Bob Dylan and the ageing of the West

Contemporary Review, Winter, 2006 by Michael Karwowski

    You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way.

The album title refers to the two constituents of the artistic or mystical life: love, in the shape of an unconditional commitment to the spirit of truth, and theft, the theft of human illusions, meaning the need for the 'hard words and vicious insight' necessary to achieve disillusionment, his own and everyone else's, cf. 'Sometimes I wanna take to the road and plunder' (Love Sick).

Disillusionment is essential to the artist because the human condition involves an imprisonment in illusion. The illusions in question arise from the human mind's susceptibility to a contrary force to that of the spirit of truth, which is that of the desire for power, which presents itself in terms of particular desires to each human mind, whose nature, in turn, depends on the human influences that have shaped the mind in question.

Just as the spirit of truth appeals to the human mind's need to know why, to discover the meaning or purpose of life, so, in contrast, the desire for power appeals to the mind's assertive pride in itself, which seeks justification in the world. And as the former leads the mind towards an understanding of the nature of reality, so does its contrary, the desire for power, lead the mind in the opposite direction, towards illusion, illusions that trap the mind by separating it from truth and, hence, reality. Note, for instance, Cold Irons Bound on Time Out of Mind:

    The walls of pride are high and wide
    Can't see over to the other side.

Or, again, Things Have Changed:

    I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

--locked in tight by illusion and out of range of truth, that is.

Human illusions are characterised in Bob Dylan's songs, as they often are in literature, mystical writings, and even popular song, in terms of dreams or clouds, (e.g. Both Sides Now, sung by Judy Collins: 'It's cloud's illusions I recall'), which, as their nature depends on human influences, so in Cold Irons Bound, for instance, does he describe them as 'clouds of blood'. Another favourite Dylan image is that of 'eyes' to express illusions, since the human mind attached to desire and its illusions is what is truly meant by the term 'ego' or 'I', hence disillusionment involves the putting out of 'I's', or the desires for power the ego sees itself as trying to fulfil, hence 'eyes':

    I'm preachin' the Word of God
    I'm puttin' out your eyes.
    (High Water--Love and Theft)

This situation is an either/or, if-you're-not-with-me-you're-against-me alternative. There can be no compromise between truth/reality and desire/illusion; the mind must either be in the state of an attachment to the desire for power or of a commitment to the spirit of truth. There is no other way.

The upshot of this is that altruism, the caring for others that is the bedrock of much religious and humanist belief, is a complete illusion. The only true care for another's welfare is that of disillusionment, hence the 'hard words and vicious insight', hence the 'Things that used to affect me, didn't affect me any more. I wasn't too concerned about people', hence: 'People are crazy and times are strange ... I used to care, but things have changed', hence the line in Thunder on the Mountain, the first song on Modern Times: