Friday, June 18, 2021

No need to choose (3)

(Everyone has their own idea of how the world is going bad: environmental disaster, economic inequality, technology, political fragmentation. There is no need to choose among these and many subtler problems. We’re like the blind men describing the elephant.) 

2 comments:

hbean said...

In King Lear or Hamlet, is the world put back together after the tragedy? New, less corrupt power takes over, but does the darkness that we've seen lift, or are we simply given a pretext for not thinking about it anymore, averting our gazes? When Hector is buried, when Ishmael is saved, when Huck lights out for the territories, is the world restored to reason and goodness? How does the ending of 2001 fit in this scheme?

Max Bean said...

Not reason and goodness, no, and it never had that except under special conditions-- but continuity, solidity: the world goes on, vast and full of different doings. Here there is sadness, somewhere else happiness. It holds us all and will keep holding us.