It's not just an essay, Karen, but a consistently coherent battle cry:
"When we forget others, our oblivion invites indifferent kings to rule us."
Trouble is, Donald, Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu, and the Iranian mullahs are not just "indifferent kings," but savage murderers, mass murderers, and in Donald's case also years'-long pals to pedophiles.
But they all practice a mutual, common criminality, with their money laundering, arms sales, drug trafficking, and of course, too, the trafficking in young women from many other countries and underage girls in whom their fellow rich indulge.
What do they not indulge? They are as indifferent as we learn to be as to, regarding schools that could be centered on the human, on the world's humanities, and on youth learning to write essays to see others.
But see, now we're back at Timothy Snyder's key message here (as it was Orwell's key in "Politics and the English Language"): "When we forget others, our oblivion invites indifferent kings to rule us."
Snyder captures something neuroscience confirms but we systematically ignore: empathy isn’t moral decoration, it’s the cognitive architecture that makes cooperation, and therefore freedom, possible.
When Americans obsess over gold medals rather than performance, we’re not just being shallow, we’re rewiring our reward systems to value only outcomes we can claim as ours.
Repeatedly choosing not to engage with others’ pain doesn’t just make you callous, it literally atrophies the neural pathways that allow you to model other minds, to imagine what freedom costs when you’re defending it under artillery fire instead of watching from a couch.
The Ukrainians covering Olympics with visible laptop stickers and spontaneous laughter aren’t just charming…they’re demonstrating what societies optimized for trust rather than dominance actually look like. They remember their dead not because it’s performative but because connection to others’ sacrifice is what binds communities when everything else is being destroyed.
Meanwhile Americans can’t remember Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising fists in 1968 because we’ve been conditioned to forget any suffering that complicates the narrative of meritocracy and winning. That forgetting isn’t accidental. It’s the product of incentive structures rewarding erasure of context, valorizing individual achievement disconnected from collective struggle.
Free societies are built as communities of shared pain, not grievance—-is the inversion of everything American culture currently optimizes for. We’ve built a society that insists suffering is either deserved or irrelevant, that acknowledges only victories worth claiming. The behavioral consequence is predictable: a population “flabbergasted” by predictable oppression because we systematically trained ourselves not to notice anyone else’s.
When you spend decades optimizing neural architecture for “winning” rather than solidarity, you end up with a society that can’t recognize authoritarianism until the camps are already built.
Ukrainians holding back genocide are buying us time we’re wasting on gold paint and willful amnesia.
Beautifully put... Those of us old enough have not forgotten 1968 Tommie Smith & John Carlos. I will never forget it. And, the cowardice of the US Olympic committee in expelling them from the games. It was not until much later they were lauded for their courage in standing up for civil rights. But, hypocrisy & cowardice in the face of evil is becoming the American way again. We cannot be part of that.
I remember. I had left the US for my junior undergrad year in Japan; living in a family-run student house in Tokyo, we watched the highlights on a rather small B&W TV.
I was shocked by the display of the Black Power salute -- remember, just that spring Martin Luther King had been assassinated-- but not surprised. White supremacists had assassinated Martin Luther King and American cities had been set ablaze in protest.
I had too little Japanese to adequately explain to my hosts the complexity of the Black experience in America -- all I could express was my sadness.
Thank you, gerri. I too have not forgotten and will not forget Tommie Smith and John Carlos nor their treatment at the time. We must resist these tyrants.
“. . .they’re demonstrating what societies optimized for trust rather than dominance actually look like.”
It seems trust and dominance are incompatible.
Our allies have lost trust in us since we twice installed a president who insists on his own dominance. He must own Greenland, he must tariff countries he wants to punish, and send emissaries to support right-wing movements and interfere with elections in other countries, as well as in our own.
Your post did cause me to think about moral superiority, Johan. The tone of your writing smacked with a putdown of Americans. We are many flavors, and many of us have been screwed by the economic system that has rewarded the ultra-rich over the rest of us. I have been around this country and familiar with the generosity and the warmth of the people. Many of us in Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles have come together to protect our neighbors from the undisciplined thugs who have been stationed on our streets to terrorize us.
