Category / Cultural observations

by omniagallia

Reflections for Saturday, June 14: ‘Tough’ versus ‘Vicious’:

This post is occasioned by the surreally unself-aware fantasy planned for Washington D.C. for Saturday, June 14. As a taxpayer being charged to indulge that fantasy, I’d like to provide a (countering) reality check:

The accompanying image is from June 6, 2024, the 80th Anniversary of D-Day. The man in a wheelchair is Melvin Hurwitz, one of few living American veterans of that bath of fire in Normandy, attending a memorial service there. In awed gratitude, Hurwitz is kissing the hand of another distinguished guest and foe of tyranny, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine.

‘You are the savior of the people!’ exclaimed Mr. Hurwitz, suggesting, rightly, how Zelenskyy’s ongoing fight to expel marauders from his homeland is, ultimately, on behalf of all who want a world not ruled by just-below-the-surface residue of our lower animal nature: brute force.  Zelenskyy reciprocated with respectful modesty, as one brave person to another. These men, having put their lives in jeopardy for righteousness decades apart, seem ‘tough’ in every positive sense.

Whereas those who present themselves as strong, but with a history of ‘dodging’ actual danger – and imposing harm or sacrifice on the vulnerable to prove their strength – are not: They are merely, contemptibly, ‘vicious.’

(Not that being authentically tough is invariably virtuous. Many loyal Nazis died fighting to enlarge or preserve Hitler’s Reich. But my focus here is unmasking pretense of stalwart character.)

Vladimir Putin is certainly such. One may recall photos of him during COVID, sitting at the end of a comically long table with conferees at the far end, so Putin could stay safe from contamination. Hardly a display of great personal courage; over-cautious, at the very best.

If he were as brave and patriotic as he wants the world to believe, he might have volunteered to leave East Germany, where he was a KGB agent, to serve as a political officer among Soviet troops invading Afghanistan in the 1980’s. That’s what he could have done, were he willing to put his life at hazard for his country on a savage battlefield.

But men like Putin are as adept at cynicism as rationalization, and thus prone to perceive (or at least describe) real selflessness as naiveté by ‘suckers and losers.’

Which brings us back to the point of this post. Readers can surely think of other public figures determined to be thought resolute (and ‘manly’), although they are known to shrink from personal hardship, let alone peril.

‘Tough vs. vicious’ is a crude distinction, but we’re dealing with a crude reality: Those like Zelenskyy are genuinely tough: Willing to face and overcome adversity for goals that are undeniably just and rightful. Whereas Putin, and men like him, are just vicious; perfectly willing to cause others pain, but shirking risk themselves.

(Few females claim to be ‘acting like women’ when ravening like animals. I regret that we males seem far more apt to act on our baser inclinations – then insist such ‘ape-titudes’ are virtues. However, I have seen and known women who can be tough in the very best sense: gallant.)

My term for such men is Counter-Evolutionaries. They benefit from cultures, societies etc., in which the Law of the Jungle prevails, rather than the World that is possible if humanity got better: Kinder, less prideful, more empathic and communal. None feeding their Egos at the expense of others’: More ‘Evolved.’

Such Evolution (defined as outgrowing tendencies of creatures that lack Reason) of our nature is the last thing Counter-Evolutionaries want. They resist it reflexively and deliberately, preferring an immutable cockpit in which the merciless prey on the weak, and they can exploit human reason to serve feral instinct.

They may even try to reverse the tide of history to restore situations in which they throve and exalted, no matter how objectively bad they were for others (like Putin’s USSR fetish). And they try to hoodwink or coerce the rest of us to share or submit to their primitive worldview.

My tough-vicious dichotomy may seem coarse and simplistic, but still offers a useful, not wholly inaccurate, perspective: Bear in mind that being thought tough is often craved by the craven. Also, that a man focused on a retrograde goal like physical dominance is likely not up to the complexities of 21st Century rulership.

Thus, I see the ingenuity of Ukrainians defending themselves from the ferocity of hospital/school/mall-targeting Russian intruders by using brains instead of brutality as a hopeful, if tragically slow, sign of our species’ progress. Their innovative, carefully planned and skillfully executed resistance has made victory costly, maybe impossible, for Putin, whose habitual recourse is blunt force.

A regime like his is not apt to be fertile ground for ‘innovative, carefully planned and skillfully executed’ tactics or policies. Despots usually prize loyalty over competence, a priority that has eventually undone many of them. As may well be happening in the Kremlin.

Nobody is perfect. Zelenskyy must have failings; we all do, even oft-lionized Churchill. But most of us still appreciate ideals of courage and honor – such as this image celebrates – in which to place hope, faith and trust, rather than simply drowning in the vortex of life’s squalor.

And squalid is how Brutes-in-suits like Putin view most of us; they presume everyone is as malevolent as themselves, or fools and weaklings if they aren’t. In their mindset, the only admirable course is to grasp wealth, power, fame, by any means.

Consider this picture again: This is not just what toughness looks like, it shows how it behaves when it is truly ‘honorable’: two true fighters against forces of darkness, recognizing and rightly hailing each other.

It could be a tableau of nobility for the Ages.

Americans may want to bear this image, as well as my tough vs. vicious generalization, in mind Saturday, June 14, to offset the grotesque spectacle of self-delusion anticipated that day in Washington.  

Given the current state of our nation’s affairs, we should probably just be content if no horses in the Parade get appointed Senators.

by omniagallia

American Police: Which Vision will You Defend?

The accompanying image shows Roland Freisler, Chief Judge of Nazi Germany, in his court. Sometimes called ‘Hitler’s Executioner,’ here he is being watched by a group of regular German police in their distinctive helmets.

I don’t know who the man facing Freisler is, but if he was in the hands of this robed thug, he was almost certainly considered an enemy by the Nazis. He had likely been tortured, and this trial is a sham pretense of judicial process, performed for purposes of propaganda and public intimidation. He is probably doomed, as Freisler routinely imposed the death penalty. His melancholy facial expression shows he already knows his likely Fate, as not so much the ‘accused,’ as the ‘condemned.’

This image implies something American policemen and women may find themselves facing: The critical, pivotal role of ordinary ‘cops-on-the-beat’ in facilitating tyranny.

The Gestapo, Hitler’s savage Secret State Police, never numbered more than a few thousand agents, when Germany’s population was nearly 70 million. So to make up for their small number, that baleful Bund encouraged the general public to help suppress disloyalty by spying on, and denouncing each other.

But for actual day-to-day enforcement of Nazi law and oppression, the Gestapo largely depended on local police in Germany, and in lands they conquered in their wars of aggression. They were the practical force that implemented most Nazi tyranny; without their active cooperation, Hitler’s security apparatus could never have had the fearsome control that it did.

American policemen and women today should bear this precedent in mind: Generally, ‘tyranny’ cannot function without the help and complicity of people like themselves. So if they realize they are being suborned for policies that repress, rather than protect, freedom, they may be wise to consult their consciences (and their own long-term best interests) before taking a first step onto a slippery slope of being the henchmen of ruthless Hierarchs whose only real principle is the defense of their own interests.

(Officers should also remember that Authoritarians rarely reciprocate loyalty. They may privilege their enforcers in the short term, but will remorselessly sell them out to benefit or save themselves. If they were honorable, they most likely would not need to be ‘authoritarian.’

Before aiding such a person, officers should consider his record for showing loyalty – with deeds, not just words – to those who show it to him.)

