Mass Mutual Commercial I'll Stand By You

A song many people are hearing for the first time is "I'll Stand by You."

The life insurance company "MassMutual" (Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company) is playing a rendition of the song in its commercials that frequently appear at various times lately. The television audience is larger than usual mostly because of the Olympics.

The song is ...
I'll Stand by You
--by The Pretenders

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuWAGT9ZkYE

excerpted text
...
I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you
...

   The MassMutual commercial is causing quite a commotion here and there. Perhaps people were not expecting a life insurance company to go so "sentimental" on them. Life insurance companies are expected to be examples of responsibility.

   Is that fair? Let's examine it.

   The song is obviously expressing good intentions. How can that upset anyone? Many people are aware, especially lately, that good intentions do not always produce good results. Helping the poor is a good intention. If not done properly however the result can be even more poor people who are even more dependent on others than before. Is that what the people helping the poor intended to do? Obviously not, and they will tell you so. Their intention was to reduce the sting of poverty.

   Can anyone be upset with that? Of course, but it is very difficult to explain and understand. There is obviously nothing the least bit wrong with good intentions. Opposing good intentions would be silly and even less help than any other misguided intentions. There is a great risk of appearing to support bad intentions.

   This sort of thing is a problem elsewhere. A statement many people would like to live by is "it harm none, do what ye will." How can anyone oppose that? By the way, it is also known as the "Wiccan Rede." It is a popular statement and it would be even more popular except that it is too simple. It doesn't have enough advice on how to go about "not harming" others. Although there are no disputes about the essential goodness of not harming others, there are quite many vociferous disputes on how to go about that. Otherwise the world's political problems would all have been settled a long time ago.

   Another example of too simple goodness is the Bentham utilitarian principle, "the greatest good for the greatest number." Again there will be few if any arguments against such an attitude. There will however be very many and very vociferous arguments how to go about achieving such a lofty goal.

   So then is a life insurance company being irresponsible? There is not really anything especially "wrong" in the song, not on the face of it anyway. There is nothing "wrong" with the Wiccan Rede or the utilitarian ideal. None of those things are easily accused of wrongdoing. They are all good intentions. To oppose them might fire up bad intentions. The great annoyance that some might be experiencing is that they are all too simple. Good intentions can often lead to bad results, especially if they are too simple.


   You might not be aware that the group responsible for the song is the same "The Pretenders" who recorded the music used by Rush Limbaugh on his radio talk show, "My City Was Gone" (aka the "Ohio Song"). How's that for irony?

   You might see all sorts of things in the news from amateurs these days because there are a lot of people just checking in after being quite out of the loop for several administrations.