When the best are silent

Yeats, more than a century ago, wrote words that today seem carved for us: “The best lack all conviction, the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”

It's not just poetry, it's a diagnosis. It's the x-ray of a world that seems turned upside down, where ferocity has a shrill voice and kindness remains a whisper.

The problem isn't just that "the worst" exist. They've always been there. The real tragedy is that the best often hesitate, doubt, and remain on the sidelines. Perhaps out of modesty, perhaps out of fear of not being up to par, perhaps because goodness doesn't have the same allure as hype.

So, while evil burns with high and spectacular flames, good remains embers under the ashes.

But the world cannot be saved by hidden embers. The world needs good fires, burning convictions, and passions that illuminate.

The challenge isn't to become like the worst, nor to imitate their violence. It's to learn from them the lesson of intensity. If evil advances with ferocity, good must respond with stubborn beauty, with the same strength, with the same determination.

There's a cruel paradox: those who spread hatred immediately feel like victims as soon as they're challenged. They cry, accuse, and turn anyone who disagrees into an enemy to be destroyed, without distinction.

It's a sign of their fragility. The worst are afraid of the reaction, afraid of those who aren't afraid of them. They can't tolerate indifference, and even less can they tolerate the rejection of hatred and violence.

Being good doesn't mean being weak. It means choosing not to give in to cynicism, to continue believing when everyone else laughs at faith, to cherish kindness like a secret weapon. It's a revolutionary act, because it goes against the grain.

One is not worth another. There are the best and there are the worst.

But it's not enough to acknowledge it: the best must stop hiding. They must learn to have the same ringing voice, the same visceral passion. They must learn to survive and, above all, to resist.

Because if the best players find their intensity, then the center will be able to hold up again.