by Philip Kitcher
What follows when a nation comes to make
a hideous and culpable mistake?
Is there a way it can apologize
for the betrayals and the lies?
There is no ceremony of confession,
no pillory where rage can find expression,
it cannot now assuage
its crimes through pilgrimage –
no chance to make amends
for savaging its long-time friends,
unless it should invite their retribution
and thus earn absolution –
as if some balancing of pain
could wipe away the stain
and make all whole again.
Our criminal nation, wanton in neglect,
twice chose a monster, knowing what it had wrecked.
We have unleashed this foul misbirth
upon the Earth.
Can we do more than mourn all he’s destroyed,
or must we merely wail into the void?
Philip Kitcher: John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Columbia University; Honorary Fellow, Christ's College, Cambridge. His new interleaved commentary on Ulysses will be published by Rebind in Fall 2026.