And to beware of any pretense of serving society (or just some ‘worthy classes’ of it) by carrying out directives that are clearly intended to do the opposite. For example, Freisler’s department was officially called ‘The People’s Court,’ (Volksgericht), when it was obviously mainly a tool of public control, and state terror.

Surely, Americans did not give their lives at Anzio, Normandy, Bastogne etc., in the belief they were helping to destroy Nazism, only to have something alarmingly similar eventually develop here. Do we no longer appreciate their sacrifice?

Officers, would you really want to do something Adolf Hitler would approve, like enshrining the merciless rule of the Ruthless over the sacred Constitutional rights of American citizens?

I hope our police begin to anticipate this scenario. What vision of ‘law and order’ are they willing to defend? One like that pictured here? Or the vision to which Americans profess to aspire, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? And not just for themselves, or those just like themselves.

Our lawmen and women may have to face whether they are (or ever have been) serious about such ideals, or are just paying them lip service. They may have to decide at what point they will no longer be willing to ‘just follow orders,’ if the orders they are being given are unmistakably intended to distort the letter and spirit of American law – more than has ever happened before in our history – for the benefit of a cynical, insidious, self-interested minority.

Distant lands may not be the only places where Americans’ liberties must be struggled for. Who, exactly, do our regular polices’ consciences bid them to ‘serve and protect’? Better to ask themselves such questions now, than to suddenly confront those decisions, unprepared.

And to reflect on the meaning of this picture: Police as servants of evil, rather than its adversaries.

by omniagallia

Grains of Sand for Infernal Machines:

CONTEXT: I first posted the accompanying New York Times article (along with my own commentary) in 2020, shortly before COVID appeared and wracked the world. Then we had more immediate dangers to worry about.

Rather than this long-term one. Somehow, it feels like a good time to post this perspective again. On the premise of ‘an ounce of prevention.’

—————————————————–

This New York Times piece is one of few things I’ve reposted here, but it seems especially worthy. It advises how ordinary people can help thwart extraordinary evil by just not abetting it through passive resignation. And such ‘ordinary people’ surely includes me.

Friends who remember my postings about sites associated with Nazism from my 2016 trip to Europe may recall that I admitted not being brave enough to have overtly resisted Hitler’s rule by terror. In my post about a cell in the ruins of Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, I marveled at the ‘Olympian’ courage many prisoners held there must have shown, withholding vital information that savage interrogators tried to wrench from them with fearsome tortures.

The bravery of those who fight tyrants despite great odds is the inverse of their foes’ evil. They shine some of the brightest radiance in human nature into some of its darkest recesses; like that cell.

But other than praising such heroes and asserting that we who now enjoy peace and freedom partly due to their refusal to yield intelligence (that might have enabled Hitler to win) should honor them forever, I had no further recommendation. Not being heroic myself, I can hardly exhort others to be so, can only urge us all to be mindful and grateful to those with the character (or whatever alchemy gives some men and women the hearts of lions) to actively defy, and thus often help thwart, the full measure of Inhumanity of which Man is capable. One should feel awed by their strength, even if also humbled – and ineffectual.

Now, to the rescue from such disempowerment comes this NYT piece. It asserts that thinking our only possible responses to atrocity are overt resistance, or feeling helpless and inert, is a false, even harmful, dilemma. Righteousness may not be as hard or perilous as these stark alternatives suggest. Crime on a vast scale often depends on many factors – including bystanders not getting in the way – operating unimpeded if it is to avail. This essay prescribes non-dramatic actions one may take to diminish or frustrate the harm the wicked can accomplish.

Moreover, it says that assuming that we can do nothing absolves us, mistakenly, from considering how we might hamper criminal enterprises with minimal effort and risk, thus preserving our moral integrity while often aiding innocent victims. The author, a descendant of German Jews who left their homeland soon after Hitler took power, points out how the Holocaust could never have functioned so efficiently had non-Jews, in Germany or its conquered lands, encumbered it by withholding their cooperation, or abject passivity. Silence may not always give consent, but neither does it impede.

Indirectly hindering some demonic activity is not the stuff of legends like actively confronting it, but may still help slow or even grind it to a halt. Heroes of resistance should inspire us, but superhuman deeds may not be the only strategy available against horrendous undertakings.

If we cannot all radiate light as heroes do, we may try to reflect their brilliance, or at least not be acquiescent voids in which darkness may easily prevail. In my eulogy for my mother in 2015, I wrote that my late parents were very fine people, but not ‘demigods’, and that great scientists, explorers, titans of business, etc. – those whose feats benefit many lives (in addition to noble souls who dared the worst to fight the likes of Nazism) – form a thin stratum of our species who figuratively ‘help keep the world turning.’

But I also wrote that most people, although our lives and deeds are far more modest in scope, can still contribute something hugely important. We can make our world ‘Worth continuing to turn,’ rather than just be a grim cockpit where the strongest creatures rule and survive somewhat longer, but the Universe would be essentially unchanged if our planet fell into the Sun.

For most of us, helping to preserve the positive energy of conscious existence simply by not obstructing it may be the greatest impact of our time on Earth. That is individually modest, but collectively stupendous, the least of which we should all be capable, differentiating us among worlds and arguably the highest use of the human gift of reason: To try to tell right from wrong. And not everyone succeeds at this basic (if often difficult) task; we have all known people whose acts and attitudes make the world a worse place, even if not at the level of a Hitler.

This author helps us to seek the best in ourselves, to see how, even if we cannot be Odyssean, we may still help curb the deepest malice of the wicked. Even ordinary folk like me can do our small, but vital part, helping to disrupt the Devil’s vision, if we ever find ourselves in its periphery.

May none of us ever have to do so, but may we remember this lesson if Fate presents us with the choice.

by omniagallia

‘Oh Come Let Us Reflect Him’ (Redux)

Below is my Christmas post from 2022. It seems appropriate again this year, as it was partially meant to rebuke a current pretense calling itself ‘Christian Identity,’ which is in reality an indignation-driven Reactionary political movement.

The raucousness of this imposture’s proponents continues to twist and corrode the word ‘Christian,’ causing it to seem, in much of the public mind, synonymous with ‘cruel, ignorant hypocrite.’ Worse, political developments have emboldened those proponents to seek, and perhaps obtain, greater influence in American society.

Personally, striving (if often failing) to act as Jesus’ examples and words seem to bid, I find this phenomenon heartbreaking. Many such ‘Christian Identity’ people would likely entirely miss the point of my ‘Oh Come Let Us Reflect Him’ – how actions speak louder than words (or bellows) – or consider it irrelevant.

I try to understand the plight of such folk, pummeled by our popular culture, which reveres fame, wealth, dominance – things beyond their reach, though which Christ generally condemned – even as they try to validate themselves, mostly, it seems, by striving to ‘devalidate’ the worth (and welfare) of others. Their outlook is not a lie if they truly believe it. But they are deeply mistaken and self-serving if they do, fouling a sacred ideal.

And I can no longer let their questionable self-image pass uncontested, so may write a post that will try to refute this movement, as much as possible, as being, in any sense, Christian. Again, I can forgive its adherents’ rage for self-value – ‘forgiveness,’ like humility, being duties of which so many of them seem unaware, of trying to follow Jesus – and in a free country, they can believe what they like.

But people spurred to malice by outrage at reduced cultural/economic status-privilege should not be allowed to present, or see, themselves, unchallenged, as disciples of a Prince of Peace. They degrade a holy name, saving truths, and a real path (abnegation of Self) to personal actualization. Perhaps I can persuade others, looking on aghast at ‘cruel, ignorant hypocrites’ against taking them at their word about an identity they claim, yet deeply dishonor, and a faith whose moral standing they are mutilating. Whether they realize it – or even care – or not.

My continued silence would imply indifference or assent to this pretense. But I am Not indifferent, and I Do Not Assent.

I have adjusted the refrain of the carol, ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ by a single word, to re-affirm a core aspect of Christmas which seems increasingly to get obscured: Jesus personified willingness to sacrifice the Self for the Other. Thus any act of loving generosity may be said to ‘reflect’ Him. And I hope anyone who is not Christian will try to accept that striving to act in this way really is supposed to be a defining element of sincerely following Christ.

This, despite the fact that many people who claim to revere Christ often do not act so as to ‘reflect’ a grasp of His intentions, nor apparently recognize any need to do so. Or who may believe lip service is sufficient. This includes any ‘identity/culture warriors’ who assume the Prince of Peace wants them to behave heartlessly in His name.

Further, I would assert that, as the accompanying image suggests, it is more important to follow His example, than merely proclaim one’s adherence to it. Thus, while the man giving his sandals to the poor boy may embrace some other religion, or none at all, I sense that Jesus – presumably preferring hallowing acts to hollow words – would rejoice in his compassion anyway.

Here is another expression of my point in changing that single word:

‘Wherever selfless love is shared,
Know that He is present there.’

(All people of goodwill practice decency and kindness; I do not presume to claim those as uniquely Christian values. Only that they are obligations – of which they should never lose sight, and always strive – for those who do call themselves ‘Christian.’ As one who does call myself such, I acknowledge often failing at those, but accept my lifelong duty to keep trying.)

We humans can use our gift of reason to choose to obey our finest impulses, and thereby deliberately summon the best of our humanity. Particularly when doing so goes against our own immediate interests; like giving away one’s footwear to a brother being who needs it more. The mere existence, and exercise, of such empathy nudges our whole world slightly closer to Paradise for everyone; hence, the dirt that will get on this giver’s feet transfigures as the soil of the Garden of Eden.

So whether you regard Christ as a factor in your life or not, may the loving care this image shows inspire you to ‘summon the best of your humanity’ also. It is the simplest thing that many of us can do – regardless of why – to better this Life. 

Which I would venture to believe must gladden Him, also.

by omniagallia

‘Resurgamus’: The Renewal of Notre Dame.

When the replacement for Medieval Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 got started, its architect Christopher Wren told a workman to bring him a flat stone to use as a marker. The man happened to choose a tomb fragment bearing the Latin word ‘Resurgam,’ ‘I Shall Rise Again.’ He likely had no idea what it meant, but had inadvertently made an auspicious gesture. Wren’s Saint Paul’s became emblematic of London’s rebirth from the catastrophe, and a beloved site of British self-image.

Now, Notre Dame de Paris has also risen from ashes, reopened today, December 8, 2024, but unlike Gothic Saint Paul’s, has been exquisitely rebuilt, not replaced. Medieval cathedrals were concerted projects involving entire regions, and the virtual rebirth of Notre Dame has indeed been communal. But in this case, the community was global; donations, resources and expertise coming from around the world.

It – ‘she’, Our Lady of Paris – originated when people did not assume they could understand, let alone control, the world around them. The heartbreaking day of the blaze in 2019 echoed that sense, as alert and suppression equipment meant to protect from fire failed to do so, a reminder of the limits of technocracy and human efficacy in general.

But as we have renewed Notre Dame, she may now help renew us.

For she stands as testament to past, present, and future wonders we may perform, when inspired to a common objective not dictated by our constricted spheres of self-interest. What happened after the inferno showed how determined hearts can animate the deeds of the head and hand.

This church – sacred not only in her Christian context, but also as an artifact of human identity and innate potential – quickly came to be seen as more than a superb work of artistry and engineering.  Amid her fallen masonry, blackened timber, melted lead, restoration may initially have seemed objectively impossible. But as realization of the importance of doing so grew, rebuilding came to seem daunting; then difficult; and finally unstoppable.

For we may do the ‘objectively impossible,’ if and when our Spirit is willing. Without such collective focus, Notre Dame would have remained a pile of ruins. Instead, in a cultural groundswell, she was embraced as a compass point in the firmament of our general consciousness that needed to be lovingly, faithfully rebuilt. Passively accepting her loss would devalue the whole concept of civilization, for if such an icon of shared human heritage was not worth exertion to save, what part of it is? Or would be? 

Arguably, it made little sense to lavish such attention on a burned out old-building. But that is a mistaken reading; doing so showed itself to be an absolute imperative. For she was never just a pile of stones, but represents the very best of who and what we are, or aspire to be, raised toward the heavens as an offering of our fondest hopes and finest deeds.

So it seems appropriate to use the plural ‘Resurgamus,’ ‘We shall rise again’ here, for the reopening of Notre Dame shows how – together – we may ‘rise again,’ to keep entropy from prevailing. Our devotion for a monument to some of our greatest non-material motivations displays the power of our impulse to create, rather than yielding to chaos.

Or to redeem; as this great shrine to hope returns to welcome the world during this Christmas season, we may choose to rejoice in the premise she has represented across the Ages, echoed again in her revival: There can be fulfilling, benevolent purpose to our existence.

Indeed, Notre Dame may serve her original mission better now than when she was new, amid general illiteracy, incomprehension of natural mechanisms, etc. We understand the natural world far better now, but her mission was and is to proclaim faith that humanity – everyone able to consciously, deliberately choose to act out of Love (whether they do so or not) – is not born merely to die, and return to dust.

Originally meant to assert that we are more than ‘clay vessels,’ she has now shown again how we are fit, and obliged, to participate in and contribute to the wondrous existence from which we sprang, and of which we will always remain as parts.

Our capacity for aspiration soaring beyond what is known or evident has not changed, although perhaps our priorities in reflecting such have matured and deepened. Today that means, quite properly, caring more about our brethren’s well-being than stone, timber and glass surrogates of abstract ideals.

But Notre Dame is a sublime exception to that kinder momentum, a link to our legacy of genius and potent agency; irreplaceable, and thus unacceptable to be irreparable. Her rebuilding stands in contrast to the violence and destruction around us, evidence that we have it in within us to create a more civilized world; in, and for, flesh and blood. Her sacrifice by fire, and our determination to reverse it, has reminded us of this imperative, and of our ability to ‘right wrongs.’ Which also implies that she may now encourage us to strive in a more worldly manner: To bring Heaven to Earth, especially to those most in need of it.

Evoking this dimension of our nature may be a comfort, as contemporary culture gradually prompts us to regard ourselves as organic mechanisms with little evident purpose but prolongation and material enjoyment of our physical lives. But one consequence of that perspective is that our ‘value’ as individuals – absent any non-material one – as measured by algorithms capturing our online activity, purchasing history, etc., is now largely a measure of how exploitable we are as marketing targets.

Those who control the algorithms, collect the data, can sell to or manipulate us accordingly, and thus their own ‘organic mechanisms’ flourish. In such a worldview, exploitation seems to be an only logical choice; that is, one based Only on logic, devoid of any other considerations.

But we are built for exaltation, not just for exploitation, as endeavors like Notre Dame – her origin, and now her renewal – evince. We have shown ourselves, yet again, what we can do if we try to act in ways worthy of sentient beings capable of efforts reflecting continuity, not mere sustainers of organic flourishing. We can be about more than coarse self-aggrandizement; much more.

Many may find this proposition comforting. Faith – not just religious faith – can manifest as the belief in the possibility, often despite implausibility, of facilitating some desired, better reality.

And the resurgence of Notre Dame is a glorious instance of what we can achieve when we act in concert toward some enterprise as great as we, together, can be. Thus, it is not just her fabric that has been renewed, but her defining symbolism of an impetus that remains – resplendently – beyond measure, quantification, or formulation.

An energy arising from heart and spirit, ‘vital’ in every sense.

by omniagallia

Tolstoy and Navalny: ‘The more things change …‘

This is film of the funeral of the author Leo Tolstoy in 1910, posted as relevant to a grotesque tussle over the remains of Aleksei Navalny, implacable, leonine foe of Vladimir Putin. Russian authorities, not wanting a high-visibility ceremony for their greatest enemy (nor to expose evidence of what they did to him) demanded his mother agree to a private funeral before releasing his body. But Navalnaya stood her ground, refused this blackmail, and the Kremlin relented, discharging Aleksei to her.

Tolstoy’s funeral is partly parallel to this, for he too was a passionate, peerless voice against the evils that the regime of his day, Czarism, visited on the ordinary Russians it trod down. As this shows, his passing led to an outpouring of grief and love by common people for one who, implicitly, steadfastly spoke truth to power for their sake.

Note how mourners kneel as one, in gratitude and honor, when Tolstoy’s coffin appears. Masses of peasants – many of whom had not read his works (or were illiterate, still then common in Russia) realized that Count Leo, despite being an aristocrat, wrote on their behalf, often depicting their suffering under the injustices of the Imperial system.

Tolstoy was a Pacifist social critic, whereas Navalny was a fearlessly assertive agent of change, but the mass affection for a champion against oppression shown here is just the sort of spectacle (potential spark?) Putin most fears. And rightly, for while Tolstoy’s passing did not galvanize an uprising, a grand funeral for Navalny conceivably might. Or at least inspire Russians not to just let his dreams be buried with him.

Nicholas II didn’t send troops to quell this shadow rebuke to his rule but Putin, lacking an Emperor’s legitimacy, might not forbear from violent response to a populist funeral for Navalny. What latter-day ‘Cossacks’ might he call out to put down scenes like this, reproving his regime?

The whole world will be watching; or should be.  And in 2024, the record won’t be just a single piece of black and white silent film.

by omniagallia

Putin and the Death of Navalny: The Vicious and the Valiant.

Various personal distractions have kept me from focusing on the followup post I mentioned at the end of my last one, ‘Promoting Freedom by Protecting Memory,’ about the 1905 Winter Palace Massacre in Czarist Russia. But to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, death ‘concentrates the mind wonderfully.’

And the death of Aleksei Navalny, all but certainly due, directly or indirectly, to Vladimir Putin, has concentrated my mind furiously, catalyzing that promised sequel, here. It will not take the form I originally envisioned, will serve largely as a partial vent for my current writhing wrath at Putin. Although that feels inexhaustible.

Dedicated to Navalny, this post proposes suggestions of how to perceive, and what to do in response to, his death. I will not advocate for revenge; vengeance is the province of spiteful men like Putin (and Hitler, who literally spoke of a ‘goddess of revenge’). Instead, justice is what we should rightly seek, and that can best take the form of punishing Putin by helping to thwart his mania to conquer and subjugate Ukraine, an enterprise whose criminality, cruelty and reckless stupidity Navalny condemned relentlessly.

Even if Navalny’s eventual Fate was not a real surprise to those following his opposition to Kremlin tyranny and corruption, it was still a shock. He may be credibly said to have represented what is good, noble, hopeful – and truly evolved – in us, as surely as Vladimir Putin personifies all that is not. No doubt he was flawed like everyone, but also exemplified attributes we properly admire, but rarely attain, such as granite-hard determination. One needn’t be angelic to offer a stark contrast to Putin, but Lion-hearted Navalny was a more extreme opposite than most of us could ever be.  

The likes of Putin, who incarnate dark forces of human nature and history, are desperate to quell such noble impulses which they regard with cynicism and bewilderment, as obstacles to ‘realism’ in politics. But they are desperate fools if they imagine they can dissipate the loftiest acts and aspirations of Mankind with the odd well-placed assassination. Granted, the relative passivity and credulity up to now of the bulk of the Russian public to Putin’s criminal aggression against Ukraine has likely encouraged him to persevere with it. But his incomprehension of ‘principle’ makes it impossible for him to recognize that he cannot eliminate massive, rightful and reparable discontent by ‘well-placed assassination.’ Eventually, the underlying grievances will burst like a volcano’s lava dome, not manifest only in epic characters like Navalny.

Predictably, men as heartless and crude as Putin regard valor as folly, and likely felt Navalny was a fool for returning to Russia from Berlin, where he received medical treatment for a near-fatal poisoning (that was surely Putin’s doing). But authentic heroism is very different from folly.

Someone like Navalny – as he showed in deeds, as did the journalist Anna Politkovskaya – grasps a truth invisible to anyone like Putin: To a soaring soul, there can be values more precious than his own interests, or even his very life. And for Aleksei, the happiness of his country and her people was one such value. The Putins of this world – wherever they are – are blind to such concepts, cannot comprehend flights of the human spirit or seemingly anything but the coarse, transient rewards of ‘What’s in it for me?’ (As an American admirer of Putin once mocked American soldiers – who had died for their country in World War I France – buried ‘over there.’) Any ethical vision they may have ever possessed is occluded by the moral muck of unabashed self-dealing and indifference to collateral harm which they inhabit.

If you also are outraged by Navalny’s suspicious death, there can be no better response to it than to justify his courage by calling for immediate, greatly enhanced Western support for arming and aiding Ukraine against Putin’s militarist fantasies there. And by furthering – in any way you can imagine – Putin’s worst nightmare (and partial reason for his terror at the westernization of Ukraine): Creation of true, irreversible civil society, and the valuing of individuals, in Russia herself.

Because the inertia and indifference of Western public opinion are as vital as oxygen to Putin. His invasion assumed the Democracies, in their affluence and security, would do nothing meaningful in response to it, and let him go on heedlessly spending Russian and Ukrainian lives in pursuit of his delusional 19th Century style Chauvinism.

But using Navalny’s demise as a spur to frustrate the dark powers he struggled against is surely as effective a memorial, to his life and his death, as there could be. If I could somehow speak to the Russian nation, I would assure them that there are foreigners who hail their forefathers’ bravery in their country’s defense. I might then point out that Navalny faced huge, avoidable, risks for their sake, and in gratitude and inspiration, they might be willing to face lesser ones to validate his sacrifice.

The Russian people have never been more formidable than when their patriotism was inflamed, as Napoleon and Hitler learned; for their Motherland, they can, and will, fight like dragons. Given the extraordinary deeds that the great-grandparents of today’s Russians performed – rolling back Hitler’s barbarous rampage in their land all the way to his lair beneath Berlin – perhaps an appeal to their love for their country (rather than loyalty to its despicable leadership) and to their own dormant lion-hearted courage, is the best way to lead to the final destruction of autocracy in their midst:

For Autocracy continues to hold back their already splendid nation from attaining its full greatness which is to be found in its vast contributions to the arts and sciences; not in Mongol-style territorial expansion.

The World’s Democracies’ stalwart devotion to (and enlightened self-interest in) helping to sustain Ukraine may stoke the slumbering patriotism of the Russians by confronting them with just how utterly indifferent their current Czar is to the lives of their sons, husbands and brothers he will continue to waste in Ukraine; how totally focused he is on realizing his own fantasies of glory, and his horrifying concept of national honor.

I realize all of that is easy for me to say, far from Putin’s fierce police, tear gas, stun guns, and rubber batons. But Russians will face such forever if they don’t liberate themselves; as they did in 1917.

Speaking of 1917, there may be a grim but intriguing irony developing here. The rule of the last Czar, Nicholas II, was corrupt, incompetent and unsuited to modernity, but Nicholas was ultimately brought down by continuing to fight a conflict he had rashly helped provoke, but could not win – World War I – whose grave sufferings for his people he was too stubborn, prideful and oblivious to take seriously. In 1917, those people had finally had enough of him, his war, the feckless social order he represented, and they ousted him and his whole rotten misrule.

Perhaps Navalny’s murder will ultimately put a similar flame in today’s Russians, suffering due to a war Putin is too proud and indifferent to his people’s wishes and welfare, to recognize as utterly not worth the cost. Perhaps they will echo 1917, accept that they must take their destiny into their own hands, and repeat history by overthrowing him and his kleptocracy. Putin, as I have noted in other posts, suppressed official observance of the 2017 centennial of the fall of the Romanov dynasty, so it would be tragicomic if he comes to share their Fate due to his own myopic megalomania.  In stifling public memories of 1917’s regime change, he himself may have lost sight of its crucial lesson: Rulers dare not take their subjects’ patience, obedience and timidity for granted.

Thus, he might provoke the very sort of popular uprising he wanted his subjugated public to forget, because he himself neglected its warning, and overestimated the feasibility of eternal repression. And his own eventual Fate might prove messier than the Romanovs’, who got gunned down in a Siberian cellar.

If so, let him face the dreadful destiny of Nicholas II to which his own cruelty consigns him, of obstinately clinging to a path that is as obviously unwise as it is repugnant (and in this, I don’t just mean the invasion of Ukraine, but his whole corruption-protecting police state apparatus), until his own people tear him from power. Or worse.

It will serve Putin right (and be a valuable warning for other tyrants) if he is devoured by the very forces that he has been arrogant, brutish and obtuse enough to disregard, or hubristically suppose he can control forever.

An intriguing premise, that: a self-isolating despot’s inability to recognize that he has slipped into a ‘reality’ at odds with the actual one, leading to the downfall of which he is no doubt petrified. Such self-destruction would prove there can be justice in this world.

And to my fellow Americans, I would warn that we must recognize the peril of letting someone like Putin, insensate of his people’s blood and sorrow, outlast our resolve to stop his current, terrible enterprise. Thus, we should demand more vigorous U.S. aid to frustrate his faith in brute force, and contempt for any moderate exercise of power.

But even more important, Americans must think Very carefully about abandoning our image – to ourselves, and to the world – as friends and defenders of human liberty and progress (the accompanying image was chosen as a reminder of exactly that) by supporting any U.S. movement or politician that considers Vladimir Putin’s savagery ‘irrelevant’ to American interests. Or worse, admirable in itself.

Or supporting any person or party that doesn’t issue a full-throated, unreserved condemnation of the murder of Navalny, as well as all other Kremlin efforts to cradle-strangle individual freedom. Remember: Silence Gives Consent.

(Admittedly, America has its own ‘lava domes’ of justice denied, but they do not include overtly larcenous looting of the national economy, nor domestic political assassination as statecraft. And they are subjects for another time.)

May Navalny’s example flourish in death, even as Putin’s putrefies while he is still alive. To close with a sentiment that could well have inspired Navalny himself, ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’

It is a rare privilege to witness souls as great as his, who hunger and thirst thus; especially when their goals seem futile. Surely, it behooves us, thus privileged, to help if we can, to ensure his quest was not ‘futile.’

by omniagallia

Promoting Freedom by Protecting Memory:

2017 should have been a proud year for the people of Russia, the 100th Anniversary of their forebears’ epic overthrow of Czar Nicholas II, his Romanov dynasty, and their nation’s longstanding Imperial system in 1917. It was a liberation movement with the potential for progress like the French Revolution of 1789.

But in Russia in 2017, the Revolution’s centennial passed with almost no official observation. This was no oversight; it was a bitter irony, because in 2017 – as in 1917 – the nation was being ruled by a coarse, hardhearted mentality, indifferent, even hostile, to the welfare and wishes of its common people. And that regime didn’t want those ‘common people’ to be reminded that Revolutions can be good, even splendid, things, dislodging seemingly immovable injustices that benefit those in power. So they strove to erase this episode from the national consciousness.

The rulers of Russia today, saturated in Soviet cynicism, used the typical USSR tactic of meddling with the historical record by choosing to downplay a truly ‘Glorious Revolution,’ one of the most thrilling mass liberations ever, the end of the most oppressive and hidebound monarchy in Europe. They did so lest honoring that event raise thoughts among the masses of overthrowing their contemporary tyranny.

But to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ‘Those who make peaceful reformation impossible may make violent revolution inevitable.’

To try to demonstrate this and to redress concealment of 1917’s marvelous gust of deliverance, here, I draw attention to another major, but infamous, date in Russian history: January 22, 2024 (Gregorian calendar), is the 119th Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’ or the ‘Winter Palace Massacre.’ On that date in 1905, throngs of Czar Nicholas’ loyal, loving subjects, suffering privations in the aftermath of Russia’s recent disastrous defeat in the war with Japan – largely the result of military fecklessness and endemic official mismanagement – approached the Palace (at the right of this image, with troops with smoking guns before it; now the Hermitage Museum). They wished to present a petition to the Czar, asking him as their supreme ruler and ‘Little Father’, to redress the many grievances of their condition, and trusting him to do so.

(In fact by this time, the Imperial family did not actually reside in the Winter Palace in the then-capital, Saint Petersburg. They lived at a huge villa on the outskirts of the city, and so were not in the Palace that day. But the general public was unaware of this.)

The crowd of petitioners entered the vast open space in front of the Palace, singing ‘God Save the Czar,’ and carrying Holy Orthodox Icons, to affirm that they were not rebels, but loyal subjects with faith that their Emperor would help them if only he knew the depths of their suffering.

Instead, through a baleful brew of ineptitude, miscommunication, panic and a default to over-reactive repression, Imperial troops in front of the Palace opened fire on the peaceful crowd, followed by the charge of sabre-wielding Cossacks shown here. The number of ‘loyal subjects’ killed – shot, hacked, or trampled to death by the horses or terrified people – has never been definitively established. But it was surely in the dozens, possibly the hundreds.

So this date in 2025 will mark 120 years since ‘Bloody Sunday,’ a pivotal catalyst for setting off the abortive 1905 Revolution in Russia, born of seething discontent from the recent military humiliation, and causing many other long-stifled resentments to finally boil over. This recourse – seemingly by reflex – to hideous violence more compatible with Asian Despotism than European governance, showed how the Czarist system was unable, or unwilling, to redress even respectfully presented wrongs. The shock and terror those patriotic petitioners must have felt as their adored Emperor’s henchmen set upon them fearsomely as they came, singing for God to protect him and meekly seeking his help, must have been unimaginable.

One might never recover from such disillusionment; indeed, a whole nation might not.  Bloody Sunday was by no means the first, or only time the Czarist government had used excessive force, but this showed unmistakably what it was capable of. The unique savagery of this bloodbath helped rend any semblance of a social contract between ruled and rulers forever; ever after, it had to be assumed that the state’s potential reaction to voicing ‘wrongs,’ even glaring ones, might well be ghastly, murderous brutality.

