Is Centrism an Opportunity?

Finding Common Ground can Drive Organizational Success

Issue 171, August 1, 2024

When was the last time you thought about centrism?  It seems almost quaint in our increasingly polarized public discourse. William Butler Yeats wrote The Second Coming in 1919. The poem has been cited for over 100 years as a cautionary voice for things falling out of balance, evocatively described in the first stanza.

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.

According to the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, the year 1919 was transformative around the world. On the global stage, troops returned home from World War I; the Treaty of Versailles was signed; and the idea of self-determination, fueled by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s desire for a liberal international order…