"Imagine," subversively interpreted

From this National Review article, which features (to no surprise) several negative takes on the song:

“When ‘Imagine’ was new, and I was young, I, of course, took it literally as the way the world should work. Since at least partially growing up (being 57 now), I have come to understand John Lennon as one sarcastic SOB who delighted in demonstrations of his superiority over lesser beings. I am thinking that ‘Imagine’ was meant as a send-up of liberal utopia, an insult hidden in the open.”

High unlikely but impishly ingenious. Confession: I find "Imagine" plodding and bland.