"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,"
This was Yeats' grim observation of the political scene, after the First World War, captured incisively in the poem The Second Coming.
Unfortunately, these words apply not merely to the political scene but to everything and everywhere. It's all coming to pieces- the world we live in.
There are "weapons of mass destruction" across the continents, and if one is used, another will follow and then no body can stop the devastation.
The economy is getting worse each day. The voracity and corruption at the very roots of economy has reached a scale unimaginable.
The environment is unbalanced. It is all about global warming, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wild fires, earthquakes, Tsunamis, the melting icecaps... and the list goes on.
Does this ring a bell somewhere? We can't just sit back and watch.
It does not require any sixth sense to foresee an immediate future in which the world is hammered by the weather and stumbling from an economic meltdown.
We all thought for years that the future held, although vague, visions of progress and success, and that our problems would be "solved" by science. But now, as it seems, the same science is being held responsible for screwing things. In case of the global warming problem, we may have already done so.
Fortunately, these actions are not irrevocable and can be cured by the actions of man. The predicament of present times from which an escape is not possible apparently, still has a way out left that says "Never lose Hope".
It's just that we need to unite and raise our voice. But the problem does not end here. Rather, it begins here. As "the best lack all conviction", the sensible people are honestly confused. They don't know how to put the pieces of a shaken world back together. And so they are silent.
We don't need someone else to say these things. We can say these ourselves and must, so that the center holds, and things don't fall apart.
1 comment:
Here’s a thumbnail of what it takes, in my view, for a society to be prosperous:
1) An inventive / innovative class; people have to want to invent things and processes;
2) Cross-culturalization, where multiple inventors get together and compare their inventions, and newer \ better inventions are created;
3) Seaports or trade route intersections;
4) Business flowing from invention / innovation;
5) Decent Jobs flowing from business, so people can take care of their families with pride;
6) A reasonably decent life flowing from more people having jobs; and
7) Education encouraging the repeat of the process
Either some force in society sets this in motion, governs the process, and maintains it, or it does not. If you leave it to chance, you might be on top for a while but you will be on top indefinitely. But that is a cost of freedom, when you do not direct people what to do with their lives.
My suspicion is that China will be the next world power because they tell more people what to do, and they are more controlling. More free? Of course not. But more planning, organization, consistency, and coordination take place under their model. We in the U.S. use the “herding cats” model, and there are benefits and costs associated with it.
We’ve needed more inventors for years, and few in our country have paid attention to that issue.
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