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July 22, 2009
Thinking Well: Jonathan Swift
Anglo-Irish, Angry and Wild. And now add Clergyman and Satirist. A unique mix. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), the author of Gulliver's Travels, was truly wild, but maybe not quite as sick and strange as his contemporary critics thought; they saw him through the lens of the many illnesses that plagued his last decade and put him in a permanently bad mood. Certainly, he had no fair shake from any of us in the last century, when we all went nuts on Freud.
True, Swift could be abrasive. Aggressive. He made enemies, both literary and political. But he was influential.
So who--and who with a caring heart--is truly brave these days? We live in a "consensus consciousness" society and, if you are a lawyer, or some other kind of Western "professional", it's perhaps even worse. You get patted on the head for making your thoughts and actions risk-averse ones. You don't lead. And you are actually rewarded for it in the short term.
Who any longer feels, thinks on their own, talks about it, writes about it, acts, and is not afraid of the consequences? Who leads?
Posted by JD Hull at July 22, 2009 07:50 PM