Yeat's first stanza in The Second Coming said it well from a secular perspective:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center 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.
I read this on 11/14, the day after the terrorist attacks in Paris. It's a very entertaining piece and it paints a not implausible scenario. As I contemplate the future, however it might resemble the one presented here, the one consolation I have is that at 67 years old, I'll likely be dead before the worst comes. Sorry kids.
Professor Cole,
Could comment on the potential validity of the conclusion that the murderer of Taseer, while not himself a card-carrying fundamentalist (so to speak), might well have been swayed psychologically by the rhetoric of and zeitgeist(sp?) established by Islamic fundamentalists -- in a parallel, perhaps, to the individual who gunned down Rep. Giffords and 19 others and the intemperate rhetoric of elements of American neoconservatives? Would appreciate your insights. Thank you.
Yeat's first stanza in The Second Coming said it well from a secular perspective:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center 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.
I read this on 11/14, the day after the terrorist attacks in Paris. It's a very entertaining piece and it paints a not implausible scenario. As I contemplate the future, however it might resemble the one presented here, the one consolation I have is that at 67 years old, I'll likely be dead before the worst comes. Sorry kids.
Professor Cole,
Could comment on the potential validity of the conclusion that the murderer of Taseer, while not himself a card-carrying fundamentalist (so to speak), might well have been swayed psychologically by the rhetoric of and zeitgeist(sp?) established by Islamic fundamentalists -- in a parallel, perhaps, to the individual who gunned down Rep. Giffords and 19 others and the intemperate rhetoric of elements of American neoconservatives? Would appreciate your insights. Thank you.