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Tag: degradation

Treating the Symptoms, Not the Cause

Published on August 7, 2006

Something to think about in the context of today’s America and unrest around the world (emphases mine):

Hitler was able to enslave his own people because he seemed to give them something that even the traditional religions could no longer provide; the belief in a meaning to existence beyond the narrowest self-interest.

The real degradation began when people realized that they were in league with the Devil, but felt that even the Devil was preferable to the emptiness of an existence which lacked a larger significance.

The problem today is to give that larger significance and dignity to a life that has been dwarfed by the world of material things. Until that problem is solved, the annihilation of Naziism will be no more than the removal of one symptom of the world’s unrest.

— Konrad Heiden, Der Fuehrer, 1944

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Against the entropy of time

Published on June 10, 2005

Against the entropy of time, no wall
is strong enough to stand and remain whole.
Though guaranteed a lifetime, it will fall,
reduced to dust and rubble; and the knoll

which it divides will also wear away,
in its old age succumb to wind and rain.
What seems a solid edifice today,
tomorrow is reduced to a sand grain.

Great mountains, bold ideas — all degrade;
each second’s thimbleful deepens their graves,
and every hour reduces their acclaim.

Despite what grand advances have been made.
time serves no kings, nor pities fools or slaves,
and treats beast, man and god the very same.

09 JUN 2005

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