I’m a behaviorist. I analyze systems, incentive structures, and the behavior they produce. Good people exist everywhere, including America.
That’s not the question. The question is what incentive structures exist in our country and what behavior they systematically reward.
Americans have been screwed by an economic system rewarding the ultra-rich over everyone else. Correct. Now explain how that system got built and why it persists. Not because Americans are bad people, but because we constructed institutions that reward wealth extraction, algorithmically condition millions into defending their own exploitation, and systematically suppress the empathy that would enable collective resistance. The economic structure isn’t accidental. It’s the output of incentive structures we collectively allowed to evolve.
When I write about forgetting Tommie Smith or obsessing over medals, I’m not making moral judgments about individuals. I’m describing observable patterns: what gets remembered, what gets erased, what behavior gets rewarded, what neural pathways get reinforced. When you spend decades building systems that optimize neural architecture for “winning” rather than solidarity, you get a population that can’t recognize authoritarianism until it’s already here. That’s not putdown. That’s behavioral science.
The people in Minneapolis, Chicago, LA forming protective networks are fighting against incentive structures designed to prevent exactly that solidarity. Their resistance doesn’t invalidate the structural critique. It proves how hard people have to fight against architecture built to suppress cooperation. That’s a depressing observation in cities I have lived in and movements I have participated in.
I don’t write to comfort.
I write to analyze what produces the behavior we’re seeing. The systems are wrong. The institutions are captured. Good people resisting doesn’t change that diagnosis.
The Ukrainians are still holding back genocide while we argue (broadly as a country) about tone.
You are not alone in recognizing patterns of behavior and the systems that reward and punish the populous. That's your work, and you communicate your analysis as though it is the last word.
My late husband's family had to leave Ukraine to escape the genocide of Jews. We have been witnessing the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. You are one of many behaviorists, Johan, and I think not in a position to know how hard Americans will work together for their freedom from Trump, Vance, Miller, Bondi, Vough, Hesgeth...
Hmmmmm. 'At the speed of rust', in today's America.
We fellow planet dwellers are watching your decline with dismay...hope something is still left that's saveable once this 'growing' you mention... flowers.
Professor Snyder writes “boy meets girl as country resists genocide” which reset my thinking about how lucky we are in America despite Trump’s continued destruction of democracy and dismantling of our government. The Ukrainian people who have suffered so much more from Putin’s illegal invasion have shown us what bravery, brilliance inside and outside of the battlefield, patriotism and resilience is all about. With Trump so unhinged and mentally unfit and betraying Ukraine at every opportunity. Professor Snyder, Heather Cox Richardson and others bring humanity to us in their letters which I enjoy and makes me feel more grounded and connected. Thank you!
The only question though, Mike Hammer is what action you are taking on account of reading it? Prof. Snyder, however philosophically and thoughtfully, begs us to act. We must act to support Ukraine, to support freedom and democracy over tyranny. I hope everyone reading Prof. Snyder’s words at least has found a No Kings demonstration to go to on March 28. A gift to one of his indicated organizations is next. Then we need to get rid of the Orange Menace and his minions. Thanks for reading. Thanks for thinking.
Wow! Thanks, Tim, for this amazing and beautiful and painful message - inviting us in the USA to examine our own hearts and minds - we need to do SO MUCH MORE, whatever we can, to alleviate suffering not just in our own country but around the world.
Vladyslav Heraskevych's decision to honor the lives of Ukrainian athletes killed by russia's war against Ukraine embodies the moral strength, courage and resolve of the Ukrainian people.
Two other Ukrainian athletes were also banned from wearing a saying on their helmet ( a poem) and gloves ("Remembrance is not a violation").
Vladyslav's sacrifice will be remembered long after we forget who won medals in the 2026 Olympics.
"Where there is heroism, there is no final defeat". Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko
We keep on the watch for Ukrainian athletes, too. We saw "the Olympic proposal" live, and also the Helmet of Disqualification. We have noticed the sparse representation.
