You can also help Ukrainians by ordering stuff on https://www.etsy.com/ explaining that you don't need the items, you just want to help. A little bit like booking a room on airbnb, just a different clientele, perhaps. A Ukrainian English teacher friend of mine (living near Kharkiv) has already received two "donations" in this manner. What is important is that these accounts are held in US dollars, which greatly enhances the value of your contributions. The merit of this way of helping is also that you establish a personal relationship with the seller, which is priceless under the circumstances.
Tears in my eyes. Please convey to your friends in Ukraine that Americans are watching closely, embrace them, and will never let them go. I kneel before them.
Professor Snyder, you are also consoling us and helping us with your wise and thoughtful essays. Thanks to you, I was easily able to make donations to help Ukrainians. Thanks to you, my understanding of the underlying issues and truth about what is going on and what is happening has been enhanced. And thanks to you, I have been able to find some comfort and a lot of perspective in these troubled times.
Professor Tim, Thank you for this this pro-empathy message this morning. It's a reminder that the West seeks to #GovernWithEmpathy. I will go to an in person Rotary meeting today at noon. My first in two years. I'll be wearing a Ukrainian pin that a local crafter has made and is selling. It's the Ukrainian flag with a big heart in the middle - a symbol of how they and we PERSIST in our efforts to govern with empathy, the soul of democracy. I invite you to consider a small but significant and conscious act of FRAMING our witness. If we "resist," we have to think about what we are resisting. And the cognitive scientists Dr. George Lakoff in the USA and his colleague, Dr. Elisabeth Wehling, Germany, tell us to resist and promoting resistance requires that the brain conceptualize what we are resisting, which as you know is anti-empathy governance. Both of these imminent scholars - Lakoff is a practicing Jew - encourage us to REFRAME to commit to PERSIST in empathy, commit to persist in democracy, commit to persist in human rights advocacy, and persist in fighting for freedom. And I know you will PERSIST in sharing your amazing insights. And for that I am grateful. Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solutions.
"They are consoling us. Because Ukrainians are resisting, not just on the battlefield but as a society, they console us all. Every day they act is one when we can reflect, and hope. People do have values. The world is not empty. People do find courage. There are things worth taking risks for."
I will carry these words with me always. The Ukrainians are a beacon of hope and light for us all.
Thank you, Tim, as always. I shared the link to your talk in Vienna this weekend with Serhii Plokhii and Philipp Blom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nnZuclsbPY A social media acquaintance responded: "This is really high level stuff. I watched the whole thing and was struck by how much I don't know about any of this." You expand our perspective beyond the horrors of the day and provide critical support for remaining fully engaged, not to exclude crying.
Regarding donations, I am using your suggestions, but initially had problems with international bank transfers. One problem was cutting and pasting organization addresses; special characters were invisibly inserted and rejected by my American bank's online form. Also, converting European to American addresses is not straightforward.
When re-publishing the list, it would be helpful to those of us not living where these organizations are located if you gave these two tips: 1) don't cut and paste addresses from websites, but manually type into your bank's form, and 2) how to recognize street, city and postal code in the European address.
Thank you, Professor, for reaching out to us. I am glad you are with friends. The Ukrainians collective strength is so admirable and the fact that you said they are consoling us…very emotional. Be safe
Thank you for this language-I’ve been searching for words to describe why the Ukrainian people have so captured our hearts. It is this-they console us all. Their example shows us how to live. They have busted through our cynicism and despair, and the ennui of daily life in late stage capitalism. It’s such a gift to us all, a tragic gift wrapped in immeasurable suffering, but a gift fir certain.
This is a rather moving post. That which one is willing to live and die for will always have been an idea. An idea perhaps of community, of co-belonging, of nativeness.. an idea that a certain kind of political entity best represents those singular (for oneself) features of life. Of course it is not only a national idea of community that people are invested in. There are other competing ones that transcend national boundaries or that are suffocated within the same. Some national identities are easier to litigate than others. Mostly for pragmatic reasons. It's hard to argue that there are any simple or uncomplicated national identities but there might be foundational fictions stronger than others or there might be equally evasions of memory more complete than others. In the same vein that which one is willing to live and die for is not necessarily 'the true' (to sound hopelessly and perversely Platonist!). It gives me pause when I consider the ideas that people are willing to live and die for around the world. It isn't a grammar I can easily subscribe to. What one can however always and emphatically agree with is that irrespective of the value or virtue of an idea, irrespective of whether it is the worst idea in the world or not, it should not be imposed on anyone with brutal state force, much less barbaric aggression, much less criminal wars, much less black hole prisons and concentration camps. This seems like a fairly straightforward, easy ethic to respect. If one followed it one would never have to invade a country nor blow oneself up in pursuit of an idea. Things are never so easy of course and even these categories are not so obviously clear in many contexts.
