This post says nothing new or original or the slightest bit interesting. I just want to preserve what I've been posting on Facebook* over the last week.
I'm going in order of posting, rather than the reverse-chrono of blogging and social media. Also not including likes and comments, as those use full names.
* Yep, I'm old.
10 comments:
Sigh... And it just keeps getting worse.
The only question will be how bad it will get -- how far it will go. For me that's been the question since 1980. By 2003 it was bad enough for us.
I think it will get so bad that the pendulum will start swinging the other direction, but how much harm will be done before that happens is the horrifying nightmare that turns my stomach.
There is no pendulum. The pendulum is a myth. The centre has been shifting consistently to the right -- including under 4 terms of Democrat administrations -- for more than 40 years. The former centre is now liberal-left. The former left is considered extremist.
Honestly, how can you look at US history and think there is a pendulum? Not being snarky, straight-up asking.
I don't disagree. But any move away from MAGA is a step in the right direction. We may never get universal health care, decent gun control, an end to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., or a real safety net for those who need one, but perhaps we will at least move closer to the center. That itself will be better than MAGA.
I think of it as a pendulum that loses momentum over time. The swings aren't from one extreme to another as they are at the start; they winnow down to smaller swings around the center.
The myth of the pendulum and the fantasy of the centre. The rightward movement has not even stopped yet -- it hasn't landed. By the time there is effective pushback, where will the centre be? (Rhetorical question. No one knows the answer.)
My other issue with the pendulum concept -- as least as I learned it -- is it implies a natural process that will just happen on its own, an inevitable consequence of the way democracy functions. But pushback and counter-movement can only happen purposefully, through people getting organized and with tremendous, conscious, concerted effort. A mass of organized people all pushing in one direction.
This whole conversation about the center has made me think of Yeats' Second Coming, in particular the lines, "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."
Post a Comment