The Hold of the Humanities

By Lynn Ockersz

Another milestone has the human chalked,

By ushering in the Information Age,

And it is no ‘Waste Land’ peopled by ‘Hollow Men’,

But along with the poetic great, T.S. Eliot,

The human needs to raise these posers of weight:

‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’

Thus, stood exposed the incomplete state,

Of scientific and technological knowledge,

Way back when ICT was hardly a thought,

But meditating on these questions we must;

For, knowledge without wisdom,

Could disfigure the human beyond recognition,

As the Hiroshima horror proved beyond doubt;

But it’s wisdom that gives knowledge nobility of aim,

And this calls for a Humanities and sciences synthesis,

Two cultures that were seen as polar opposites;

But let this fusion be the human’s next milestone to reach;

For, even as he expands his algorithmic multiverse,

The human is obliged to remain anchored in the likes of,

Homer, Shakespeare, the Chinese poets of old and Kalidas;

All great spirits who to this day remain man’s moral compass.