Written in the after-shock of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Siegfried Sassoon’s “Litany of the Lost” laments the dehumanizing and destructive effects of technology. If Sassoon emerges as something of a prophet in the lines of this poem, he is something of a prophet at a loss. Who exactly is to deliver us from ourselves? We did not heed the Cloud in the Heavens shaped like the hand Of Man. . . . But there came a roar as if the Sun and Earth had come together – The Sun descending and the Earth ascending To take its place above . . . . the Primal Matter Was broken, the womb from which all life began. Then to the murdered Sun a totem pole of dust arose in memory of Man. These powerful and evocative words are from “The Shadow of Cain” by Edith Sitwell, the first of her Three Poems of the Atomic Age , written during the psychological after-shock which gripped the world in the wake of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Kenneth Clark, writing in Horizon in July 1947 as the Iron Curtain fell across Europe, recognized in Sitwell’s poem “a true prophetic cry” which reflected the post-traumatic stress, experienced on a global scale, as the world lurched from world war to cold war. Après le deluge . . . the Cold. Another poem written in 1945, in the after-shock of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was “Litany of the Lost” by Siegfried Sassoon. As with Sitwell’s poem, Sassoon’s lament for the dehumanizing and destructive effects of technolatry represents “a true prophetic cry”: In breaking of belief in human good; In slavedom of mankind to the machine; In havoc of hideous tyranny withstood, And terror of atomic doom foreseen; Deliver us from ourselves. As with all great poetry, the opening verse of Sassoon’s lament is burgeoning with extra-textual meaning. It asserts that materialist philosophy, in its idolization of physics and its abandonment of metaphysics, had broken the belief in human good. Man was no longer seen as good or evil because he was merely matter, like everything else in the cosmos. And if man was merely matter, he didn’t really matter. Those with power could do with him what they liked. And this is what they did. Powerful men subjected their fellow men to the revolution of industrialism with its “slavedom of mankind to the machine.” And this industrialism gave rise, in turn, to industrialized ideologies, mechanized and determinist, such as Marxism, with its Hegelian certainties about the future, and Nazism, with its Nietzschean belief in the twilight of the gods and the emergence of the superman and the master race. This was the “havoc of hideous tyranny” which had been withstood during the War but which had given way to “the terror of atomic doom foreseen” with the dropping of the Bomb. And so to the second verse: Chained to the wheel of progress uncontrolled; World masterers with a foolish frightened face; Loud speakers, leaderless and sceptic-souled; Aeroplane angels, crashed from glory and grace; Deliver us from ourselves. In idolizing technology and worshipping strange progressive gods, we had lost control of our lives and of our human destiny. We were at the mercy of the inhuman and inhumane powers we had unleashed but could no longer control. Chained to the wheel of progress uncontrolled, and possessed by our possessions, we had succumbed to a globalism beyond reach of any constraining power. Like Frankenstein, we stare in horror, with a foolish frightened face, at the monster we’ve created. Loud, leaderless, and lacking faith, we forfeit our inheritance, crashing kamikaze-proud from glory and grace, like fallen angels, intent on suicide. In gaining the world, we had lost our souls. And thus to the final verse: In blood and bone contentiousness of nations, And commerce's competitive re-start, Armed with our marvellous monkey innovations, And unregenerate still in head and heart; Deliver us from ourselves. After the two world wars that had blighted the first half of the century, the “blood and bone contentiousness of nations,” we move forward with the profit and loss contentiousness of commerce, armed with nothing but technology, our marvelous monkey innovations, and seeing ourselves as nothing but naked apes, boundlessly clever but devoid of wisdom. Slaves to the alchemy which calls itself technological progress, we seek the elixir of life which will defeat death and the philosopher’s stone of limitless wealth. We seek to live unendingly, chained to the wheel of progress uncontrolled, and we seek to turn base metal, and plastic, and silicon, into gold, turning ourselves into creatures of base metal in the process, unregenerate still in head and heart. If Siegfried Sassoon emerges as something of a prophet in the lines of this poem, he was something of a prophet at a loss, in the sense that the poem is addressed, apparently, to nobody in particular. Who exactly is to deliver us from ourselves? It is clearly not ourselves, since we are the cause of our own demise. But is it God, or is it merely a rhetorical invocation to nobody, a cri de Coeur to an invidious invisible void? Is it a scream in a vacuum? Unheard, unheeded? It is unlikely that the poet could have answered these questions himself at the time the poem was written. He was, at the time, an agnostic, desirous of a faith he could not fathom and a peace he did not possess. Twelve years later, he would be received into the Church, finding the peace that had always eluded him in the One who could finally deliver him from himself. This peace and the peaceful resignation it brings were expressed in the final verse of another of Sassoon’s poems, “A Prayer in Old Age”: I ask one world of everlasting loss In all I am, that other world to win. My nothingness must kneel below Thy Cross. There let new life begin. The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now . The featured image is "Coalbrookdale by Night" (1801) by Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740-1812), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons .

Joseph Pearce, Author at The Imaginative Conservative

About Joseph Pearce

Joseph Pearce is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. A native of England, Mr. Pearce is Director of Book Publishing at the Augustine Institute, editor of the St. Austin Review, editor of Faith & Culture, and series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions. He is the author of numerous books, which include The Quest for Shakespeare, Tolkien: Man and Myth, The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde, C. S. Lewis and The Catholic Church, Literary Converts, Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton, Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, and Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia.

Reflections on Writing and Scholarship From an Autodidact

By Joseph Pearce|2020-02-16T09:24:00-06:00February 13th, 2020|Categories: Culture, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Senior Contributors, Writing|

The Imaginative Conservative’s Senior Contributor Joseph Pearce recently answered questions from students at Benedictine University about his career as a writer and scholar. […]

Freedom vs. Free Trade

By Joseph Pearce|2020-02-10T15:41:27-06:00February 10th, 2020|Categories: Adam Smith, American Republic, Civilization, Economics, Free Trade, Joseph Pearce, Political Economy, Senior Contributors|

Can “free trade,” as understood by Adam Smith, bring peace among nations? Or does it just allow the strongest nations to become imperial powers? In answering these questions, we must keep in mind that Smith was an economist and not a prophet. In all normal civilisations the trader existed and must exist. But in [...]

Richard Wagner and the Seduction of Nietzsche

By Joseph Pearce|2020-02-07T14:03:18-06:00February 7th, 2020|Categories: Beauty, Christianity, Culture, Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Pearce, Music, Opera, Richard Wagner, Senior Contributors|

The sheer power and magnitude of Richard Wagner’s “Parsifal,” the fruit of his recent conversion to a vague form of Christianity, shook the resolve and philosophy of his long-time disciple, Friedrich Nietzsche, to their foundations. Having recently watched a superb and breathtaking performance of Wagner’s last and perhaps greatest work, I feel constrained to [...]

Which Is Beethoven’s Best Work?

By Joseph Pearce|2020-02-12T15:49:02-06:00January 29th, 2020|Categories: Audio/Video, Beethoven 250, Joseph Pearce, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music|

As this year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, I’ve been inspired to muse upon his oeuvre and to ask myself which of his many works could be considered the best. It is, however, necessary to say upfront that there are two kinds of “best.” There is the objective “best” and the [...]

Who Was T.S. Eliot’s True Love?

By Joseph Pearce|2020-01-25T20:12:57-06:00January 25th, 2020|Categories: Character, History, Imagination, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Love, Senior Contributors, T.S. Eliot|

T.S. Eliot’s correspondence with Emily Hale was recently opened, having been kept in Princeton archives until fifty years after Miss Hale’s death. Also opened was Eliot’s response to the archives. It seemed that the poet’s ghost had returned for one last lover’s quarrel with the ghost of his first love, over a century after [...]

A Nation With No Memory Has No Future

By Joseph Pearce|2020-01-14T16:31:05-06:00January 18th, 2020|Categories: Culture, Europe, Government, History, Joseph Pearce, Politics, Senior Contributors|

Since nations are first and foremost cultural realities, the long-term viability and sustainability of nation states depends on the existence of healthy and living national cultures. If the culture withers and decays, the nation state will wither and decay in the culture’s wake. There are good practical and pragmatic political reasons for retaining the presence [...]