The Imperial regime deserved no benefit of the doubt that it regarded, dismissively, the ruled as slaves in need of iron discipline. This realization festered, thereafter, in the national consciousness. The upheavals of 1905 didn’t bring down the Romanovs – it would take a later, far greater war to accomplish that. And outrage then forced some grudging, semi-effectual political reforms. But the masses’ recognition that their Emperor and his government had contempt for their best interests which it was willing to express in blood, though slow to grow, was irreversible. Is it really any surprise that an abominable deed like the Winter Palace Massacre might ultimately help lead to regime-changing rebellion?

However much the current ‘regime’ tries to downplay such scenarios? So, because the rulers of Russia in 2017 (and today) tried to hide the implications of 1917 from a public that would have benefited from the freedom it should have led to, I point out Bloody Sunday, 12 years earlier, one of the principle atrocities that made the downfall of the monarchy all but inevitable by 1917 (amid its irresponsible provocation and horrendous conduct of the Great War, World War I, then raging). Revolutions are never desirable, if only for the injustices that usually provoke them; but sometimes, they are necessary, when deep-rooted societal problems can be rectified no other way. Vested interests rarely compliantly move aside; they must usually be thrust aside.

The ‘bitter irony’ mentioned near the beginning is that the Putin Regime’s official silence about 1917 was a reverberation of the event several months after Nicholas’ downfall, the Communist Coup d’etat that seized power from the ineffectual interim government of Alexander Kerensky. For whereas the Fall of the Bastille to the workers of Paris is 1789 ultimately led to the right of common people in France and other Western societies to personal autonomy and a high degree of individual liberty, the Capture of the Winter Palace, serving as a headquarters for Kerensky, in Autumn 1917 (despite its heroic portrayal in later Soviet propaganda) effectively saw a Medieval expression of inflexible Autocratic monarchy rematerialize as an updated expression of the same forces.

Marxism, imposed by the Bolsheviks after 1917, was presented as a rational, deliberate redesign of society, following scientific principles. But as the development of the Soviet Union would show, especially at the nadir of Stalinist paranoia, inflexible devotees of Marxism could not accept that its many obvious failings could happen except due to sabotage or other malicious intent. Such had to be ruthlessly annihilated, so that the one, true doctrine of Worldwide Communist Revolution could triumph.

(Beware of anyone willing to drag humanity through Hell to supposedly bring it to Heaven, as Soviet Communism, with its patron Anti-Christ Stalin, postured. Validating their own fanaticism will usually be their actual priority, whether they realize it or not. )

I have elided a good deal of nuance and detail here for relative brevity’s sake (such as the rumored presence of Marxist provocateurs in the crowd in 1905 at the Winter Palace), but do not want to portray this hugely complex dynamic as some black and white assertion of the inherent malevolence or inferiority of Russian culture. That would be simplistic, and besides: There is far too much counter-evidence of what the Russian people can do at their best, and what they fully deserve (as my previous posts have asserted).

Like the Tienanmmen Square Massacre in China in 1989, regime crimes of the magnitude of Bloody Sunday simply do not – Cannot – happen in places where government is assumed to exist as the public’s servant and protector, not its enemy and exploiter, willing to use its legal monopoly on lethal force to protect its own interests and survival, as well as those of some ruling class. Repression of this scale and savagery could only happen in states that ‘make peaceful reformation impossible,’ like ‘Communist’ China, theocratic Iran, Crime-Family run North Korea, etc.

And possibly including Vladimir Putin’s Russia too, trying to destroy memory and opposition. Nicholas II was not personally guilty of the Massacre, but he personified a sclerotic regime that had no mechanism for peaceful redress or transition. Any regime that had such would never have implemented, even by incompetent happenstance, a Bloody Sunday; or needed to. Such a tragedy – outside the very gates of a locus of national pride, values and dignity – was only going to happen where the will of the governed is considered an impudent nuisance by a hostile authority, whose main objective is self-preservation.

In a followup essay, I will explain why this anniversary is not just a gruesome curiosity, but how the cultural forces it represented – including the suppression of the memory of the full 1917 Revolution it precursed – still reverberate today, but now may play a far greater role in the peace and security of the world. A role that reflective people should be aware of – with considerable alarm.

The Soviet Union, and Soviet outlook of most of Russia’s current rulers is not dignified with the jeweled regalia, Court apparatus or semi-divine status of the Czars. However, their lethargy in the public welfare, primacy of self-interest, tolerance for corruption in exchange for loyalty, and bull-ox-like reaction to unwelcome stimuli (attributes that Hitler said proved Russians were ‘subhuman; on that basis alone, one might assume Russians would avoid such behavior) seems to still be stubbornly present.

A recent New York Times article about Russian politics said that in the past, when life in their environment of frozen steppes was so hard, rights for individuals were viewed negatively, as possibly coming at the expense of collective security. That may have been appropriate when there were literally wolves at the gates, needing surveillance taken in turn, but today, this vast nation will never be ‘modern’ till it grasps that this outlook has long outlived its usefulness.

And so has the premise that a good ruler must be ruthless enough to crush any obstacle or opposition; and that any ruler who does so is, by definition, ‘good.’ No regime that treats its people like this will, in the long run, survive, or deserve to do so.

So let the countdown begin, January 22, 2025 will be 120 years since Bloody Sunday, but its spirits continue to lurk, unrepentant and aggressive, in the Kremlin. Mr. Putin might shy away from the visuals of using sabre-wielding Cossacks and Army rifles to attack peaceful protestors against the war in Ukraine, but he has certainly shown willingness to use force against any brave souls who have demonstrated, rather than allowing them to do so peacefully. And there is little doubt he’d be willing, if he felt trapped, to kill such protestors just as he has tried to murder the memory of the Glorious Revolution of 1917. But his power – unlike the Czars’ – makes his mindset a potential menace for the whole planet, not just for his own people.

by omniagallia

Bach at Christmas: Let Nature and Heaven Sing.

This is dedicated to my best friend, Joe Piszczor, who died November 21, 2023. Physician and musician, his kindness, humor and wisdom ‘disbursed the gloomy clouds of night’ for me, more than once.

Please bear with me, as I labor to elicit in words inferences that are beyond facile verbal expression:

I try to accompany my posts for Christmas with music; generally something composed for the Season. But this time, I hope to address the jubilant premise of the event – benevolent Divinity coming into the world as love and hope incarnate – with music not written for the occasion, but whose ineffable beauty is parallel, in scope, to that premise.

Below is a performance of Bach’s crystalline Gavotte en Rondeau – a dance rhythm – from his Third Violin Partita, which I perceive as a melodic complement to the spirit of Christmas as respite against the sorrows and troubles of life as we so often experience it. Those can engulf hope like a chasm from whose dark clutches not even light can escape, but opposing such a suffocating vision, the Gavotte’s delight, merry yet arresting, conveys resurgent joy as did the promise of Christ’s coming. This music erupts with grace which we may reflect back, to illuminate the dark recesses we must face.

Including whatever hardship, or cross, each of us bears in their own lives, for Bach’s genius here shows how there is light beyond any darkness. Like the outlandish presentation of Jesus as hope beyond hope and joy beyond joy, the Gavotte offers something to displace the transient fray of our mortal spans: Impossible beauty. ‘Impossible,’ yet there it is, an echo of Paradise, beckoning us to yield to its intimations.

The hardest thing to believe about Christmas may be its aspect that squares least with our lived reality: Too often, compelling evidence is that Life is a blind, callous juggernaut in which savage beings and indifferent Nature prey on vulnerable flesh, and for many if not most of us, the best we can plausibly hope for is to avoid too much suffering before it ends in our being obliterated; each and all. 

