... I was reminded by a post - at brainpickings.org here - of something that Steinbeck wrote - in his letters, that could also be be relevant to the New Year of 2017 which for us is just beginning. He wrote it on January 1, 1941, when the world was in the midst of the WW2 Holocaust:Quote"... Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion — as though we looked inward on our neuroses. And the thing we see isn’t very pretty… So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing — that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded. ..."____________________________- but he went on in very thoughtful and philosophically optimistic vein for the future of the good in mankind.-IainB (January 01, 2017, 09:29 AM)