Will the Centre Hold?

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.

-- WB Yeats

William Bulter Yeats: Photo from Google images.

Written in 1919 in the immediate aftermath of the “War to End All Wars” and in the midst of the oppressive reality of the 1918–1919 flu pandemic, Yeats’ poem The Second Coming reflects the angst of both the larger cultural moment and his personal circumstances. Yeats’ wife was pregnant and had been close to death -- the virus’s death rate among pregnant women was as high as 70%.  

Social disruption.  Economic dislocation.  Violence.  A pandemic sweeping across the globe.  The optimism of 1900 was entirely gone and those who fought in WWI became what is known as "the Lost Generation" because they never fully recovered from the trauma of the decade. 

Feel familiar?

Image from Harvard Journal

In his recent book The Upswing, Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam writes:

“Almost as often as we are turning on one another, Americans are responding to uncertainty and insecurity by turning to self-destructive behaviors and beliefs. Substance abuse is rampant—taking a tragic toll on family formation and claiming many lives. Materialism, too, holds out an empty promise of relief. Also attractive is a descent into cynicism and spectatorship or the adoption of an apocalyptic worldview: the American experiment has failed, and the best we can hope for is to start from scratch once it all comes apart. Whether the response is lashing out, turning inward, tuning out, or giving up, Americans are becoming increasingly paralyzed by disagreement, disillusionment, and despair. Indeed, many Americans seem to agree these days on only one thing: This is the worst of times.”

Is there hope for the future?

Putnam suggests in his “I-We-I” curve that we are positioned to experience a new “We” upswing, as evidenced by movements from the center right and left that reject polarization and are exploring ways to build a new shared vision for the common good.  Putnam argues that this has been led in the past, and is being led now, by young reformers who reject radical individualism that can lead to tribalism and us-vs-them cultural conflict.

Robert Putnam's "I-We-I" curve from The Upswing

My friends at the One America movement are one of these kinds of reformers.  They call on “in-group moderates” to stand up to the conflict-minded leaders in their respective tribes and be willing to work with “in-group moderates” from other tribes to build consensus for a common life together.  I’ve joined my voice with an initiative they launched, the Matthew 5:9 movement, which has circulated a statement for Evangelicals to reject the division and aggressive confrontation, and instead affirm that, 

“We are called by God to walk in Christ’s footsteps to be peacemakers—not merely peacekeepers—in a nation grappling with toxic levels of polarization and the targeting of specific religious, racial, and political groups with violence. Peacemaking is not passive but rather an active commitment to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. As the Apostle Paul admonished the Roman church, “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” 

Putnam argues in his book that America has seen this nadir before and that it was exactly efforts like Matthew 5:9’s “A 2020 Call for Biblical Peacemaking: Evangelical Leaders' Statement on Violence and Division" that proved to be corrective. The “radical center” did grow and eventually take hold, leading our country to decades of a growing and shared vision of the common good. 

We have been here before.  Many times.  Is there hope for the future?  No matter what the outcome of the election is tomorrow, it won’t be the end of America.  It may be the beginning of a new period, as Putnam suggests, of shared peace and prosperity.  For this, I am thankful and hopeful. 

 With one caveat.  Yeats’ poem addresses the optimism that he felt would inevitably be disappointed:  

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Center cannot hold.  Not forever.  Yeats realized this and hints at the only corrective that can: The Second Coming.