Whether the fight is futile, or hopeless, is ultimately beside the point. "We're losing the war on drugs," people like to say, often with a vaguely self-satisfied look in their eyes. Well, of course we are--we're losing it every day, in every town and city and street corner in America. We lose, and lose, and then we lose some more. But the war goes on. As it must, for the sake of our society--and of our souls.
As usual, T.S. Eliot put it best. "For us," he said, "there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."
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Ross G. Douthat '02 is a history and literature concentrator in Quincy House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.