through a glass darkly

The apostle Paul had heaven in mind when he wrote, in 1 Corinthians, that “now we see as through a glass darkly”; Rossin’s cyborg icons hold out that true vision might require a higher power, a congestion of human and machine.

So when Putin orders the invasion of Ukraine in a manner that tacitly invokes democratic principles even as he circumvents them, he offers up a face of democracy as viewed through a glass, darkly.

Has something of the elemental feel of a 19th-century tintype — the world seen through a glass, darkly.

She dressed in all-black Agnés B. and doted on Ms. Hamilton and her brother, introducing them to writers like Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg and plays like “The Glass Menagerie” and “Through a Glass Darkly.”

But Hollywood’s supine attitude toward Chinese power is a useful window into a larger problem: We need to see our great 21st-century rival clearly, and too often we see only through a glass darkly, if at all.