"I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody."

At Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday party a few years back, Bruce Springsteen told him that he’d “outlasted the bastards.” Later, Springsteen compared the folk-music icon to an ass-kicking grandpa. The crowd loved it.

Did Seeger? He was never really one to call names, much less to take them. Seeger, who died this week, had a deep well of gentleness, idealism and good humor. Unlike a lot of famous people with strong moral vision, his personal life adds few asterisks to his memory. And Seeger had little use for us-vs.-them approaches to social justice, for stories with starkly drawn villains. His bad guys were hatred and violence, and his good guys were all people and their potential to do better.

Seeger’s friend Woody Guthrie wrote “This machine kills fascists” on his guitar. Seeger’s banjo offered a telling variation: “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.” No individual villains; no violence.