Killing or dispossession is already hard enough to contemplate but sometimes the destruction of culture memory (history if you will) seems even more unbearable. One destroys even more than human life this way. One destroys the inheritance of ages, the memory co-created and renewed by generations. This has been one of the hardest things to read about in the current war. Much as in other contexts the destruction or plunder of antiquities in Baghdad and Palmyra or the similar destruction of the Bamiyan statues are heart-breaking and infuriating in equal measure. When I was a child I naively believed that such marauding armies and such tales of pillage and such accounts of cultural destruction and desolation were things of the past. The recent twentieth century past quickly rescued me from such crazy illusions later on! And here we are again witnessing the irreparable. We should all be Ukrainians, strive to be universalists on this and such other sites (though we are never all Rwandans! I insist on not forgetting this... We have mostly never been Ukrainians either! As you know better than anyone else).
It seems appropriate to reference here this piece from a few days ago:
Yesterday in my local coffee shop I met a C-5 pilot. I bowed to him and thanked him for his service. As I left the cafe I shuddered in tears, something I rarely do. I am so thankful that some people are so brave.
Nataliya Gumenyuk writes in her WaPo opinion piece that you linked to, "That’s the nub of the matter. Dictators want reality to fit their imaginations, and when it doesn’t cooperate, their first instinct is to resort to coercion." Longing for an idealized past, when taken to its logical conclusion, leads to mass murder precisely because anyone who doesn't fit into that idealized past must be eliminated.
You can also help Ukrainians by ordering stuff on https://www.etsy.com/ explaining that you don't need the items, you just want to help. A little bit like booking a room on airbnb, just a different clientele, perhaps. A Ukrainian English teacher friend of mine (living near Kharkiv) has already received two "donations" in this manner. What is important is that these accounts are held in US dollars, which greatly enhances the value of your contributions. The merit of this way of helping is also that you establish a personal relationship with the seller, which is priceless under the circumstances.
Thank you, Professor Snyder. I am a better person because of the Ukrainians. Slava Ukraini.
Tears in my eyes. Please convey to your friends in Ukraine that Americans are watching closely, embrace them, and will never let them go. I kneel before them.
Professor Snyder, you are also consoling us and helping us with your wise and thoughtful essays. Thanks to you, I was easily able to make donations to help Ukrainians. Thanks to you, my understanding of the underlying issues and truth about what is going on and what is happening has been enhanced. And thanks to you, I have been able to find some comfort and a lot of perspective in these troubled times.
Tim and friends on this board and our Ukrainian friends this is for you.
Loving Kindness Meditation
https://youtu.be/sz7cpV7ERsM
May you be well
May you be happy
May you be peaceful
May you be loved
Be in this loving moment. Radiate love into the world.
Thank you for your work. I've been leaning on your books heavily these past 19 days. I'm grateful.
Professor Tim, Thank you for this this pro-empathy message this morning. It's a reminder that the West seeks to #GovernWithEmpathy. I will go to an in person Rotary meeting today at noon. My first in two years. I'll be wearing a Ukrainian pin that a local crafter has made and is selling. It's the Ukrainian flag with a big heart in the middle - a symbol of how they and we PERSIST in our efforts to govern with empathy, the soul of democracy. I invite you to consider a small but significant and conscious act of FRAMING our witness. If we "resist," we have to think about what we are resisting. And the cognitive scientists Dr. George Lakoff in the USA and his colleague, Dr. Elisabeth Wehling, Germany, tell us to resist and promoting resistance requires that the brain conceptualize what we are resisting, which as you know is anti-empathy governance. Both of these imminent scholars - Lakoff is a practicing Jew - encourage us to REFRAME to commit to PERSIST in empathy, commit to persist in democracy, commit to persist in human rights advocacy, and persist in fighting for freedom. And I know you will PERSIST in sharing your amazing insights. And for that I am grateful. Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solutions.
Thank you for your insight and humanity. I learn from reading what you write.
