The Ceremonies of Innocence

I am haunted by two conflicting visions today, both from great Irish poets we have lost.  The first, from Yeats’ The Second Coming, seems to describe what we as a 21st century society are in danger of becoming:

“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.”

The news, from the situation with Syria to climate inaction to threats of government shutdowns to twerking, appears to reinforce Yeats’ vision.  Mere anarchy does seem more and more to abound, and both the conviction of the best and the underrated value of “the ceremony of innocence” seem fading.  And it is of course because of the center not holding.  The last time most of the world stood together against oppression was WWII.  The 1960s taught us to tolerate all values, even those we found reprehensible.  For after all, what does liberation mean if not acceptance of all differences?  That “anything goes” is the law of the jungle, not of civilization, seems to have escaped us.  At its heart civilization is a structure composed of shared moral norms and practices, from not running red lights to respecting the modesty of others whether you agree with it or not to refraining from using nerve gas against your own people.  When anything goes and we have lost our convictions, the structure has crumbled and “the center does not hold.”

Some major reworking of our shared norms has of course been necessary and welcome.  Women, gays, minorities, immigrants, people of diverse religions, all had been oppressed and had to be set on equal footing.  We all had to learn and relearn how to live joyously, respectfully and honestly with each other.  That implied many new relationships with each other, and a lot of mutual tolerance.  But the civilization test we are flunking so far is how to get past diversity issues to the shared values necessary for society to continue.  We are substituting instead the “cheerful indifference to the lives of others” we have been warned against.  Society is just too large and complex these days for us to bother.  And thus is mere anarchy loosed upon the world.

Seamus Heaney’s vision is the alternative.  Since his death last week, much has been said about the power of his poetic description of the turmoil of Ireland.  But it is his depiction of life as a child on his family farm of Mossbawn that I remember most. In Mossbawn, he describes the “calendar customs” of that life.  They are “the ceremony of innocence” mentioned by Yeats.  In part one, Heaney’s mother, covered with flour from baking scones for the afternoon tea, looks out the window as she waits for his father’s daily return.  Heaney concludes that part with my favorite of his lines:

“And here is love

like a tinsmith's scoop

sunk past its gleam

in the meal-bin.”

It is the invisible bonds and norms that arise from caring about each other that make civilization work.

 Psychologists tell us that American society has an “empathy gap.”  We fail to see the needs and problems of others that people in other nations see.  We are all raised “rugged individualists” as a fossil of our pioneer history, and that reduces our capacity to share the joys and sorrows of those unknown to us.  We drive down the street not caring about how our speed and lane changing affects others; we swarm to a sale at Wal-Mart not concerned about what it has done to the community around it; we see the homeless on the street and feel no pain.  And we appear to be preparing to decide that climate change and the situation in Syria are just not worth the bother.  But psychology also teaches us that habits precede values, that what we practice daily changes the values through which we see the world. It is those "ceremonies of innocence" that enact our relationships and bonds with others, and cause us to care about them.  Changing the world to a better place begins with that thinking about the feeling of others and caring about our effect on their lives, and that takes practice.  However we individually feel about what the U.S. should do about Syria, if we begin with  the individual Syrians, we will be coming from a better place.