Today’s Totally Random
Lines
Better
ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry
Than
you should stoop to unto a Frenchman’s mercy.
Old Clifford
King Henry the Sixth
Part II Act
IV, Scene viii, Line 49
Jack Cade is leading his rebel crowd in the
streets of London when Buckingham and Old Clifford catch up with them. Old
Clifford is telling the crowd that they’d best ditch Cade and follow the king
into France if they don’t want the Frenchies invading England.
The fickle crowd listens to Old Clifford. I'm not sure whether that’s a good thing in this case or not.
Crowds. Am I right?
I feel as though we have a crowd running the show
a lot lately in this country. The Greek philosophers warned us about the
dangers of crowds being able to take over in a democratic state. Of course,
they were right. The great twentieth century writer Isaac Asimov also
had something to say about crowd mentality.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is as good as your knowledge.
Well, I’ve gone a bit far afield today. Nonetheless, food for thought, eh?
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