The Parable of the Two Friends at a Concert

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, the new Pope is the old Pope, Paul Ryan’s new budget is Paul Ryan’s old budget, and the new filibuster rules function exactly like the old filibuster rules, do other people not understand the word ‘new’ in the same way I do?”

Josh spoke thus:

Two friends were waiting for their favorite band to begin a concert.

“This is awesome!” the first friend said.

“I bet is sucks,” the second friend said.

“How can you say that?” the first friend asked, “We’ve been waiting for this show for months.  We’ve been watching their concert videos for weeks.  We’ve been listening to their music for three straight days.  We know every song inside out.”

“And we know every song they’ll sing,” the second friend said, “We know the order they’ll sing them in.  We know the musical arrangements.  We know when they’ll call out to the crowd to sing with them.  We know when they’ll let the crowd sing the songs for them.  We know the guitar solos note by note.  We even know when they’ll improvise and have a pretty good idea how they’ll improvise.  It’s totally predictable.”

“It’s what we paid to see!” the first friend said.

“It’s what you paid to see,” the second friend said.

“What did you pay to see?” the first friend asked.

“I paid to see something new,” the second friend said.

“But you know they won’t play anything new,” the first friend said, “They advertised what they’re going to play.  They put their playlist on their website.  They’ve been tweeting about the show all day.  They’ve taken votes on what we wanted to hear.  They’ve tallied the votes.  They’ve told us the results.  It’s like we’re part of the show!”

“It’s a trick,” the second friend said, “To make us feel like we’re part of the show.  They knew what we would vote for before they put out the poll.  We’re as predictable as they are.  More predictable, probably.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even count the votes.  I’ll bet they decided weeks ago what they’d play tonight, and they ignored what we voted entirely.”

The second friend was right.  It was a trick.  It was a trick to make the ticket holders feel they were controlling the show, that they would know when they walked in what would be in the show, that they could predict the show.

The second friend was right.  The band didn’t count the votes.  The band ignored what the fans voted entirely.  The band had decided weeks ago what they would play.

The band played an entire set of entirely original material.

“That was amazing!” the first friend said after the show, “Wasn’t that amazing?  They hid the fact that they had all this new music, and the music was amazing!  We were the first people ever to hear those songs, and the songs were amazing!  Wasn’t that amazing?”

The second friend replied, “It sucked!  They didn’t play a single one of their hits!”