Did you see the clip of Larry Mullen Jr on Kelly Clarkson talking about the documentary that he helped produce on a group of mothers and teachers’ fight to create a school that helps students with ADHD? By the way, Larry Mullen Jr is the reason I wanted to be a drummer in the first place. I love their music because it stands for something greater than themselves. That’s always been important to me.
I knew Bono would use this platform to educate and plead to Joe’s base to stop the massive cuts to USAID and the like, to keep aid flowing to the most vulnerable. He did that of course, but what I was most surprised by was not Bono–I mean, let’s be honest I have read his book twice–it was Joe Rogan himself. I heard him say things like (quotes not exact),
When we listen to great music it’s about “taking us to a better place. That’s what we’re all hoping for”
“America is all of us as human beings regardless of ideology. We have to think of that first”
“We’re a community and we’re a neighborhood…we have to think of ourselves that way. The purpose is communing”
“We have to figure out the best use of resources to support the collective whole.”
“These things can be accomplished to figure out crime, disenfranchised neighborhoods, tech, housing shortage, food, poverty, and climate. We can do it”
Talk about cognitive dissonance. I…agree with Rogan here. Of course, he contradicted himself a bit–in the same breath as saying that we have to best use our resources to support the collective whole, he stated that politics and policy should be a small part of an election (but isn’t that what an election is? A national decision on what policies we should be pursuing through the application of politics…?) and he later claimed without evidence there was massive fraud and money laundering in government and in our aid programs when countering Bono’s entreaty to America to keep aid flowing. But I think the nugget that I got out of it was that maybe, just maybe, there is room for dialogue about the means by which we accomplish the things he discussed above?
This I think reflects the core idea of Bono’s ONE campaign from the early 2000s, that we can disagree on most things–even vehemently–but if there’s one thing that we can agree on, then we should work toward that together. That campaign turned into the ONE organization, whose mission is to “bring together grassroots activists, cutting-edge data analysis, trusted messengers, and decades of expertise to build political capital and drive policies and investments to create a more resilient, equitable future.” The organization is of course focused on the people of Africa, but this ethos and methodology should be applied here too.
So in that spirit, I ask this: if we can agree that addressing the causes and mitigating the impacts of crime, disenfranchised neighborhoods, climate change, housing and food shortage, poverty, and unsafe technology (etc) is vital to feeling safe and untroubled by fear, and even to live their lives to the utmost--that these things are essential to our national security–then can we also agree to have inclusive discussions that are rooted in empirical evidence and backed by expertise about the policies and actions that will allow us to accomplish those goals? Rogan could use his platform to start a dialogue on a better way forward for all and bring on experts and laypeople alike to talk and listen to each other. As Bono sings in the song that Rogan claimed changed his life, “we need new dreams tonight.” *
*the song is In God’s Country off The Joshua Tree album. But he also raved about the live version of Ordinary Love from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in 2014 seen here: