Two hundred years ago, the English poet John Keats who died before he was thirty, wrote:
Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect, the savage too
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at Heaven; pity these have not
Traced upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance.
You don’t need a professor of English literature to explain those chilling verses since we live today in the shadow of their truth.
According to Keats, you are either a savage or a fanatic if you do not bask in the comforting shade of poetry. Perhaps this is too romantic for our very unromantic age, but the truth behind it is more apparent today than it ever was. Poetry, its study and its appreciation, is nothing more than refining some basic barbaric qualities in humanity.
This is the prime reason for education. Loftier sentiments have put men on the moon, haven’t they? Instead of battling it out on the frontlines of war, the race turned ‘civilized’ and beneficial to all of us.
Today’s terror comes from a sect that ‘weaves a paradise’ for itself and its members by blood and violence while the rest of us are ‘guessing at Heaven.’ They use fire and brimstone to cow people in or out of their creeds and are hardly ever heard offering a tender word to the weary or solace to the exhausted. When they decide to pick up arms again, the violence of their actions match the violence of their words.
Those who tolerated their violent words for decades find themselves in a great jam as the words turn to bullets and bombs. While they figure a way out, we all suffer.
This is one supreme reason why the upcoming American presidential elections are of utmost importance to the whole world. Where are we heading after November?
Indeed, where are we heading in the next twenty years or more? Perhaps I am fanatical about education, poetry and otherwise and so have a firm belief in the power of textbooks to transform minds.
Then again, history is on my side of the argument and my fanaticism is thus justified.
American arms brought stability and new constitutions to Germany and Japan after World War II.
But it was also education that made the two close competitors of America itself in just about everything.
I simply am wondering how many of those who these days are ‘refining’ our educational curriculum have heard of Keats, let alone those very lines?
A word of caution though: Idols come in a variety of shapes and material, some more ethereal than others.
