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The Widening Gyre [1]
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Date: 2025-03-14
When I was attending college, I read Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince . It was not required reading; I had developed a keen interest in older philosophy and literature at the time, and read a variety of famous works in my spare time in an attempt to better understand them, rather than relying on a common perception that could often miss critical context. The Prince is interesting is that it is Machiavelli’s most well-known work, yet differs greatly from his other writings, to the point where some have argued that it was satire or even an attempt to sabotage any would-be Prince who read it. Regardless of his true motivations, though, there was one passage that I found quite salient.
In one of the more well-known axioms of the work, the question is posed as to whether it is preferable to be loved or feared. Machiavelli, for his part, argued that a Prince should aspire to be both, as love would ensure the loyalty of one’s supporters while fear would discourage ambitious schemers from acting against them. He went on to say that if it was not possible to be both, fear was the more reliable means to retain power, but with a caveat that is often omitted by those who cite him. That caveat was that fear would only work if it did not progress to a point where it would start to inspire hatred. Because while fear often promotes inaction, hatred does the opposite, and if allowed to grow and fester for long enough, fear ceases to be an obstacle to it.
I think of that passage as the world seems to unravel around us. Institutions that the public had long thought to be the bedrock of society are exposed as pantomimes, metaphorical Tinkerbells that only existed for as long as they have because enough people clapped. And as more people discover that the social contract they signed was actually closer to a bill of goods, I see the hate building.
Signs of it had been there for some time, though a recent moment that appears to have marked a point of inflection is the killing of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson. Overnight, his death made him the most hated man in America among a populace that did not even know he existed the day before. Hatred against our health insurance industry has long existed, with so many people paying their provider month after month on the promise that should they need help in the future, they can rest assured that their claim will likely be denied and they will be forced to pay their provider even more. But with his death, Thompson gave a face to a target of rage that had previously been a faceless, impersonal monolith.
And with it also came the beatification of his accused killer, amplified as law enforcement quickly mobilized to bring the hammer down on him, hoping to head off any potential copycats by terrifying the angered populace back into compliance. But the hatred Machiavelli warned against was already there, and the government’s heavy-handed approach served to elevate Luigi Mangione in the eyes of those who celebrated Thompson’s death, transforming him into a martyr who sacrificed his future to give voice to the wrath of the voiceless. And when compared to the years of delays and inaction against the crimes of Trump and the rest of the far right, the speed at which law enforcement moved exposed what had long been said by anti-police activists: When the police say “Protect and Serve,” they do not mean us. Protection is only for entrenched wealth, and Service is only to entrenched power.
And so the hatred continues to build, and as the instability grows it seems to be spilling out in all directions. Against the saboteurs in power who are actively tearing the country to pieces, leaving us weaker and more isolated as they attack our allies and provide aid and comfort to our enemies. Against our neighbors who were either too apathetic or ill-informed to act, or who are actively cheering on the destruction. And against our own representatives in government, most of whom seem to offer only empty gestures and meaningless protests at best, or total capitulation at worst. Where it all leads is difficult to say, as the form it takes and the direction it goes depends on what finally causes it all to boil over.
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.
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 Second Coming, William Butler Yeats
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