A transformative moment

We may end up creating monuments to Ukraine for the good lessons the Ukrainians are teaching us.

The catastrophe unfolding in Ukraine is more than just another blip in the news cycle, it's a transformative event. At the end of all of this, the world could be much different than it is now - and has been for decades.

The bad news is that the Ukrainian people (and for that matter, the Russian people as well) are going to suffer greatly in the present and near future. The good news, inasmuch as there can be any good news in the midst of such suffering, is that the world stands a good chance of being a better place, at least for a while, as a consequence of Ukraine.

Baby Boomers (like me) went through our formative years with experiences quite different from what young people encounter today. One of the biggest differences between then and now is that little kids used to get picked on by bigger kids all of the time. That was simply the lay of the land - whether you liked it or not. And while very unpleasant, bullying may have actually served a valuable purpose.

Generations ago, you were expected to confront bullies yourself. It was a veritable right of passage. It was not at all uncommon for parents to insist that their kids quit crying about getting pushed around and go back to confront their tormentors.

Doing so was transformative. Not only did you learn how good if felt to stand up for yourself, but you learned that most bullies were paper tigers who backed down quickly when you got in their wheelhouse.

Almost everyone of my age remembers the first time they stood up to a bully. Further, most of us can trace many of the good things in our lives back to the moment that we first learned to quit expecting others to stand up for us and learned, instead, to stand up for ourselves.

Another big difference between growing up now and back then is the difference in the worldwide geopolitical environment. I grew up during the Cold War. I was in the first grade during October 1962, attending an elementary school that was 150 miles from Cuba - during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We all thought that we could end up as a cloud of radioactive dust at any moment.

The first time I ever got in big trouble in school (a trend that would grow in the wrong direction later) was when I refused to participate in a “duck and cover” drill. Even in the first grade I knew that hiding under a desk would do little good if a nuke got dropped on downtown Fort Meyers. The principal agreed with me, but said that I was scaring the other kids. My bum still hurts.

There was no doubt in our minds back then that the Communists: the Soviets and the Chinese and their puppet states, were the bad guys. Yes, some of what we got from the news in this regard was propaganda, but not as much as the general amount of misinformation that we get from the media today. History pretty clearly shows that Communism was, and is, demonstrably bad, just about any way you paint it: socially, politically or economically.

There's a reason why Russia and China and other autocratic states are currently, regardless of sanctions, in trouble. Modern autocrats like Putin, Bolsonaro, Erdogan, Duterte, Orban, Jinping, and like Donald Trump aspired to, but was constrained from becoming by our laws and civic institutions, appear strong in the same mirage-like manner as schoolyard bullies.

It's one thing to lob cruise missiles at children's hospitals from hundreds of miles away, it's another to engage in close-quarters combat with Ukrainian soldiers who hate your guts for killing their children. I'll bet on the latter every time.

Modern autocrats look at liberal democracies like our own and almost always make the mistake for taking one of our great strengths – the ability to debate openly, and confuse it for weakness. I'm quite sure that Vladimir Putin has observed the debates over social, economic and cultural issues in the United States and taken them as a sign of decline. Our last five presidential administrations notwithstanding, I believe that our best days are ahead.

As much as I rail against “wokeness,” the only thing worse would be if it were deemed improper and banned by the government and the media. Yes, I get the irony that “wokeness,” for the most part, is promulgated by the government, the media and various appendages thereof. What can I say? It's an imperfect world.

So how, exactly, is the suffering in Ukraine possibly the vanguard of a better world? Because I think (well, hope anyway) that we may all learn some lessons from what happens when you are so enamored with your own view of the world that you are willing to shove it down everyone else's throat at any cost.

Perhaps we'll learn that the world is not completely full of simpatico people yearning to embrace the values of liberal democracies, and that some of these people happen to sit on top of heaps of mineral and energy wealth. Some of them also possess nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Some of them believe in a better afterlife as well.

Perhaps we'll learn that free speech is important – no matter how much you disagree with it. Sure, there are limits (I don't have a big problem with Florida's so called “Don't say gay” bill since I think that it's age appropriate), but shouting down speeches on, of all places, college campuses, or banning “incorrect” speech is not behavior generally found on the road to freedom and prosperity.

Perhaps we'll learn that though things like anthropogenic global warming are bad, so are tactical nukes deployed by regimes enabled by our lack of will to achieve energy independence via all of the means we have available to us: fossil fuels, nuclear, solar, wind and thermal.

And perhaps we'll re-learn that standing up to bullies is not only right, but it feels really good.

Idaho Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding mountain bikes and motorcycles and playing guitars. His video blog: “Howlin' at the Moon in ii-V-I” may be found at https://www.facebook.com/HowlinattheMoonin251/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6C9D1ueAe_7HB55uhdPDhg