Christian Democracy and the Future of Europe

By Joseph Pearce|2020-01-11T18:21:34-06:00January 11th, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Conservatism, Democracy, Europe, Joseph Pearce, Politics, Senior Contributors|

In mid-December, I had the pleasure and honour of taking part in a public debate in Hungary on Christian Democracy and its role in contemporary European politics. I was one of a panel of five “experts,” which included a German, a Pole, a Hungarian, and, last but not least, a fellow Englishman, Theodore Dalrymple, [...]

A New Year, a New Europe, and a New UK

By Joseph Pearce|2020-01-02T23:15:35-06:00January 3rd, 2020|Categories: Conservatism, Europe, Joseph Pearce, Politics, Senior Contributors|

Only a fool would be blithely optimistic about the New Year. Those of us who have been seasoned by many seasons have seen enough old New Years to be cautious of their promises. Experience teaches us that each New Year does not ring out the old in order to ring in the new; it [...]

Gollum and the Spirit of Christmas

By Joseph Pearce|2019-12-09T17:50:09-06:00December 14th, 2019|Categories: Books, Christianity, Christmas, Imagination, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Senior Contributors|

When we think of writers associated with Christmas, Dickens would no doubt come to mind, as, perhaps, would Chesterton. It is unlikely, however, that the name of Tolkien would spring to mind. In Tolkien’s works, such as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, set in Middle-earth, there is no place [...]

Twelve Books for Christmas

By Joseph Pearce|2019-12-03T14:17:31-06:00December 3rd, 2019|Categories: Books, Gifts for Imaginative Conservatives, Imagination, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors, The Imaginative Conservative|

It’s that time again. Another year is wending its way to a close and we’re all preoccupied with preparations for Christmas. This being so, I thought I’d offer my personal selection of books, published in 2019, which I feel would make good gifts for those imaginative conservatives in our lives. […]

Litany of the Lost

By Joseph Pearce|2019-11-29T11:04:59-06:00November 29th, 2019|Categories: Civilization, Cold War, Imagination, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Poetry, Senior Contributors, War, Western Civilization|

Written in the after-shock of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Siegfried Sassoon’s “Litany of the Lost” laments the dehumanizing and destructive effects of technology. If Sassoon emerges as something of a prophet in the lines of this poem, he is something of a prophet at a loss. Who exactly is to deliver us from ourselves? We [...]

Human Kindness, Rights, and Feelings

By Joseph Pearce|2019-11-22T11:04:28-06:00November 22nd, 2019|Categories: Conservatism, Joseph Pearce, Liberal, Libertarians, Natural Law, Politics, Rights, Senior Contributors|

It strikes me that all those who talk incessantly of “my rights” are acting pridefully, in the sense that they are making themselves the centre of their own microcosmos at the expense of their neighbours. If we want freedom, however, we must be prepared to pay the price for it. One way of gauging [...]

The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Truth

By Joseph Pearce|2019-11-16T21:13:52-06:00November 16th, 2019|Categories: Beauty, Books, Culture, Joseph Pearce, Permanent Things, Senior Contributors, Truth|

Books are liberating. Not all books, to be sure. Not the sort of books that are as bad as the fads they serve, the sort of books in which vanity vanquishes verity, and in which the passion for fashion crucifies truth. Not the sort of books that turn their readers into prisoners of the [...]

The Queen’s Speech and the Principle of Subsidiarity

By Joseph Pearce|2019-11-03T20:05:11-06:00November 3rd, 2019|Categories: Conservatism, England, Europe, Joseph Pearce, Politics, Senior Contributors|

In her recent speech, Queen Elizabeth began by stating that it was always her Government’s priority to secure the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. What is particularly exciting about this statement is that it recognizes an ancient wisdom, and most neglected subject: subsidiarity. Any reference to the Queen’s Speech might bring to [...]

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