I also caught Svitolina's tennis win over Coco Gauff yesterday. Always on the lookout for the blue and yellow flag, and we are behind the UKR athletes who represent it. It matches the flag that flies on the front of our house. One will remain there, until this war is over.
Yes, I sent a message to the IOC condemning their decision to disqualify the Ukrainian skeleton athlete. I hope many more have done so. Ukraine is holding the free world on its shoulders with very little help. We all owe a huge debt to them.
We became vulnerable to Trump and the regime because we lost our memory of the importance of values. We substituted our values with money. To propose marriage is an act of freedom. To focus on winning and trophies is bondage. I think we are being reminded of who we are in a trial by fire. I hope we learn before too many more suffer and die.
The people and children in the U.S., Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza... call out to us.
Donate to UNRWA, UNICEF, Islamic Relief, PCRF, UN Crisis Relief, Save the Children, World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders to provide emergency food, water, medical supplies, and shelter. These groups are active on the ground delivering aid to families in need.
It seems like an eternity that Russia ( and other countries) has had its thumb on Ukraine. My Ukrainian grandmother once spit on a picture of Stalin on television. Her only political statement as she spoke little or no English. She and my grandfather proudly spoke Ukrainian and had their kids go to a school to learn it. They NEVER even in the 50’s considered themselves Russian, Polish or Austro Hungarian though Lviv ( their home) changed rulers.
That is the same with all four of my grandparents. They never considered themselves to be Russian or Polish or Austro-Hungarian. They were always Ukrainian. My maternal grandparents came from Lviv and my mother was actually born there. Somehow their fierceness about that was always conveyed to me. I have been wondering if the Olympic Committee has realized yet that they have made a colossal mistake.
It was a revelation to me. I’m an artist and always thought that all great Slavic artists were Russian. Not so Gogol, one of my favorites was Ukrainian.
YEs, it was. But it was also a strategic error. This reveals that there are people who do not grasp the concept that Ukraine is also fighting for European countries as well. The first steppingstone was Crimea. The next steppingstone is the current war on all of Ukraine. Then the next steppingstone will be some other European country. To gain back the power of a hegemonic empire that Russia wants, (perhaps only Putin), he must take over other sovereign countries.
Must Ukrainians be the slaughter house of Europe?! I learned later in my life about the HOLOMODOR. I think at times it’s only varenyky and stuffed cabbage that saved us and that any of us are left with an awareness that we are Ukrainian, not a Russian sub group.
I hate to say this, but I know that I am a Ukrainian American with all the potential of any other nationality. However, I have met Russians who do believe that they are a superior SLAV to any Ukrainian or Polish (etc.) person. It is the way they were educated.
I have a TV and computer repair man that grew up in a Latvia in a Russian enclave who believes that. If I did not need him to sort out my husband’s computer codes etc, he probably would be gone. Russia has glommed on and claimed many famous Ukrainian authors and artists as their own. Some institutions like New York’s Metropolitan Museum is rectifying that. Museums Rename Artworks and Artists as Ukrainian, Not Russian
A year into the war, institutions face pressure to note the Ukrainian roots of artworks and artists long described as Russian. It’s not always simple to write a wall label.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York changed the name of one of its Edgar Degas pastels Friday morning from “Russian Dancers” to “Dancers in Ukrainian Dress,” the second Degas it has reclassified since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The National Gallery in London renamed one of its Degas pastels “Ukrainian Dancers” from “Russian Dancers” last year. And the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles updated an old item on its website to note that Degas’s dancers were Ukrainian, not Russian.
The adjustments reflect a movement that is currently underway at museums all over the world, spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many are re-examining — and, in a growing number of cases, relabeling — artworks and artists from the former Russian Empire and the former Soviet Union to better reflect their Ukrainian origins.
“Scholarly thinking is evolving quickly,” Max Hollein, the Met’s director, said in a statement, “because of the increased awareness of and attention to Ukrainian culture and history since the Russian invasion started in 2022.”