The very opposite of nihilism, of Putinism. Слава Україні!
"They are consoling us. Because Ukrainians are resisting, not just on the battlefield but as a society, they console us all. Every day they act is one when we can reflect, and hope. People do have values. The world is not empty. People do find courage. There are things worth taking risks for."
I will carry these words with me always. The Ukrainians are a beacon of hope and light for us all.
Thank you, Tim, as always. I shared the link to your talk in Vienna this weekend with Serhii Plokhii and Philipp Blom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nnZuclsbPY A social media acquaintance responded: "This is really high level stuff. I watched the whole thing and was struck by how much I don't know about any of this." You expand our perspective beyond the horrors of the day and provide critical support for remaining fully engaged, not to exclude crying.
Regarding donations, I am using your suggestions, but initially had problems with international bank transfers. One problem was cutting and pasting organization addresses; special characters were invisibly inserted and rejected by my American bank's online form. Also, converting European to American addresses is not straightforward.
When re-publishing the list, it would be helpful to those of us not living where these organizations are located if you gave these two tips: 1) don't cut and paste addresses from websites, but manually type into your bank's form, and 2) how to recognize street, city and postal code in the European address.
Thank you, Professor, for reaching out to us. I am glad you are with friends. The Ukrainians collective strength is so admirable and the fact that you said they are consoling us…very emotional. Be safe
Thank you for this language-I’ve been searching for words to describe why the Ukrainian people have so captured our hearts. It is this-they console us all. Their example shows us how to live. They have busted through our cynicism and despair, and the ennui of daily life in late stage capitalism. It’s such a gift to us all, a tragic gift wrapped in immeasurable suffering, but a gift fir certain.
This is a rather moving post. That which one is willing to live and die for will always have been an idea. An idea perhaps of community, of co-belonging, of nativeness.. an idea that a certain kind of political entity best represents those singular (for oneself) features of life. Of course it is not only a national idea of community that people are invested in. There are other competing ones that transcend national boundaries or that are suffocated within the same. Some national identities are easier to litigate than others. Mostly for pragmatic reasons. It's hard to argue that there are any simple or uncomplicated national identities but there might be foundational fictions stronger than others or there might be equally evasions of memory more complete than others. In the same vein that which one is willing to live and die for is not necessarily 'the true' (to sound hopelessly and perversely Platonist!). It gives me pause when I consider the ideas that people are willing to live and die for around the world. It isn't a grammar I can easily subscribe to. What one can however always and emphatically agree with is that irrespective of the value or virtue of an idea, irrespective of whether it is the worst idea in the world or not, it should not be imposed on anyone with brutal state force, much less barbaric aggression, much less criminal wars, much less black hole prisons and concentration camps. This seems like a fairly straightforward, easy ethic to respect. If one followed it one would never have to invade a country nor blow oneself up in pursuit of an idea. Things are never so easy of course and even these categories are not so obviously clear in many contexts.
Killing or dispossession is already hard enough to contemplate but sometimes the destruction of culture memory (history if you will) seems even more unbearable. One destroys even more than human life this way. One destroys the inheritance of ages, the memory co-created and renewed by generations. This has been one of the hardest things to read about in the current war. Much as in other contexts the destruction or plunder of antiquities in Baghdad and Palmyra or the similar destruction of the Bamiyan statues are heart-breaking and infuriating in equal measure. When I was a child I naively believed that such marauding armies and such tales of pillage and such accounts of cultural destruction and desolation were things of the past. The recent twentieth century past quickly rescued me from such crazy illusions later on! And here we are again witnessing the irreparable. We should all be Ukrainians, strive to be universalists on this and such other sites (though we are never all Rwandans! I insist on not forgetting this... We have mostly never been Ukrainians either! As you know better than anyone else).
It seems appropriate to reference here this piece from a few days ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/books/ukraine-translate-books.html
Yesterday in my local coffee shop I met a C-5 pilot. I bowed to him and thanked him for his service. As I left the cafe I shuddered in tears, something I rarely do. I am so thankful that some people are so brave.
Nataliya Gumenyuk writes in her WaPo opinion piece that you linked to, "That’s the nub of the matter. Dictators want reality to fit their imaginations, and when it doesn’t cooperate, their first instinct is to resort to coercion." Longing for an idealized past, when taken to its logical conclusion, leads to mass murder precisely because anyone who doesn't fit into that idealized past must be eliminated.