Edit: Since posting this, I've gone on to found a rationalist singalong holiday and get an album produced, available at humanistculture.bandcamp.com
Something that's bothered me a lot lately is a lack of good music that evokes the kind of emotion that spiritually-inspired music does, but whose subject matter is something I actually believe in. Most songs that attempt to do this suffer from "too literal syndrome," wordily talking about science and rationality as if they're forming an argument, rather that simply creating poetic imagery. I was recently motivated by the Baba Yetu music video for Civilization V, which essentially showcases the power of scientific achievement over the course of human history.... but the lyrics basically attribute this to Christianity, rather than scientific progress. I'm not opposed to religious music being used for such a purpose, but I wanted to find a song that hit all the right emotional notes as well as the intellectual concepts. I think that art is an important medium by which to communicate ideas, and for rationality to be successful as a meme it's going to need "carrier wave" works of art to help it compete with religion for the general population's passion and understanding.
I've only found two songs that come close to being the specific thing I'm looking for:
(Highly recommend good headphones/speakers for the Singularity one - there's some subtle ambient stuff that really sells the final parts that's less effective with mediocre sound)
Over the past few months I've been working on a rational humanist song. I consider myself a reasonably competent amateur songwriter when it comes to lyrics, not so much when it comes to instrumental composition. I was waiting to post something when I had an actual final version worth listening to, but it's been a month and I'm not sure how to get good instrumentation to go along with it and I'm just in the mood to share the lyrics. I'd appreciate both comments on the song, as well as recommendations for good, similar music that already exists. And on the off chance someone likes it enough to try putting it to the music, that'd be awesome. (I don't mind other people using the lyrics for non-profit purposes, I do mind using them for profit purposes)
Brighter than Today
Many winter nights ago
A woman shivered in the cold
Stared at the sky and wondered why the gods invented pain.She bitterly struck rock together
Wishing that her life was better
Suddenly she saw the spark of light and golden flame.
She showed the others, but they told her
She was not meant to control
The primal forces that the gods had cloaked in mystery.But proud and angry, she defied themShe would not be satisfied.
She lit a fire and set in motion human history.
Tomorrow can be brighter than today,
Although the night is cold
And the stars may feel so very far away
Oh....
But every mind can be a golden ray
Of courage hope and reason
Surely we can find a better way.
Ages since but not yet now
We built the wheel, and then the plow
We tilled the earth and proved our worth against the drought and snow;
Soon we had the time to ponder
Look up to the sky and wonder
Could there be some deeper meaning we were meant to know?
Tomorrow can be brighter than today,
Although the night is cold
And stars may feel so very far away.
But futures can unfold where
Courage, hope and reason grow
with every passing season so
we'll shed the lies that tie us down
And seek truths ever more profound
And drive the darkness far away.
Tomorrow can be brighter than today
Brighter than today
The universe many seem unfair
And the laws of nature do not care
The plagues and storms and our own evils nearly doused our flame
But all these things, we have endured
Through morals learned, diseases cured.
Against our Herculean tasks we've risen to proclaim:
Tomorrow can be brighter than today,
Although the night's still cold
The stars won't always be so far away
If I may be so bold
It doesn't have to be this way
Each human mind's a golden ray
of courage, hope and reason
Each and every passing season
We can seek the truths that make us stronger
Build the world that we all long for
Strive for lives of joy and meaning
Shine a light that's always gleaming
Rise up to the stars and say:Tomorrow will be brighter than today!
Tomorrow will be brighter than today!
I know it will be brighter than today.
(This is, essentially, a fan-song for Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, inspired in particular by chapter 47)
Trouble is, you can't do that without the message becoming, well, irrational in the process. (Which is not without historical precedent!)
Not to disparage your artistic aspirations, but your poem is certainly an example. I won't even get into various relatively minor distortions of human history it presents. I'll just comment on its basic theme of technical progress, which it presents as a constant bringer of good fortune and improved life, and the expected source of a bright utopian future. This picture is just too remote from reality. Of course, it would be silly to deny the benefits of technical progress and economic growth since the Industrial Revolution, and various ideological attempts to argue otherwise are an awful pile of nonsense. However, in other periods in history, the connection has been less clear -- and more importantly, there is no guarantee that these historically recent favorable trends will continue into the future. The future technical progress may result in anything from human extinction to a grim Malthusian scenario, and in fact, a strong case can be made that such outcomes are more likely than "the world that we all long for" (whatever that is).
Now, you could say that in order to maximize the chances of bright future, we should raise awareness along these lines, promote humanism, etc. This however seems to me like an unproven assertion. Why would you believe this, and how would you justify this belief?
Also, another significant point of disconnect from reality in your article and poem is the belief that average people care for seeking truth beyond their own practical needs, or that they can be made to do so. Regardless of all the progress in science and technology, I see no indication whatsoever that average people in modern developed countries are less superstitious and less prone to high-status delusional beliefs than their ancestors centuries ago. In fact, I don't think this is true even of most highly educated people outside their particular fields of expertise, and I certainly don't believe it's true of most people who attach to themselves labels of rationalists, skeptics, free-thinkers, etc.
I think you're slightly missing the point of what this is supposed to do. Music is not for communicating facts, it's for instilling emotions. It's main purpose for a rationalist is presumably to make somehting you already know more salient and generally install it emotionally, not for deducing those probabilities and facts in the first place. Sort of.