Prophecy Of Global Change

a philosophic essay

The best book on Shakespeare that I know is a volume of lectures by A. C. Bradley, an old Scottish Oxford don, published first in 1904. In these lectures he teaches Shakespeare's greatest tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. Not only for the old professor's lively speech do I love him well – you can see personae rise up from the printed page and act like beings now alive – but also for the Great Bard's vision that the old professor squeezes out of wrenching tragedies and stands before our eyes. Here's what he tells us Shakespeare saw:

Through some lapse or defect in our character we find ourselves in train with evil; once we have confirmed or acquiesced in such a progress there is no other end for us but destruction. Perchance by some goodness in ourselves we may soften that destruction though to make it less cruel and more gentle. Perchance then in this way there lies not oblivion but our freedom.

Now today the Earth is warming. Quite like some Aztec deity of violence, the Sun flies through a melting sky. And we, as though we stood and drew countless intersecting arcs through all the land and sky, we are today scientifically charting and diagramming all the countless overlapping spheres of ecosystems, economic systems, polities and realms of individual experience wherein the beings of this planet dwell, for all these realms are now changing simultaneously.

What is our proper hope? We will not change our ways till massive death has overtaken our own species; though many minds may change no hope remains by now to change enough. It is too late to stop the consequences of the age-long depredations.

And so my hope is this: To tell the story truly. To let the children of a future day know how and why we did this thing, and as well some understanding of some better wisdom which might have led us though a better course. This so our children and their children may do better. Perchance beyond the cataclysmic tragedy there lies a different age of peace and reconciliation. Toward that day our finest duty is to teach.