Ukraine still lives in the play Macbeth. Sadly, Malcolm's army seems far away and in disarray.
About 300,000 Russians have been killed, and maybe 200,000 Ukrainians? Still, it is not nearly enough blood to make Putin want to wade back. There never will be too much blood for him. He has his eyes set on personal glory, for which no price (that other people pay for him) is too high.
What astounds me is that the Russian people go along with it. It is as if they would rather see their 18 year-old sons die, than suffer the inconveniences of not cooperating.
Tolstoy once suggested this about humanity:
“There are no conditions to which a man may not become accustomed, particularly if he sees that they are accepted by those about him.”
I think this is a powerful insight into humanity. And yet, is there not a limit? Are there not conditions that no human would tolerate? What is worse than the pointless death of our children? Why have modern Russians become so quickly accustomed?
Many Russians have fled, but more have remained. They have the tools to disobey within their culture. Leo Tolstoy's Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non Violence is brilliant, and offers a true path out of Putin's unnecessary horror. Tolstoy is no Western stooge imposing foreign values on Russia. I suppose, though, that the book is banned in Russia. Or if it is read, there are reasons that average Russians reject it. From the little I have heard from and about Alexei Navalny, he knows Tolstoy well. I hear echoes in his advice to his fellow Russians to not comply with the murderous regime.
I wonder if Putin murders the sleep of the average Russian. Do they live in the paralysis of fear, or in a kind of acceptance? How much are they, or will they, be willing to not comply with Putin's regime?
Putin has murdered much of my sleep. This is not a sentimental reaction to the deaths of nearly half a million people I do not know. I feel that as honestly as any man can. It is rather a fear that if the Russians can become accustomed to living in Macbeth, maybe Americans can as well.
Or will America's Shakespearean tragedy be a different one?
I worry that it may be Richard III.
Honestly, I would prefer a that our errors be a comedy. I can happily comply with the making of a comedy.
P.S. Just because it's so good, and relevant, here's a long quotation from Tolstoy's Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non Violence, copied from here so I don't have to type it out by hand.
The government assures the people that they are in danger from the invasion of another nation, or from foes in their midst, and that the only way to escape this danger is by the slavish obedience of the people to their government. This fact is seen most prominently during revolutions and dictatorships, but it exists always and everywhere that the power of the government exists. Every government explains its existence, and justifies its deeds of violence, by the argument that if it did not exist the condition of things would be very much worse. After assuring the people of its danger the government subordinates it to control, and when in this condition compels it to attack some other nation. And thus the assurance of the government is corroborated in the eyes of the people, as to the danger of attack from other nations.
“Divide et imperia.”
Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, and conscience, and a slavish enthralment to those in power. And as such it is recommended wherever it is preached.
Patriotism is slavery.
Those who preach peace by arbitration argue thus: Two animals cannot divide their prey otherwise than by fighting; as also is the case with children, savages, and savage nations. But reasonable people settle their differences by argument, persuasion, and by referring the decision of the question to other impartial and reasonable persons. So the nations should act today. This argument seems quite correct. The nations of our time have reached the period of reasonableness, have no animosity toward one another, and might decide their differences in a peaceful fashion. But this argument applies only so far as it has reference to the people, and only to the people who are not under the control of a government. But the people who subordinate themselves to a government cannot be reasonable, because the subordination is in itself a sign of a want of reason.
How can we speak of the reasonableness of men who promise in advance to accomplish everything, including murder, that the government — that is, certain men who have attained a certain position — may command? Men who can accept such obligations, and resignedly subordinate themselves to anything that may be prescribed by persons unknown to them in Petersburg, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, cannot be considered reasonable; and the government, that is, those who are in possession of such power, can still less be considered reasonable, and cannot but misuse it, and become dazed by such insane and dreadful power.
This is why peace between nations cannot be attained by reasonable means, by conversations, by arbitration, as long as the subordination of the people to the government continues, a condition always unreasonable and always pernicious
But the subordination of people to governments will exist as long as patriotism exists, because all governmental authority is founded upon patriotism, that is, upon the readiness of the people to subordinate themselves to authority in order to defend their nation, country, or state from dangers which are supposed to threaten.
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