For some time now, I’ve been feeling like this first half of Yeats’ famous poem perfectly encapsulates where we are as a society:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
From “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats
In Israel, we often hear the question, “Where is the sane center?”
Actually, that is what failed. That is what was tried for decades, and it has failed.
We are beset by polarization as both the right and the left look at the other in certainty that their path will lead to destruction.
Here in Israel, it seems to the right (it would be more accurate to call them the hawks, since they are not necessarily economically on the right), like the left (the peace camp, since they are not necessarily economically on the left) has continually interfered, because the center, which actually did block full implementation of their plans, is far to their left. The peace camp never came close to implementing anything approaching their strategy, and since Oct 2023 what remains of it is very small.
In the US, the Democrats moved center, not only in this election, for decades enacting right leaning economic policies or at most leaning gently left, avoiding anything as radical as upending Citizens United, or limiting corporate power, or offering education, health care, and time off anywhere near the standards of any European country. Even while verbally acknowledging the seriousness of the climate crisis, measures near the kind of drastic systemic change needed to mitigate it are nowhere under consideration.
We have never truly pursued either strategy; instead the center has tried to navigate a balance without upsetting those who hold power. And that is what failed, and can no longer hold.
At this point, the majority in both countries is solidly right. In Israel most of the population supports a hawkish approach, if not the current government, and the US just elected a vehemently right-wing party in all three branches of government. In both cases, it looks like they’ll finally get to implement their agenda.
Of course it pains me. In Israel, it means utter abandonment of the hostages, and of what I view as the absolute minimum of morality, it means intense suffering and death for unthinkable numbers. In both places, it relies on amassing costs and expenses – financial and moral and social – with the intent to pay back later from the great profits we’ll reap upon victory. Instead, I believe we will find ourselves utterly bankrupt, financially, socially, and morally. Beyond the immediate impacts, there will be so much damage and entrenchment – of environmental consequences, changes to structures of governance, and deepening mass trauma – that going back in the other direction, the one I believe in, will be much, much harder, or even impossible.
But the center cannot hold. Which doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. We can resource ourselves, strengthen our resilience and healing abilities, and prepare to face the day after as well as we can, in addition to supporting each other and getting through whatever goes down now. There is always something we can do, and there is always a day after. But for now, the majority has chosen, and it seems that death and destruction will play out until their bitter end.