I have been wanting to reintroduce a writer friend of mine — his wife, Mary Harman, a superb artist — from Montreal, Norm Sibum. He has relaunched in a new format his online journal, titled Ephemeris, which I have also been wanting to recommend.
We frequently correspond, Mr. Sibum and I, on matters literary, historical and political. He is a poet by trade and temperament, which inexorably suggests that he despairs of the world. He reads deeply in ancient Roman and Greek history and poetry, from which he views the modern world. This alone — especially writings from the oft-troubled Athenians, what with those pesky Spartans and all — is enough to make one see the recidivist folly of humanity. As one insightful philosophical wag once put it, It's just one damn thing after another.
This passage from Sibum, from his previous site, May 2011, should give you a taste of his general Weltanshauung:
Perhaps we are in need of a bottoming out or a catastrophe of some kind such as reminds us of what matters, and why it is that what matters ought to matter. Indeed, there is every likelihood—In light of which, people wonder why I fuss on about poetry so and the state of
the thing. I wonder why, too. What are verses to a dying bee? I am a species of dixie whistler, meaning that I know f—k-all about politics, and yet I am unable to shake this foreboding sense that as bad as things have been they are going to get still worse. Perhaps a more motivated grass roots might shift Current President leftwards; he has been roosting centre-rightwards with some panache; but then, half the populace to the south of here is on anti-depressants, motivation hard to come by—Shall we talk a little colony collapse? ...
It is pleasant to be loved, for this ... makes a man see himself as the possessor of goodness, a thing that every being that has a feeling for it desires to possess—Really, Mr Aristotle, really? I blink, and the world seems to go a little more mad. Is this the moral then: don't blink? When we are all of us going a little mad, ought we to watch out for the fellow or lass who claims some presence of mind and sanity for his or her intellect?
It may be that the West is indeed "in need of a bottoming out or a catastrophe of some kind such as reminds us of what matters." Nietzsche, circa 188os, pondered a similar state of affairs in Europe — and some 60 years and two world wars later, the continent emerged with a fresh sense of identity, purpose, and spirit, as did its transatlantic ally. Why is global calamity required before humans are able to see what's important? One's best guess is a tragic deficiency in historical knowledge. From our ignorance we are doomed to repeat its byproduct of violent darkness, observed George Santayana only a few years after Nietzsche's wistful foreboding.
I digress. This post is to encourage you to visit the website of Norm Sibum — American-Canadian poet, philosopher, and all-'round gentleman. Odd but paradoxically true is that musings of disillusionment with the world can be uplifting. But that's the poet in him.