“Empathy is not a moral luxury; it is a precondition of freedom.” How profound and how little understood!! In a sense similar to the old saw, “There is no i in team”, the word civilization requires that multiple i’s are subservient to spelling a larger concept. Humanity is not and surely should not be a race among nations. When we forget that we are playing ‘games’ we lose the true meaning of excellence and individual accomplishment within a shifting background of human effort. Most unfortunately, war has significant horrifying and dehumanizing consequences that hurt us all. These put the deep flaws of our species on display before the Universe. I remain confused, dismayed and just plain angry that the rest of us collectively have done so little to spare Ukrainians these consequences.
"Empathy is not a moral luxury: it is a precondition of freedom." This tells us all we need to know about The Bloated Yam. His lack of support for Ukraine is truly horrific.
There should never be another person of the year, or greatest athlete or individual Nobel peace prize. Those who should be highlighted are only the everyday people, the collective, the ukrainians, the Gazan people, the Minneapolis mighty, the regular folks fighting tyranny all over the world. There is no great leader without the people. The people where we can find a thousand heroic stories in a thousand individual stories, where freedom truly lives.
Can an essay win the Nobel Peace Prize? Because I would like to nominate this one.
It's not just an essay, Karen, but a consistently coherent battle cry:
"When we forget others, our oblivion invites indifferent kings to rule us."
Trouble is, Donald, Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu, and the Iranian mullahs are not just "indifferent kings," but savage murderers, mass murderers, and in Donald's case also years'-long pals to pedophiles.
But they all practice a mutual, common criminality, with their money laundering, arms sales, drug trafficking, and of course, too, the trafficking in young women from many other countries and underage girls in whom their fellow rich indulge.
What do they not indulge? They are as indifferent as we learn to be as to, regarding schools that could be centered on the human, on the world's humanities, and on youth learning to write essays to see others.
But see, now we're back at Timothy Snyder's key message here (as it was Orwell's key in "Politics and the English Language"): "When we forget others, our oblivion invites indifferent kings to rule us."
Snyder captures something neuroscience confirms but we systematically ignore: empathy isn’t moral decoration, it’s the cognitive architecture that makes cooperation, and therefore freedom, possible.
When Americans obsess over gold medals rather than performance, we’re not just being shallow, we’re rewiring our reward systems to value only outcomes we can claim as ours.
Repeatedly choosing not to engage with others’ pain doesn’t just make you callous, it literally atrophies the neural pathways that allow you to model other minds, to imagine what freedom costs when you’re defending it under artillery fire instead of watching from a couch.
The Ukrainians covering Olympics with visible laptop stickers and spontaneous laughter aren’t just charming…they’re demonstrating what societies optimized for trust rather than dominance actually look like. They remember their dead not because it’s performative but because connection to others’ sacrifice is what binds communities when everything else is being destroyed.
Meanwhile Americans can’t remember Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising fists in 1968 because we’ve been conditioned to forget any suffering that complicates the narrative of meritocracy and winning. That forgetting isn’t accidental. It’s the product of incentive structures rewarding erasure of context, valorizing individual achievement disconnected from collective struggle.
Free societies are built as communities of shared pain, not grievance—-is the inversion of everything American culture currently optimizes for. We’ve built a society that insists suffering is either deserved or irrelevant, that acknowledges only victories worth claiming. The behavioral consequence is predictable: a population “flabbergasted” by predictable oppression because we systematically trained ourselves not to notice anyone else’s.
When you spend decades optimizing neural architecture for “winning” rather than solidarity, you end up with a society that can’t recognize authoritarianism until the camps are already built.
Ukrainians holding back genocide are buying us time we’re wasting on gold paint and willful amnesia.
—Johan
Beautifully put... Those of us old enough have not forgotten 1968 Tommie Smith & John Carlos. I will never forget it. And, the cowardice of the US Olympic committee in expelling them from the games. It was not until much later they were lauded for their courage in standing up for civil rights. But, hypocrisy & cowardice in the face of evil is becoming the American way again. We cannot be part of that.
