One hundred years ago, William Butler Yeats wrote the poem “The Second Coming.” Much was happening in the world when he wrote it. The First World War just ended. The Spanish Flu pandemic had killed millions and almost killed his wife. Yeats looked at the world and saw not hope but despair.
The poem feels as relevant as ever now. The world feels in disarray. Climate change is here with no end in sight. We’ve just gone through our own pandemic which has killed millions. The rise of right-wing fascism and the fall of democracies is everywhere.