#299 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday March 15)
Friends,
I would like to say the devastation in Ukraine is unprecedented. Sadly, it is not. Man’s inhumanity to man has brought incalculable pain and loss to communities throughout the world and throughout history. And this is not the first time Ukraine has been a place of senseless violence against civilians, having been a historic battleground between stronger neighbors, the site of regular pogroms against Jews and other minorities, a focus of the Nazi killing machine, and the victim of Soviet oppression.
There are those who suggest that President Biden is weak, that he is in the pocket of the far-left, or that he is an inconsequential figure. I do not think it constructive to engage in this debate—you know my feelings about Mr. Biden. Yet regardless of what one thinks of him generally, Mr. Biden played the early days of the crisis perfectly. By repeatedly sharing the intelligence of Russian attempts to create a false justification for the “liberation of Ukraine,” he laid bare the craven nature of Mr. Putin’s overreach. When Mr. Putin eventually invaded (waiting patiently until the conclusion of the Beijing Olympics, at the behest of President Xi, another “nice guy” who currently is practicing genocide in Western China), he had no pretext upon which to rely. Putin’s intentions were laid bare. And this led directly to the worldwide outrage against him and in support for the Ukrainian people.
HISTORY’S ECHOES
Earlier, I had indicated that the merciless invasion of Ukraine and the indiscriminate violence visited on civilians is hardly without precedent. While I invoked the Ukraine as the victim of cruelty, David Lash noted a precedent coming from Ukraine itself:
“…I want to add that what is happening in Ukraine goes back further than the 1930s. For me, it is very personal. I grew up with stories from my grandparents about the “old country” (“old” being pronounced “uld”), meaning what is now Ukraine. They came from two small towns outside of Kiev. The stories of how the Russian Cossacks destroyed those towns, and the lives of everyone in them, are chilling. Murders, destruction, kidnappings, unrestrained violence, rapes left my grandparents to flee for their lives, leaving behind those who were killed and kidnapped (never to be seen again). They became refugees, helped at Ellis Island by who I believe to have been HIAS, settling in the US, but broken beyond repair by all they had experienced and seen. One hundred years later, nothing has changed, the same horrific stories are coming from the same place, lives being similarly upended. It is beyond comprehension.”
IS MANKIND BASICALLY GOOD OR EVIL?
As we consider the evil playing out in Ukraine, I come back to the ongoing debate of whether mankind is basically good or evil. Peter Bain answers this as I would: Yes.
Here’s a beautiful analysis, based on this answer:
“A huge part of the enquiry starts with getting the question right, ‘Given that mankind is neither and both basically good or evil, what does he choose to do with those twin capacities?’ This question takes us very quickly to the issue of free will. I find people generally treat this as binary: ‘do we have free will or not?’ The answer is, of course, that this is not binary and we both do and do not have free will. I do not have the free will to choose to alter the laws of physics. I do have the free will to choose to improve my fitness. And everything in between lies somewhere on that spectrum. Thus, the question to me more properly stated is: ‘how do we choose to exercise our free will in those instances where we have it?’ I suspect this is why the trolley problem is so useful: it presupposes a situation where the principal actor has free will and is confronted with a series of options and considerations.
As I reflect on those times in life when I have encountered such a situation, I detect an evolution. In early days, I had very little power or ability and thus my decisions had a relatively minimal effect on others and, consequently, I made choices intended principally for my own advancement and benefit. As time passed and I accumulated both more security and influence, those choices had a greater impact on others and thus required consideration of more factors beyond myself. Having been fortunate to have reached, as Ben Franklin stated in his Autobiography, “… a state of comfort and some degree of reputation …,” I find myself focused more on others in making choices.
I point this out not with satisfaction, but rather with some degree of chagrin and embarrassment, as I must tacitly acknowledge that self-interest was the leading governor of my decisions for a good part of my life, and the broadening of my awareness of and concern for others is a development that evolved alongside my own security.
If looked at in this way, the enquiry begins to focus on a fairly identifiable challenge. Perhaps the act of “being good” is to be honest with ourselves about whatever power and influence we may have, and to strive to be conscious and intentional about using that power not for the benefit principally of ourselves, but rather for a purpose which, while not self-harming, has its center of gravity in advancing a broader good.
And to state the obvious, in that framework, one must conclude: You are evil, Mr. Putin.”
Have a good day and screw Putin and those like him,
Glenn
From the archives: