Thought for the Week: Fear or hope
Ian Kirk-Smith reflects on the light and goodness in people
In December 1916 Britain faced a third Christmas of conflict. The war had not been ‘over by Christmas’ 1914 – as young volunteers had been told in the autumn of that year.
Technological progress had improved the lives of millions in the nineteenth century. Two years of war and the huge loss of life in 1916 at the Somme and Verdun, however, had shown that the ‘industrialisation of warfare’ was also a consequence of this revolution. Millions were to die in the slaughter and the war shattered the optimism and faith of many in the future. The poet W B Yeats was, some years later, to write:
Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man’s life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging and uprooting that he may come
Into the desolation of reality:
