meandering

It was May 28th when I introduced Gerard Manly Hopkins to this Institute.  In my next post I sought to expand on the subject,  What had intrigued me was the part where after speaking of how man has downtrodden the earth, Oh, morning, at brown brink eastward springs, because the holy ghost is brooding with warm breast and ah! bright wings.  Of course I don't believe in no holy ghost, but,reciting it in the shower I was struck by the idea that good could win out over evil,  Oh it does all the time in Hollywood's lesser efforts, but in real life, not so much it seems.

This was going to be one of those long and meandering things where I'm not sure where it is going and it likely won't lead to any definite conclusions.  The sort of thing, judging by the response, that neither of the dawgs favors very much.

But speaking of brown brinks, that very night the demonstrations came to Uncle Ken's hood, and thereafter that was all the talk.  The demonstrations are still going on, but after that first Saturday they have been peaceful and the bridges remain up blocking the path to that opulent target, Trump Tower.

It would behoove me at this point to define good and evil.  I'm going to go with my usual, altruism, the golden rule, the greatest good for the greatest number.  That sounds a little milquetoast doesn't it?  A little goody goody.  How does that compare to Orwell's big black boot stomping on the human face for all time to come?  It is in the best interest of the guy with the power to use it to fuck over those without, so structurally it would seem that evil has a definite edge over good.

But maybe it is in the numbers. As the evildoer amasses power they tend to shrink their circle so that circle is increasingly being outnumbered, until finally the great dictator has almost no friends in court and finds himself overturned and likely strung up by his heels next to his mistress as the crowd screams with glee.  So sometimes an angry destructive mob can be a good thing.

That was Mussolini of course who came to that undignified end.  Hitler was able to exit in a more dignified manner, but if he had hung around a bit longer he would no longer have had that option.  Stalin was able to go on for years and in the end it was his body that gave up on him.  But afterwards the Soviet bear became a gentler bear, not all that gentle, but in all those years they did not launch the first atomic missile, that was pretty good of them wasn't it?

Now I am really meandering.  I'll stop now.