I remember. I had left the US for my junior undergrad year in Japan; living in a family-run student house in Tokyo, we watched the highlights on a rather small B&W TV.
I was shocked by the display of the Black Power salute -- remember, just that spring Martin Luther King had been assassinated-- but not surprised. White supremacists had assassinated Martin Luther King and American cities had been set ablaze in protest.
I had too little Japanese to adequately explain to my hosts the complexity of the Black experience in America -- all I could express was my sadness.
Your facial expressions and body language probably well said it all, R.
I guess. Somehow my Japanese language classes at university never covered the section on Jim Crow laws, racial discrimination and redlining.
Thank you, gerri. I too have not forgotten and will not forget Tommie Smith and John Carlos nor their treatment at the time. We must resist these tyrants.
Christian Nationalism is founded on and fueled by grievance.
Grievance, in turn, Kate, is founded on lack of skills to see outside, to see others.
Johan, Thank you. So clear and true. A breathtaking whole. A perfect addendum or introduction to Dr. Snyder’s beautiful post.
“. . .they’re demonstrating what societies optimized for trust rather than dominance actually look like.”
It seems trust and dominance are incompatible.
Our allies have lost trust in us since we twice installed a president who insists on his own dominance. He must own Greenland, he must tariff countries he wants to punish, and send emissaries to support right-wing movements and interfere with elections in other countries, as well as in our own.
so very well put
'I write to provoke thought, not comfort.'
Your post did cause me to think about moral superiority, Johan. The tone of your writing smacked with a putdown of Americans. We are many flavors, and many of us have been screwed by the economic system that has rewarded the ultra-rich over the rest of us. I have been around this country and familiar with the generosity and the warmth of the people. Many of us in Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles have come together to protect our neighbors from the undisciplined thugs who have been stationed on our streets to terrorize us.
You gave no credit where credit it due.
I’m a behaviorist. I analyze systems, incentive structures, and the behavior they produce. Good people exist everywhere, including America.
That’s not the question. The question is what incentive structures exist in our country and what behavior they systematically reward.
Americans have been screwed by an economic system rewarding the ultra-rich over everyone else. Correct. Now explain how that system got built and why it persists. Not because Americans are bad people, but because we constructed institutions that reward wealth extraction, algorithmically condition millions into defending their own exploitation, and systematically suppress the empathy that would enable collective resistance. The economic structure isn’t accidental. It’s the output of incentive structures we collectively allowed to evolve.
When I write about forgetting Tommie Smith or obsessing over medals, I’m not making moral judgments about individuals. I’m describing observable patterns: what gets remembered, what gets erased, what behavior gets rewarded, what neural pathways get reinforced. When you spend decades building systems that optimize neural architecture for “winning” rather than solidarity, you get a population that can’t recognize authoritarianism until it’s already here. That’s not putdown. That’s behavioral science.
The people in Minneapolis, Chicago, LA forming protective networks are fighting against incentive structures designed to prevent exactly that solidarity. Their resistance doesn’t invalidate the structural critique. It proves how hard people have to fight against architecture built to suppress cooperation. That’s a depressing observation in cities I have lived in and movements I have participated in.
I don’t write to comfort.
I write to analyze what produces the behavior we’re seeing. The systems are wrong. The institutions are captured. Good people resisting doesn’t change that diagnosis.
The Ukrainians are still holding back genocide while we argue (broadly as a country) about tone.
— Johan
You are not alone in recognizing patterns of behavior and the systems that reward and punish the populous. That's your work, and you communicate your analysis as though it is the last word.
My late husband's family had to leave Ukraine to escape the genocide of Jews. We have been witnessing the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. You are one of many behaviorists, Johan, and I think not in a position to know how hard Americans will work together for their freedom from Trump, Vance, Miller, Bondi, Vough, Hesgeth...
The movement against these monsters is growing.
"The movement against these monsters is growing."
Hmmmmm. 'At the speed of rust', in today's America.
We fellow planet dwellers are watching your decline with dismay...hope something is still left that's saveable once this 'growing' you mention... flowers.
