Slowly but surely, almost without noticing, everything is becoming more personal. The last election campaign, and the one fastly approaching, are prime examples: We used to vote for parties that most reflected our own values. The political personas were there to serve an ideal. We asked ourselves, who is better suited to implement our beliefs most practically and effectively. Who will lead us to a better future?
Obviously, politicians have and will always fight on a personal level, we can't imagine a world where this doesn't happen. Even Che Guevera and Fidel Castro, in a world where ideals were all that mattered, clashed over personal differences. But neither they nor the revolutionaries fighting alongside them highlighted the personal because other things were more important. There was ideology, values, and they led those revolutionaries to victory.
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Imagine two pictures: One, today, where the person is in the center and dominates the frame; and the second, from a bygone era, where the camera is more distant from the person, making it possible to see the sky. Similar to a Gothic church with its high cones, there was a sense of something bigger than us. The implications of this feeling were perhaps the most fundamental in defining our existence: Am I simply an entity separate from all others, or is there something bigger than me worth fighting and sacrificing for, which unites me with others who share the same beliefs in an idea above and beyond us as individuals?
There are the grand ideologies. The religions. Without them, our world is empty because it only includes us, and we are limited and full of flaws. A world rotating around the individual can be wonderful on one hand, because his beliefs and innocence cannot be cynically exploited; but on the other hand, and this is a very large hand, it is a miserable, anemic, shallow, bad world.
This is the trend taking place, if it hasn't already been completed, throughout the entire Western world. Post-modernism peels the layers away until we left bereft of substance and meaning beyond our own personal existence. And these anti-ideals are reaching Israel, an island founded on ideals which would never have been born without them, eating away at and corroding them through a process of mockery and fatigue.
Four consecutive elections have been an evolution on steroids: If, in the first couple, we still somewhat discussed values, by the time the fourth rolls around there will be no such talk. Moreover: If in the first couple of elections the prospect of creating an alternative to the prime minister was discussed, due to the indictments against him -- that is to say, those wanting to replace him weren't against him personally and simply sought clean, uncorrupt government -- today there isn't an iota of positivity toward the premier. The "anyone-but-Bibi" camp just doesn't want Netanyahu. Completely personal, entirely negative.
In a place where negativity is king and personas are the driving force (who knows the name of Gideon Sa'ar's party? Or Ron Huldai's party for that matter? They don't need a name, because the person at the helm has a name. The choice is for him, not his ideology, because he has none), the people will forget their ideals. Is it reasonable to ask the regular citizen to be greater than his leaders? Of course not. But if there is no discussion around ideals among our leaders, how can the people be expected to show solidarity, sacrifice, discipline, consideration for others?
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