I was asked to unpack the quirky “-isms” from John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” that appeared in my recent illustration. The song’s verse is pure satire: Lennon lists made-up or semi-invented labels to mock how we get lost in endless divisions and obsessions instead of focusing on something simple and unifying. Here are the common interpretations, rooted in Lennon’s own explanations and the 1969 context:
Bagism: Lennon and Yoko Ono’s invention—a performance-art stunt where you communicate from inside a bag so no one judges your appearance (race, gender, clothes, age). It forced ideas to stand on their own, exposing how superficial tags divide us.
Shagism: A playful jab at British slang for casual sex, poking fun at the sexual revolution’s fixation on “free love” as the ultimate cause or lifestyle label.
Dragism: A nod to drag culture and gender-bending, highlighting societal discomfort with nonconformity and identity fluidity.
- Madism: Satirizing the label “mad” or insane—how society dismisses rebels, nonconformists, or the mentally ill as threats.
- Ragism: Likely critiquing judgments based on “rags” (poverty, tattered clothes), mocking class prejudice or the hippie aesthetic of ragged rebellion.
- Tagism: The habit of “tagging” people with labels, nicknames, or categories—essentially, branding others to fit neat boxes.
Lennon improvised these to lampoon how “ev’rybody’s talking about” trivial or divisive “-isms” (“this-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism”) while ignoring the bigger message: give peace a chance.
That led me to think about another Lennon track from the same era: “Revolution” (1968). In its third verse, he delivers one of his sharpest critiques of radical politics:
“You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind insteadBut if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow”
Here Lennon addresses activists pushing for massive systemic overhaul (rewriting constitutions, toppling institutions). Lennon insists the real revolution starts inside: “change your head” first. Blaming everything on “the institution” is easy, he says, but freeing your own mind, from hatred, dogma, and rigid ideology is harder and more essential. Then comes the famous jab at those carrying “pictures of Chairman Mao”, a direct shot at the personality cults and hero-worship among some 1960s radicals who idolized Mao Zedong as the model revolutionary. Of course, Mao had already killed 35-50 million before “Revolution” appeared in 1968. This mirrors current protestors embracing Iranian, Venezuelan, Palestinian and Cuban Totalitarian leaders, despite their high body counts of their own people. Lennon saw it as hypocritical: preaching liberation while embracing authoritarian symbols. The line warns that dogmatic extremes alienate people and doom the cause—you “ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow” if you’re waving pictures of tyrants.
What would Lennon think of today’s No Kings rallies? Mixed feelings, I’d wager. He’d likely applaud the nonviolent energy and the instinct to resist perceived authoritarianism, echoes of his anti-war marches where “Give Peace a Chance” became an anthem. But the selective outrage, the framing of one leader as existential “king,” the perpetual crisis mode, and “joy” turned into an adversarial tool for power-building might remind him of the very “-isms” and dogmatic traps he mocked. The focus on external enemies over internal reflection (“change your head”) and the risk of new tribal labels replacing old ones could strike him as more noise than unity. He’d probably say: Drop the pictures of your own heroes and villains, free your mind, and give peace, real, cross-divide peace, a chance.
I suspect Martin Luther King Jr. would land in a similar place. He championed nonviolence and moral clarity but warned against hate mirroring hate, critiqued both sides in Vietnam, and insisted love must be the ultimate force, not just opposition to one figure or system. Icons like Lennon and MLK weren’t reflexive cheerleaders for “our side”; they challenged excesses wherever they appeared, including within movements they supported.
We’re in a noisy time. Maybe the truest tribute to these legends is to question our own “-isms” first, free our minds a little, and talk honestly across the divide instead of deepening it.
Support Independent Local Journalism — High Country Advocate was created as a real alternative to regional media that too often silences dissenting voices while taking sides in the political struggle. Producing in-depth, unflinching reporting like this series and others is expensive: servers, editing, research time, and legal review all add up quickly. If these articles have informed you or given you new perspective, please consider supporting HCA with a paid subscription — every subscriber helps keep this reporting strong and independent. 