Motus Mentis

2 Comments

1. Rhys says

   Bruce Charlton’s description of the moral disease afflicting Britain is accurate. To the minority who are still willing to make moral judgements, the situation can seem even worse than Charlton reports.

   Many people believe there are political answers to most of the country’s problems. A new right of centre political party called UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) is making some headway in the opinion polls right now. It promises to address many grievances.

   The religious enthusiasm of its votaries is rather touching, if absurd. It’s a refuge for the disenchanted, the fed up, and the semi-educated who believe they have been duped by successive Conservative and Labour administrations (which is true). Under the aegis of UKIP, they hope for many impossible ‘reforms’ – particularly of immigration policy. They believe that a land of lost content can be restored to something like Merrie England by, for instance, leaving the EU.

   It would weary your readers to hear much more about The Sick Man of Europe. So to sum up, here’s the essence of the ‘intellectual deficit’ in Yeats’ over-quoted lines:

   Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
   The best lack all conviction, while the worst
   Are full of passionate intensity.

   Posted September 30, 2014 at 12:35 pm | Permalink
2. Malcolm says

   Ha! I was thinking of Yeats’s poem as I wrote this post and the one right after it; I almost used “Things Fall Apart” as the title, but settled on “Bouncing the Rubble” instead.

   Posted September 30, 2014 at 12:40 pm | Permalink