Professor Snyder writes “boy meets girl as country resists genocide” which reset my thinking about how lucky we are in America despite Trump’s continued destruction of democracy and dismantling of our government. The Ukrainian people who have suffered so much more from Putin’s illegal invasion have shown us what bravery, brilliance inside and outside of the battlefield, patriotism and resilience is all about. With Trump so unhinged and mentally unfit and betraying Ukraine at every opportunity. Professor Snyder, Heather Cox Richardson and others bring humanity to us in their letters which I enjoy and makes me feel more grounded and connected. Thank you!
The only question though, Mike Hammer is what action you are taking on account of reading it? Prof. Snyder, however philosophically and thoughtfully, begs us to act. We must act to support Ukraine, to support freedom and democracy over tyranny. I hope everyone reading Prof. Snyder’s words at least has found a No Kings demonstration to go to on March 28. A gift to one of his indicated organizations is next. Then we need to get rid of the Orange Menace and his minions. Thanks for reading. Thanks for thinking.
Simply beautiful writing. And your message, so poignant and powerful. Once again, thank you.
"...I am not sure that I have a right to that idea; but I feel that I have a duty to remember it...
We cannot be free without the memory of others who suffer, without recalling the people who are suffering now..."
"Empathy is a precondition of freedom" Thank you for this illumination and your light.
Wow! Thanks, Tim, for this amazing and beautiful and painful message - inviting us in the USA to examine our own hearts and minds - we need to do SO MUCH MORE, whatever we can, to alleviate suffering not just in our own country but around the world.
Vladyslav Heraskevych's decision to honor the lives of Ukrainian athletes killed by russia's war against Ukraine embodies the moral strength, courage and resolve of the Ukrainian people.
Two other Ukrainian athletes were also banned from wearing a saying on their helmet ( a poem) and gloves ("Remembrance is not a violation").
Vladyslav's sacrifice will be remembered long after we forget who won medals in the 2026 Olympics.
"Where there is heroism, there is no final defeat". Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko
https://kyivindependent.com/remembrance-is-not-a-violation-third-ukrainian-athlete-barred-from-wearing-helmet-at-olympics/
Slava Ukraini!
Yes, Mary Ann -- and soon Feb. 24 -- fourth anniversary of this Russian barbarism.
We keep on the watch for Ukrainian athletes, too. We saw "the Olympic proposal" live, and also the Helmet of Disqualification. We have noticed the sparse representation.
I also caught Svitolina's tennis win over Coco Gauff yesterday. Always on the lookout for the blue and yellow flag, and we are behind the UKR athletes who represent it. It matches the flag that flies on the front of our house. One will remain there, until this war is over.
Yes, I sent a message to the IOC condemning their decision to disqualify the Ukrainian skeleton athlete. I hope many more have done so. Ukraine is holding the free world on its shoulders with very little help. We all owe a huge debt to them.
Thank you for your always inspiring writing. I have made a donation to the Ukrainian cause.
We became vulnerable to Trump and the regime because we lost our memory of the importance of values. We substituted our values with money. To propose marriage is an act of freedom. To focus on winning and trophies is bondage. I think we are being reminded of who we are in a trial by fire. I hope we learn before too many more suffer and die.
The people and children in the U.S., Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza... call out to us.
Donate to UNRWA, UNICEF, Islamic Relief, PCRF, UN Crisis Relief, Save the Children, World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders to provide emergency food, water, medical supplies, and shelter. These groups are active on the ground delivering aid to families in need.
https://www.unrwausa.org/
https://www.unicefusa.org/
https://wfpusa.org/
https://www.savethechildren.org/us/where-we-work/west-bank-gaza
World Central Kitchen
https://www.wck.org
Doctors Without Borders
https://give.doctorswithoutborders.org › medicalcare
with caring and friendship.
It seems like an eternity that Russia ( and other countries) has had its thumb on Ukraine. My Ukrainian grandmother once spit on a picture of Stalin on television. Her only political statement as she spoke little or no English. She and my grandfather proudly spoke Ukrainian and had their kids go to a school to learn it. They NEVER even in the 50’s considered themselves Russian, Polish or Austro Hungarian though Lviv ( their home) changed rulers.