On the contrary, Christmas asserts, in the same way Bach’s ecstatic Gavotte does, that there is such positivity – grace – to be found in our world as to offset all the evil, sorrow and misfortune that confront us daily and perpetually. That the world and Existence itself are fundamentally ‘good’ phenomena, wherein the value and justification of the Self, as part of a splendid and greater Whole, may be found and fully revealed.  

For most of us, that proposition seems even more personally counterfactual than the Christmas story’s deviations from our world’s ordinary processes. We may focus too much on its unlikely dogma and details; divine incarnation, virgin birth, debatable timeline, etc., rather than on its radically extra-intuitive aspect. The import of that story should be taken deeply seriously, but not necessarily literally.

For it is not invariably necessary to believe that something is literally, factually true, in every detail, in order to place faith in it. Such an assertion cannot cure cancer, find us a life partner, secure us a career, etc. But ‘faith’ and hope in the presence and power of things forever beyond our grasp can center us, giving us space to believe that our time on this Earth is not at the mercy of that fearsome ‘juggernaut’ alone, and that our lives have intrinsic meaning and value that are otherwise not apparent. They are parts of the on-going, wondrous dynamic of an interconnected, interdependent Creation, vibrant with the Gavotte’s irrepressible energy.

Opening ourselves to such reflections can help us endure when the struggles of life seem unendurable. Bach was a devout Christian, but though he presumably didn’t compose this piece with any specific religious intent, I invoke it now because it conveys a vaulting sensation brimming with the same ardent bliss as the promise of love being born, personified, into the human realm. That – like this lucent, infectious melody – offers us a means to outrace shadows which seemingly must overtake us all eventually.

This was surely not Bach’s intention for the exquisite Gavotte, but he might have approved my depiction of his inspiration this way. It is three minutes of all-encompassing loveliness which, structured as theme and variations, allegorizes Eternity: An enduring essence, endless change, yet unfailing renewal. This compact marvel supports my notion that the hardest thing for us to accept about the story of Jesus’ birth may not be its factual unlikeliness, but its underlying murmur: life is essentially good, a medium for contentment and happiness, just as valid as the dispiriting, omnipresent evidence of its sorrow and misfortunes.

One of my routine objections to an exclusively rational perception of life is that its mechanisms are not its actual meaning. They explain how life happens and continues, but not what it is for. Its ‘meaning’ must be something grander than our transient ‘Selves’ – though not grander than ‘Ourselves’ – in which we can place hope, and extract gladness. We tend to give the mechanisms preponderance because they are things our minds can grasp to the point of quantification; hugely useful – but must they be the entire reality? Why must we infer that such transcendent loveliness as the Gavotte can be nothing but the result of pulsating brain tissue and firing nerve endings? If it can, then it is not so much splendid, dynamic ‘Life’ as a mere haphazard, meaningless alchemy of anatomical gadgetry.

Arguably more important, even if that mechanistic interpretation were accurate, how wise would it be for us to embrace such an outlook, exclusively? Through this music, we can be revealed, to ourselves, to be far more than mere devices for Self-preservation; we can resonate to an energy that can deliver our own existences from the apparent pointlessness that mortality intones.

As Jesus did, by Christian doctrine, in the eventual consummation of Easter: Love made flesh, love of the Other that may transcend Death itself. I realize this observation may seem insensitive, even ludicrous to those whose lives have been laden with true hardship or riven with real tragedy. But artistry like Bach’s may enable human constraints – even human suffering – to dissolve and merge with splendor that is usually inaccessible, a summit that, theoretically, should be beyond our vision, let alone, our reach.

Yet here it is, manifest through the near-miraculous ingenuity of a supremely great artist. Listen to this music again, let it suffuse you and reflect on whether ‘Divinity,’ however defined, can only be an irrelevant anachronism, as suggested by the barren seductions of rational comprehension alone. It intimates, at the very least, some superhuman presence and intent. Let it flow through you, and you too may feel that humanity is worth saving; even suffering for. If we are all indirectly stained by evil, like Stalin’s, can we not also be indirectly validated by the glories summoned by Bach?

All credit to Bach as the diligent instrument, but such expressiveness is only possible by surpassing ordinary human constraints. Personal talent and industry alone can hardly explain grandeur at this level; it is a reflection – an exposure – of the force of Creation itself.  Personally I cannot hear this multi-faceted effusion of shimmering loveliness and exclude the possibility of a tender deity, hinting to us of its presence (if not its consistent intervention), only because it doesn’t seem to comport with the rest of perceptible, measurable, predictable reality.

It may not be proof, but surely, it is credible evidence.

The premise of Christmas is not proof either, yet we should let ourselves wonder if a plain of being in which such sublimity could be generated and contained could be, in the final analysis, merely a venue of ugliness and misery. Utmost creativity, like Bach’s, are sparkling, standalone expressions of the glory – expressed here as artistry, but for all of us, accessible as love for the Other – that may manifest when the potential of the human spirit is fully invoked, and then exceeded. It reminds us, with galvanic iridescence, how our Nature may have heights we so rarely get to sense that we may understandably despair of their even existing. Like thin air at high altitudes, where we cannot function as we ordinarily do.

Protecting and enhancing our physical well-being is one of our intellect’s main tasks, but it is a false sense of empowerment to believe intellect can have no worthy purpose but to untangle the operations of the world around us.  This music conveys the resurgent joy I allow myself to feel (with no endorphin frisson) – not to ‘understand’ but to feel – that there is a positive Creative Force with affection and purpose for me, as for every one of us. A Force replete enough with Agapé to summon the Universe from a meaningless vacuum, and even to cyclically rescue its only conscious beings – us – from ourselves.

The very existence of art like this suggests that premise cannot be dismissed out of hand. To me, the Gavotte echoes that sense, lifting me out of my self-regard and into a dimension immaculate of the concerns of this one. Granted, such a sense cannot be defined by logic, but perhaps that suggests that not all in Life that is valuable to discover and experience can be ‘defined by logic.’ Perhaps so many of us respond to this work because it satisfies a void within us we may not even have been conscious or mindful of, till we feel it being filled by some burst of joy. Of which Bach’s inspiration is but one awesome example.

The random scattering of talents, even at the level of Bach’s, among us – just as genetic burdens are also randomly scattered – implies, to me, that our promise as a species lies as much in our each being parts of the great human enterprise, as in our individuality. It is only ‘we,’ not ‘I,’ who may plausibly go on forever, and there may be comfort in accepting such continuity. Most of us will not leave expressions like Bach’s – or like any other epic personality – to mark our lives for posterity to recall; but any of us may be able to contribute to the life-giving love that Jesus embodied, that unfolding, elemental ‘force of Creation itself.’

Thus, if you ever need hope beyond what it is rational to believe, this dance of exultation will be there for you, inviting you to join it, bounding over the sordidness of life around you. Or of super-rational hope, like the premise that Love may, in the ways that matter most to us all, ‘overcome’ Death by furthering the positive energy of the Universe – that is, the presence of love within it – an energy we may recognize as more powerful and actualizing than the presumed finality of non-being.

by omniagallia

True Russian Glory: Surpassing Nature

The opportunistic Russian invasion of Ukraine offers many reasons for pessimism about human affairs, but I would note the hopeful implications of how the tyrants’ main tools – cruelty, ruthlessness and repression, so long and often the ultimate deciders of ‘human affairs’ – are failing to win that struggle.

