Social commentators fret about the rights of the marginalized, but they are the powerful: socio-political action happens on the margins. Many fashionable contemporary historians re-write history in ways designed to appeal to an audience of "marginalized" groups. We could playfully call this history-product, the companion of journalism's "fake news", the "Fake Olds".
As for the societal activity occurring on margins, who populates these domains?
-- the nameless public that votes well-known leaders into office
-- the nameless school-teachers who shape students' minds (for better or worse)
-- the nameless care-givers and nurses who tend the sick
-- people who drive transport so the movers and shakers can move around and shake
-- people who build roads, bridges and rail for the transport to run on
-- people who put the power lines back when storms knock them down
-- people who grow food, and those who maintain infrastructure through which food gets to masses
Do we know the names of these people on the margins (whatever their race or gender may be) who get central things done, and without whom "the centre cannot hold"? These are the anonymous leaders, the majority whose opinions the elected "leaders" follow. These are the level-headed non-extremists who get things done because they have skills and training, while loud and trendy "influencers" command centre stage "full of passionate intensity" about whatever's politically correct this time.
Thank heaven for the marginalized. The centre wouldn't hold and things would fall apart without them -- as W. B. Yeats poetically explained.
