I'm growing increasingly concerned about the direction my beloved country of America is taking. I'm sad to see my fellow Americans suffering under this oppressive economy, but I know we are not alone in this struggle. Worldwide, nations and families are struggling. I hate seeing businesses - both large and small - buckle and fold under the weight, but then, that is imply the cycle of capitalism. I think what concerns me most though is that America itself seems to be falling apart. Never in my life have I felt like society itself is going to completely transform over the next decade, and to be honest it scares me deeply.
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All of this makes me think of William Yeats' poem "The Second Coming," a personal favorite of mine that has taken on new meaning in recent weeks. I thought I'd share it with you all in case you've never read it before.
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THE SECOND COMING
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
2 comments:
I'm actually not sure what "direction" it is you're talking about. Certainly big changes are in store, and big changes always bring uncertain results. And not everything done in the name of dragging ourselves out of this global crisis will work; some might even turn out bad.
But I would argue that "The Second Coming," with its ironic turn around religious imagery, applies not to now, but to America's recent past... though maybe the ceremony of innocence wasn't drowned, just made to believe it was drowning through the careful, supervised, and approved application of waterboarding.
Look: The current failing businesses, large and small, are not simply the "cycle of capitalism"; they're the result of greed, cynical manipulation of government policies going back decades, and downright fraud.
And America's reputation in the world--and in America, for that matter--has suffered under the hands of the worst men (and a handful of women) who are indeed full of passionate intensity.
But I've seen more conviction in Americans since Obama became president than I have in a long time. Some of that will turn out to be mere lip service, as is always true. Some of it will turn out to have been mere cult of personality. But in my mind, at least, hope is back.
My concern isn't so much with Obama but the people surrounding him (Congress included). We're seeing unprecedented debt spending and an obscene amount of power being given to the Secretary of the Treasury. Our education system appears to be crumbling under the weight of NCLB, and shows no sign of being lifted under the new administration. And then of course I read about bills like this: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/04/should-obama-control-internet#
That's the direction I'm talking about.
Of course, I want to be wrong. I want to believe that this new administration make good on the promises after so many years of being let down by the previous one. But when I see the political deadlock on Congress and the CA legislature, the violent protests on Wall Street, and so much government spending that it boggles the mind, I begin to wonder whether the center really can hold. Is America doomed to simply "fall apart"?
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