THE AGE OF UNREASON

What is going on? The killing of the late-term abortion doctor, Dr. Tiller, the shooting of the guard at the Holocaust Museum---these recent extreme acts of a lunatic fringe seem to be mounting. Certainly, the unrest and malaise of our economic times add to the stress and generate action by these crazies. The polarization of competing ideologies adds fuel to the fire. I'm reminded of lines from The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats, my favorite poet of the twentieth century:

"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."

Having always been something of a centrist, I do not like the extremes that create this anarchy. I recognize the fact that most major changes in the world, for better of for worse, usually come from the extremes, but ultimately the moderating forces go to work---and make things work.

Let us hope that people of sanity and clarity can keep control, that convictions for what is right and just are more than only "passionate intensity", that reason ultimately prevails.