The Sleep of Reason

Artwork: Francisco Goya, The sleep of reason produces monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos),  plate from Los Caprichos, 1793-9

Today I heard someone recite the first stanza of William Butler Yeats’s poem, The Second Coming, and it resonated. When reason, the rule of law, common sense, freedom of speech, humanity and compassion are lost, chaos, violence and heinous crimes ensue:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and

everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack conviction, while the

worst

Are full of passionate intensity.