That is the same with all four of my grandparents. They never considered themselves to be Russian or Polish or Austro-Hungarian. They were always Ukrainian. My maternal grandparents came from Lviv and my mother was actually born there. Somehow their fierceness about that was always conveyed to me. I have been wondering if the Olympic Committee has realized yet that they have made a colossal mistake.
My grandfather, Lillian, from Munkacs, Munkachevo.
It was a revelation to me. I’m an artist and always thought that all great Slavic artists were Russian. Not so Gogol, one of my favorites was Ukrainian.
It was egregious and cruel
YEs, it was. But it was also a strategic error. This reveals that there are people who do not grasp the concept that Ukraine is also fighting for European countries as well. The first steppingstone was Crimea. The next steppingstone is the current war on all of Ukraine. Then the next steppingstone will be some other European country. To gain back the power of a hegemonic empire that Russia wants, (perhaps only Putin), he must take over other sovereign countries.
Must Ukrainians be the slaughter house of Europe?! I learned later in my life about the HOLOMODOR. I think at times it’s only varenyky and stuffed cabbage that saved us and that any of us are left with an awareness that we are Ukrainian, not a Russian sub group.
I hate to say this, but I know that I am a Ukrainian American with all the potential of any other nationality. However, I have met Russians who do believe that they are a superior SLAV to any Ukrainian or Polish (etc.) person. It is the way they were educated.
I have a TV and computer repair man that grew up in a Latvia in a Russian enclave who believes that. If I did not need him to sort out my husband’s computer codes etc, he probably would be gone. Russia has glommed on and claimed many famous Ukrainian authors and artists as their own. Some institutions like New York’s Metropolitan Museum is rectifying that. Museums Rename Artworks and Artists as Ukrainian, Not Russian
A year into the war, institutions face pressure to note the Ukrainian roots of artworks and artists long described as Russian. It’s not always simple to write a wall label.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York changed the name of one of its Edgar Degas pastels Friday morning from “Russian Dancers” to “Dancers in Ukrainian Dress,” the second Degas it has reclassified since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The National Gallery in London renamed one of its Degas pastels “Ukrainian Dancers” from “Russian Dancers” last year. And the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles updated an old item on its website to note that Degas’s dancers were Ukrainian, not Russian.
The adjustments reflect a movement that is currently underway at museums all over the world, spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many are re-examining — and, in a growing number of cases, relabeling — artworks and artists from the former Russian Empire and the former Soviet Union to better reflect their Ukrainian origins.
“Scholarly thinking is evolving quickly,” Max Hollein, the Met’s director, said in a statement, “because of the increased awareness of and attention to Ukrainian culture and history since the Russian invasion started in 2022.”
The following comment includes an excerpt from the New York Times.
Thank you, Tim. Beautiful piece. Gives one much to think about.
“Empathy is not a moral luxury; it is a precondition of freedom.” How profound and how little understood!! In a sense similar to the old saw, “There is no i in team”, the word civilization requires that multiple i’s are subservient to spelling a larger concept. Humanity is not and surely should not be a race among nations. When we forget that we are playing ‘games’ we lose the true meaning of excellence and individual accomplishment within a shifting background of human effort. Most unfortunately, war has significant horrifying and dehumanizing consequences that hurt us all. These put the deep flaws of our species on display before the Universe. I remain confused, dismayed and just plain angry that the rest of us collectively have done so little to spare Ukrainians these consequences.
"Empathy is not a moral luxury: it is a precondition of freedom." This tells us all we need to know about The Bloated Yam. His lack of support for Ukraine is truly horrific.
There should never be another person of the year, or greatest athlete or individual Nobel peace prize. Those who should be highlighted are only the everyday people, the collective, the ukrainians, the Gazan people, the Minneapolis mighty, the regular folks fighting tyranny all over the world. There is no great leader without the people. The people where we can find a thousand heroic stories in a thousand individual stories, where freedom truly lives.