Russia’s attack might not have gone disastrously had capable managers executed it, but Putin’s regime regularly precludes ‘capable managers,’ as rulers like him dare not empower anyone clearly able to take over from them (this applies especially to military personnel, but Putin also pads upper ranks of the civilian administration with those dependent on his favor). So his dilemma is that what he demands most from subordinates is loyalty, but what he needs most to conquer valiant, resourceful Ukraine is competence. Faced with this choice, Putin has prioritized loyalty, and a ghastly battlefield impasse is the result.

However: The Russians’ bungling may have greater repercussions than just thwarting their own criminal assault (vital though its failure is). Might Putin’s shambolic conduct of his aggression manifest that modernity – increasingly reliant on subtle comprehension, planning, regulation, etc. – has passed a ‘point of no regression’? A threshold beyond which even a semblance of a modern state (like Putin’s kleptocracy) can no longer be kept functional with primordial methods like ‘cruelty, ruthlessness and repression?’

The uniformed bandits Putin entrusted with his ‘Special Military Operation’ are evidently deficient in the temperament and brains to handle the intricacies of 21st century warfare strategy, logistics, etc. Many of them presumably rose in rank due to willingness to implement his orders fiercely and without question, in return for being allowed to commit near-limitless thievery.

So is it really a surprise that tragicomic failure results from a culture in which loyalty precedes ability, corruption starts at the top, cascades down from the extravagant Black Sea villa ‘Putin-hof’, past layers of larcenous Apparatchiki, to ordinary soldiers (for example) rendering military vehicles useless by stripping out their copper wire to buy vodka with the proceeds of reselling it? Is it a shock that such a culture cannot just roll over well-organized, adept patriots like the resolute (NATO armed/trained) Ukrainians?

Thus, this bully-writ-large undertaking may have a positive side, if it exposes that despotism does not – cannot – deliver effective governance in the modern world. That a mentality of rule that comes from the Dark Ages cannot ‘keep the lights on’; that what worked for Ivan the Terrible does not succeed in the era of the Terabyte.

Of course, pitiless use of force was the habitual standard for rule everywhere, including in the West, till the mid-18th Century (for example, the Battle of Culloden, and subsequent repression in Scotland). But whereas much of the developed (modern, functional) world has long since progressed beyond such preliterate impulses, the Russians – acting as if the savagery of their barbaric medieval occupation by the Mongols is still a proper standard for behavior and leadership – evidently have not. Or at least, not nearly enough.

But such cannot remain the standard. Life’s complexity is getting deeper, the Kremlin dinosaurs are in way over their heads, and are lashing out in bewildered frustration at a world in which moderation, not their reflex primal resort to raw power, is likelier to avail. So the ludicrous course of the invasion may represent a little-remarked, but vital evolutionary step for humanity beyond the domination of those (like Vlad the Impeder) who would keep us unevolved and pliable forever.

If they can; and if the rest of us let them. Please bear this perspective in mind in terms of the interests of the civilized world in providing aid to Ukraine till it vanquishes Putin and the Jungle Law he personifies. This would be truly elemental progress, and we need to keep up its momentum.

Ukrainian victory is still far from certain, but their survival for this long in the face of a vastly larger and remorselessly cruel foe, suggests that the Putins of the world have not got (and cannot grasp) what it takes to operate a nation state that meets 21st century expectations. If their main goal is regime survival and blunt force is their go-to tactic to ensure it, its failure to prevail in Ukraine, and the resulting domestic disruption, may prove that such an approach will never again be a reliable means to run a country (especially one with grandiose ambitions) in today’s world.

Russian Goliath still has a club, but Ukrainian David has ditched his sling for a mace-spewing drone. Not that advanced warfare methodology can’t be used for offense as well as defense, but one may hope that the primal instinct that the strong can, and therefore should, tyrannize the less strong may start to wither, along with the efficacy of cruder means of doing so. ‘Evolutionary,’ in that both that instinct and means are more suitable for beasts than for an advancing Mankind.

By contrast to the mindset of Kremlin creatures, perhaps those ‘elites’ in the (especially, and mostly Western) business world who can truly command 21st Century technology and organization will eventually prove to the rest of us that they are sophisticated enough to recognize that the finest use of their talents would be to transcend the immemorial Alpha wolves of the world. That they may show wisdom – even greatness? – by realizing the worthiest rewards must come from using their gifts to benefit Mankind, as much as themselves; or more.

Will they? Time will tell; but the palisade of slender ultra-luxury ‘Money-Liths,’ residential towers on New York’s Billionaires’ Row – visible from areas of seething poverty further north – suggests this group has not yet grasped, or cares, that they may have it in their power to substantially improve the material human condition as few people have ever had. Especially if they decide to rise above the coarser reflex to pamper and exalt themselves as indulgently as gods; a deed higher than any super-tall skyscraper, that.

We may hope they will recognize and act on that realization, but in the meantime, at least the Putin-derthals are revealing their own possible obsolescence. And such – that is, great physical (especially, male upper-body) strength and savagery no longer translating to keys to overall dominance – would not be mere transition, but true transformation.

As to Putin’s invasion, I pray Ukraine stays free, but even if it doesn’t, the world has seen how the ferocity he and his accomplices assumed would quickly overwhelm its supposed decadent Westernizing weakness did so only at enormous costs, with humiliating setbacks and irreversible damage to Russia’s economy. The latter includes eviscerating her fossil fuel market, and driving out legions of citizens with the skills most needed by a modern society (including those smart enough not to want to be cannon-fodder for megalomaniac Kleptocrats).

Far better that Russian military might and barbarity fail conclusively and comprehensively, but the fact that these have been so much less effective than initially assumed may reflect a fundamental shift, in which the needs of modernity – on which those financial and technology elites of Billionaires Row and beyond depend for their comfort and plutocratic sway – are irreconcilable with the primeval supremacy of brute force. If no other good comes from all the barbarous tactics of this invasion, perhaps at least their patent ineffectiveness will contribute to their gradual invalidation and eventual disappearance.

Finally, lest anyone suspect that I am simply anti-Russia, let me show my respect and admiration for her common folk by offering the accompanying video of a Saint Petersburg ballerina performing exquisitely, as evidence of what Russians are capable of, rather than being the biped cattle the Nazis considered them (and as Putin still treats them).

The story behind the video strikes me as characteristically Russian; this artist is dancing, en pointe, on a frozen lake at 5 degrees F, as an ecological protest (as explained in the narration; I don’t know if she succeeded, but hope so). It may not be ‘heroic’ per se, and few Russians could or would do this, but this spectacle nevertheless seems like something that would rarely, if ever, happen anyplace else.

And if a people among whom such talent, grace and strength – seemingly as elemental as their overlords’ cynicism – are to be found, finally realize they don’t have to let their leaders treat them like disposable beasts of burden (the fault line between modern ‘citizens’ and feudal ‘subjects’) forever, they might enact extreme retribution on Putin. Perhaps involving his bodily orifices and Stalin’s disinterred bones, wielded by mothers of Russian soldiers lost to his dictatorial delusions.

Such would be vicious behavior, but a cathartic response to ages of equally vicious oppression. Putin is this great, though tragic, land’s latest protagonist of that kind of rule, but perhaps he will be its last. If ordinary Russians finally reject and destroy the foul apparatus he wields, they would prove they possess tough nobility and truly inherent splendor, as this video suggests.

Ironically, the opposite of the chauvinist ‘glory’ Putin envisages for their Motherland.