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William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
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
Are full of passionate intensity.
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.
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?
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?
The source.
In an interesting article, playing on W. B. Yates' famous poem of 1919, Robert Skidelsky interprets the election of Donald Trump as an event that may rejuvenate liberalism [bringing about its third coming], helping "the rough beast [a society in ideological turmoil] ... slouch[...] towards Bethlehem to be born:"
See also my posts here and here.The second coming of liberalism represented by Roosevelt, Keynes, and the founders of the European Union has been destroyed by the economics of globalization: the pursuit of an ideal equilibrium through the free movement of goods, capital, and labor, with its conjoined tolerance of financial criminality, obscenely lavish rewards for a few, high levels of unemployment and underemployment, and curtailment of the state’s role in welfare provision. The resulting inequality of economic outcomes strips away the democratic veil that hides from the majority of citizens the true workings of power.The source.
Judging by the success of the movement's iconoclasm, Trump's regime is likely to change America and the world more than any other presidency has in a long time. Trumps' election has already cracked the collar of political correctness irrevocably. It is a mighty challenge to the political status quo; let us hope that it will be a healthy shock bringing much needed movement to stagnant minds. Let us hope that it will expedite fresher thinking and welcome renewal in the major factions of politics.
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