"The Ship of Theseus" is a simple parable, popular among beginning students of philosophy.
For the benefit of the unfamiliar few, it goes more or less like this: Theseus (or Theseus) is a mythological king.
But completely mythological.
Not like with us, where every day there is a report about the "mythological secretary", the "mythological taxi driver" or the "mythological sabih booth".
King Theseus slew the monstrous minotaur, and they did not.
Well, the ship of that Theseus was so mythological that it was decided to keep it as a souvenir for many years after him.
A few years later, some wooden beams of the ship rotted, and it was necessary to replace them.
After some time the oars were replaced.
The bow was also replaced at some point.
All the old parts that were replaced went to a special warehouse built for this purpose, until all the original parts of Theseus' ship rested there.
One day the local workers decided to build a model of a ship from those old and broken parts, and without intending to do so they created the famous paradox, which asks: Who is the ship of Theseus?
The one in the port, which is all new parts, or the model in the warehouse?
In fact, this short story asks a question about identity and the relationship between the essence of things and their components.
In the days when I taught philosophy in elementary school, this story always managed to shake something in the boys and girls.
Mainly because there was always a boy that ship threw him into his family's story.
One of the parents remarried, sometimes both did, and the children wondered if it was still the same family.
And there were children of messengers, who had already lived in several countries.
They acquired a second and sometimes a third language, but had a little difficulty putting their finger on where their country is, and in which language they dream.
In addition to them, there was almost always one too-smart kid who threw the real bomb into the classroom.
He read in some book that within a few years all the particles in the body are replaced, molecule by molecule, which raised the question of who we really are.
At this point, silence would fall on the class.
The thought that we ourselves are some kind of little ships of Theseus has taken its toll.
There were children who were amused by it.
Others had real anxiety attacks.
***
I remembered this harmless paradox, because a large camp in Israel fears that the current government is taking us to a place that is "not the same country".
Beam after beam, mast and bow, are replaced with new ones, and contrary to the mythological story, they are not copies.
It's a different model altogether, they say.
A model that some of us see as a cruise ship that they long to sail on.
And others, not a few and not bad ones, see her as the Titanic, on board of which we will all drown, God forbid.
It is very easy, too easy, to react negatively to the pessimistic voices that range from concern to hysteria.
They are too easy to sneer at.
After all, since 1977 Israel has heard and uttered quite similar Gewald voices.
Every time the right won the elections, there was someone who would announce that this was it - the Halacha of the state, and the late democracy was also dead and will never come back. Those with an extreme memory may also remember Haim Ramon's doomsday theory.
Ramon, a polished politician and a skilled studio fox, presented presentations and illustrations, and vehemently claimed that within 100 days of Eric Sharon's victory, the State of Israel would find itself isolated, crippled, empty of foreign embassies, and probably also at war.
Arik Sharon, said Ramon, is an existential danger to the State of Israel.
Which did not prevent him, not long after, from joining him in establishing the "Kadima" party and defining it as Israel's great hope.
Looking back, it becomes clear that in Israel the "end of days" is not exactly the end of days, and the great hope is also quite a flop.
So it's really hard to come up with claims for those who sneer at the cancellation.
In the series made not long ago about the Dayan family (the mythological one, of course the mythological one) another point came up.
Jonathan Geffen sits there in front of the camera and kills all the ancestors of the family, down to the last one.
Nephilim Nahalel are presented as distorted caricatures.
Everything is rotten and very small, and always has been.
Gefen does not tolerate anyone from the founding generation.
The words "But the most, the most, I hate me..." started playing in my head, but then comes the conversation about Likud coming to power, and suddenly, in front of the Likud phenomenon, it's the same Gefen himself who doesn't know his soul with astonishment.
Maybe longing too.
The moment when Geffen innocently wonders with what audacity this nation replaced the founding generation is a spectacular televised dissonance, yet difficult to watch.
Still, it's always best to hold back the ridiculousness.
True, at the moment there is not even a hint of magnanimity or a willingness to listen on either side, but experience shows that it is always better for the winners to be generous, and for the worried - to be patient.
I'm not talking about "reassuring messages" in shekels and seventy, the kind that representative coalition members blurt out from time to time in media interviews.
Those I have listened to so far have tried to shrug their shoulders and claim that nothing is really going to change.
In short, it was not convincing, not reassuring and not that mature.
If the government wants to prove that it winks from the material of leaders, it must show an ability to listen.
Also for the restrained worries, and even for the apocalyptic howls of anxiety.
They are not unreasonable.
The overcoming paragraph, for example.
The best argument of the supporters of the move is that it is better to give the right of the last word in the hands of elected officials, that is, in the hands of the public.
To every question that wonders (out of sincere concern, or hysterical breakdown) who will stop the government in case it makes draconian decisions, they answer, and rightly so: and who will stop the court in case of draconian decisions on its part?
And why should we think that elected officials are more prone to draconians?
Why not give them some credit?
***
That's a really strong argument.
It must not be underestimated.
But this is exactly the argument that puts the ball back in the court of the chosen coalition.
Come on, friends.
Convince the worried that they are worried in vain (pardon the expression).
Give a sign that you really are not going to harm the liberal element, which is the holy of holies of a large public in this country.
Let's say about education.
Among the calming balloons and the attempts at appeasement that have been scattered in recent times, there has been a consistent attempt to claim that they are just making an issue of the whole affair of the division of powers in the Ministry of Education.
All in all, this is a small lesson, really meager, a few percent of the study hours of an average student in Israel, and what else can Avi Maoz do harm?
I don't know Avi Maoz, but I am raising five children, alongside a partner who is an educator, and over the years we have all learned to deeply appreciate these few meetings that the school allows the students.
Indeed, this is a small percentage of the annual schedule, but in these few hours they meet real people with life stories that open up worlds for them that no lesson plan could achieve.
In a world that respects pluralism, they will meet a scientist and a penitent;
mother of an autistic child and paralympic champion;
A released prisoner who became a therapist, a director of a daycare center for LGBT youth and a high-tech man who switched to carpentry. I know that there are parents in Israel who will do everything to ensure that their children do not meet these people. For me and for many parents these encounters, no matter how one-time they are, are an educational treasure.
Today, every school in Israel can choose from a list of about 2,000 meetings and activities.
This diversity is sacred to the hearts of the liberal public in Israel.
Can anyone guarantee that it will be preserved?
Come calm us down!
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il
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