on us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war. Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.... Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural development of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh. (Words spoken by General Douglas MacArthur in a radio broadcast delivered after accepting the Japanese surrender on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri.)
Thursday, November 02, 2006
"We have had our last chance."
A new era is up
on us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war. Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.... Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural development of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh. (Words spoken by General Douglas MacArthur in a radio broadcast delivered after accepting the Japanese surrender on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri.)
on us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war. Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.... Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural development of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh. (Words spoken by General Douglas MacArthur in a radio broadcast delivered after accepting the Japanese surrender on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri.)
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2 comments:
A second read is always surprising to my limited mind.
Your last sentence is great with the...
"synchronized...advances...science, art, literature and all MATERIAL and
cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit
if we are to save the flesh."
So, you are to say Armageddon in the very broadest sense of the word. Since this word
is a western / middle east term and symbol - I take it that in the context of your " We
have had our last chance" scenario one should apply the word in global and not narrow religious but literary context. Very interesting precision of this use of the theological determinate of logic. Further, I will still follow with another reread to embrace the emotional import of LAST CHANCE evocation that does invert the logic to final cause dictum and if you are to say final in the sense of last chance for the human family to grow up then I would still say to deterministic and without prescient basis from or by the academy; let alone prophets as in Sophoclean interpretative understanding of final causation – let alone the inspired cat lover / poet Mister T S Elliot and his modern elk.
Thanks for the greatness of your writing in allowing this meditation. I hope and pray that our discourse vis a viz the blogshere provides clarity of mind and spirit in the times we live.
Joe
What you posted on your blog today made me come back and read this one and wow, you are absolutely right...I have never seen color photos of this. The color images are much more graphic, much more heart-wrenching.
I do think we are having a bona-fide spiritual crisis as a country. My five-year old asked me what porn is the other day. I asked where he heard that word and he said he heard it when I was watching NBC nightly news...who would have thought?
I'm not sure why you can't make paragraphs. You have the same template that I do and all I have to do is hit return. I looked in my blog settings to see if there's something special I'm doing there and I don't see anything of note. Have you tried emailing the blogger staff? They are pretty helpful.
L
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