‘Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,
Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world’s whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed’s feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar’d with me, who am their epitaph.
With Donald Trump about to become the next President of the United States; with the United Kingdom getting ready to indulge in self-harm with a hard exit from the European Union; as European electorates consider voting for racists and authoritarians; and as the dreadful tragedy in Syria unfolds: it does really seem that the world’s whole sap is sunk.
The best hope is that electing a narcissistic and ignorant man-child as president and the coming Brexit debacle will expose the contradictions of these political rebellions and expedite their own undoing. But what a price we will have to pay before this becomes evident to all. As H.L. Mencken said:
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part
I don’t think that there has ever been a time in my life in which resistance to a new political movement has become so necessary. Not only must we fight the proto-fascists, at the same time we also have to understand where western liberalism went so wrong. So many people in our societies have decided that they had nothing to lose by giving the finger to the status quo. Globalization and, especially, robotization of manufacturing are hollowing out and leaving behind large swaths of our countries. Inequality is rising and the poorest halves of our societies are not getting ahead. Those of us who live comfortable lives and spend our days inside our bubbles distracting ourselves with intellectual pursuits have received quite the shock.
Blithe assumptions about how incremental progress would improve everyone’s lives are now revealed as complacency. At least the populist revolt has exposed the contradictions and failures we preferred not to notice.
Education is offered as a simplistic answer by some people—especially educators—who have forgotten what the question was: how can everyone lead dignified and meaningful lives? I don’t have the solutions, but we first need to acknowledge that the consensus we had entering the new millennium has failed.
I dislike the commercialized and kitschy festival we have made of Christmas. Due to overexposure, I have an especial loathing for carols. But Christina Rossetti’s poem In the Bleak Midwinter, set to music, is an exception. The midwinter despair tempered with hope captures the seasonal mood perfectly. At the darkest time of the year we can still look forward to new life.
Susan Boyle sings the best version I could find.
Merry Christmas everybody!
Critical Angle 