Iceberg and Titanic. A word association that possibly runs in many minds. What about this one: A-68. How about A-68 and Luxembourg?
Over the past three years, the giant A-68 slab of ice has migrated from its suture along Antarctica into the open ocean. Originally twice the size of Luxembourg (That’s what “they” tell us), the floating “small country” has calved twice, forming A-68A and A-68B and again forming A-68C.* But isn’t that the way of the world as well as the way of icebergs. Big things tend to break up into little things or simply to melt away.
I’m thinking empires, for examples. 1) Rome breaking into Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire; Western Roman Empire splitting into Holy Roman Empire. 2) Alexander’s empire breaking into the Diadochi (Diadokhoi, Successors) run by four of his generals. 3) British Empire breaking up into Australia, Canada, The USA, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Southern Cameroons, South Africa, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, British Somaliland, Somali Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Norther Rhodesia, Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Swaziland, Basutoland, and, Holy Cow! how big was this empire? Bermuda, Anguilla, Montserrat, Gibraltar, Ascensio, Saint Helena, and Tristan da Cunha islands, not to mention Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Cayman, Turks and Caicos, Pitcairn, and, yes, others. 3) All those north African empires. 4) All those Asian empires, including that short-lived Empire of Japan that WWII disintegrated. 5) And don’t forget the Soviet Union. Anyway, the point is that like the large A-68, many human entities also break up. Religions, also. Sunni and Shia, Protestant and Catholic, Protestant and numerous denominations, Catholic into Eastern, Roman, Coptic, Orthodox; Orthodox into Russian and Greek, and you get the picture. Big things tend to break into little things.
Are any religious, social, or political entities exempt from an eventual breakup? William Butler Yeats said it succinctly in “The Second Coming.”
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.
So, as you watch during your own lifetime big ideological movements form, realize that they, like A-68, are destined to break up into a myriad of smaller offshoot movements. The “centre,” as Yeats says, “cannot hold.”
*https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52395008
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/91052/a-68-adrift
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-giant-a-iceberg-years.html
Over the past three years, the giant A-68 slab of ice has migrated from its suture along Antarctica into the open ocean. Originally twice the size of Luxembourg (That’s what “they” tell us), the floating “small country” has calved twice, forming A-68A and A-68B and again forming A-68C.* But isn’t that the way of the world as well as the way of icebergs. Big things tend to break up into little things or simply to melt away.
I’m thinking empires, for examples. 1) Rome breaking into Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire; Western Roman Empire splitting into Holy Roman Empire. 2) Alexander’s empire breaking into the Diadochi (Diadokhoi, Successors) run by four of his generals. 3) British Empire breaking up into Australia, Canada, The USA, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Southern Cameroons, South Africa, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, British Somaliland, Somali Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Norther Rhodesia, Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Swaziland, Basutoland, and, Holy Cow! how big was this empire? Bermuda, Anguilla, Montserrat, Gibraltar, Ascensio, Saint Helena, and Tristan da Cunha islands, not to mention Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Cayman, Turks and Caicos, Pitcairn, and, yes, others. 3) All those north African empires. 4) All those Asian empires, including that short-lived Empire of Japan that WWII disintegrated. 5) And don’t forget the Soviet Union. Anyway, the point is that like the large A-68, many human entities also break up. Religions, also. Sunni and Shia, Protestant and Catholic, Protestant and numerous denominations, Catholic into Eastern, Roman, Coptic, Orthodox; Orthodox into Russian and Greek, and you get the picture. Big things tend to break into little things.
Are any religious, social, or political entities exempt from an eventual breakup? William Butler Yeats said it succinctly in “The Second Coming.”
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.
So, as you watch during your own lifetime big ideological movements form, realize that they, like A-68, are destined to break up into a myriad of smaller offshoot movements. The “centre,” as Yeats says, “cannot hold.”
*https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52395008
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/91052/a-68-adrift
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-giant-a-iceberg-years.html
RSS Feed