Things Worth Remembering: T.S. Eliot Put His World Back Together Again

Welcome to Douglas Murray’s column “Things Worth Remembering,” in which he presents great speeches from famous orators we should commit to heart. Scroll down to listen to Douglas read the most memorable speech from T.S. Eliot’s 1935 play, “Murder in the Cathedral.”

In the early days of this column, I confessed that T.S. Eliot is always with me. His words frequently rise to the surface of my mind. They are particularly powerful as a counter to despair—which is, in contemporary America, rife. As its citizenry has been preparing to exercise its right to vote next week, we have been warned that—regardless of the result—everything, everywhere is doomed: America’s education system, its birth rate, the planet, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, democracy itself.

Once, an impending election might have encouraged America to imagine a better future. Instead, so many influential voices fall back on fearmongering. Last week, for instance, Vice President Kamala Harris chose to amplify the divisive rhetoric of her most extreme followers when she opted to describe her opponent, for the first time, as a “fascist.” This comment could not have been made in a time of hope; it is confirmation that the culture is giving in to the temptations of pessimism, declinism, this idea that America has had its time. In certain circles, there has been a surge of interest in the infamous theory of Oswald Spengler—that, when a civilization finds itself on the road to ruin, it can never recover itself.