Madness

In this age of nearly perfect
madness, that has politicized
everything except politics, favored
minorities and women will be
driven mad by the suspicion,
whenever they are rewarded,
that they have been rewarded
beyond their merits by political
sentiment replacing judgment.
And Anglo-Saxon Protestant
heterosexual men will be maddened
by the suspicion that, if only
uncorrupted judgement prevailed,
they would be found more deserving
than they have yet been found to be,
and perhaps more than in fact
they are. This madness comes
when the lineages of faith
and craft are severed, and the truth
of anything cannot be known
because anything supposable
can be endlessly supposed.

-----Wendell Berry, from "Entries"