I was wandering around YouTube and came across an old music video.

The song, which you may remember, is Feed the World (Do They Know It's Christmastime?) by the ad hoc rock group Band Aid. It dates back to 1984, when I was a good little leftie like my parents (and had two living parents), and I've long found it musically superior to its American counterpart, USA for Africa's We Are the World. Listening to it now, I'm struck by many things about it, some from my own philosophical perspective, and some not.

But I recommend listening to it as a study in the history of goodthink. Back in 1984, this was a socially acceptable, liberal song. The song hasn't changed, but listen to it now. It depicts Africa, the whole of Africa, as a barren wasteland devoid of rivers: Ever hear of the Nile? It suggests that Africa is not merely suffering a temporary famine (which part of Africa was at the time), but permanently lacking in any vegetation whatsoever. It also suggests that there is something wrong with not having snow in December--not merely if you happen to be from somewhere where it snows in December (a la White Christmas), but even if you're not. And can we say cultural imperialism?

It's the perpetual famine part, though, that really gets me, because this past semester at the University, we had a big storm over a cartoon in The Cavalier Daily depicting Africans hitting each other with chairs and such and titled Ethiopian Food Fight. As the owner of my favorite Ethiopian restaurant said, they had a famine once, more than twenty years ago, and everyone thinks they're still starving.

If food couldn't be grown in Africa, ever, there would be no Ethiopian cuisine... and that would be a real loss to the world, I think.

Not to mention, there wouldn't be any Africans.

Indeed, considering how much of human evolutionary history took place in Africa, there might not be any humans anywhere.

Anyway, enjoy the music.