A poem for today, "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats

(Note: I am of the opinion that most criticism is a sham. It misses the point of what art is about: the experiential nature of great works of beauty and how it relates to one personally. So my endnote will never be the sort of criticism one might see in the New York Times but something much more personal, sort of like a diary entry on a great work of art.)

This is one of the more famous poems of the 20th century and with good reason. It is in many ways a poem of despair. It reminds of the desperation we are all susceptible to in times of world crisis. (Paul Krugman used this poem in a recent column to describe the current financial crisis.)

The line that has always struck me the most is "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." There is a lot of truth here. So often those who are so certain about their world view and cannot see the flaws and counterarguments in that world view, are the ones who stir the masses the most. George W. Bush, Hitler and Osama Bin Laden come to mind. Their worldviews have certainty in them; it is much easier to see the world in black and white, good and evil especially if you're on the good side. In fact it feels good be on the good side; it gives one purpose and the "passionate intensity" that Yeats describes. Just don't be on the evil side. You're a scapegoat and container for the good side's uncertainty.

And too often it is the best of us who "lack all conviction" because these worldviews are decidedly postmodern. The best of us see that an ideology or argument are points of view based on a certain historical time period and have all the flaws and blindspots of any worldview. It is the best of us that see the world as a huge grey area, where good and evil cannot be as stringently categorized as most of us want it to be. The certainty is gone with this worldview. There is no "conviction." And because of this, it is harder for these people to act. But there is a huge benefit to this worldview: it will always a measure of humility that the "worst" and their "passionate intensity." And because of this, this worldview will be more likely to consider the consequences of their actions. It, in my view, will always do less damage and evil to the world.

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
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.
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: somewhere in sands of the desert
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
Reel 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?