On the Ferris Wheel of human history a fundamental cycle of the human psyche turns between dehumanization and humanization, between hate and empathy. Is there any way to stop that wheel from turning, say, by halting it on the platform of compassion? Why does that wheel have to turn ineluctably?
I suppose the truest test of our humanity is our ability to empathize with those whom we don’t like when they are suffering. Although I personally found myself readily empathizing with Ukrainians under attack from the very beginning of the Russian invasion, I struggled a bit with empathizing similarly with the conscripted Russian soldiers and their families. And then I realized that even those young men were—what should I call them?—human beings and victims themselves.
It’s probably true that some of those Russians, reportedly mostly those in the Wagner Group, acted savagely against the innocent people of Ukraine, and it’s probably also true that they have committed war crimes (that evidence seems to be piling up). Am I angered? Sure. Would I like to see them punished? Definitely. But what about that young Russian drafted into a war for which he had no interest, no passion, no sense of loyalty to a futile cause, and no desire to end life prematurely.
Okay, maybe we are all guilty of some kind of evil, maybe a snub, a word in gossip, even a thought of a comeuppance for someone. But, sinner that I am, I would still like to see all evildoers punished in a way commensurate to the degree of evil they committed. I’m especially vengeful when evildoers victimize the unsuspecting and undeserving innocent.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always felt that bullies of any kind and at any level need to be confronted and punished. That feeling is tough to overcome when I see the helpless abused. So, when I think of the needless killing perpetrated by some Russian soldiers, I want some kind of retribution. And that makes me ask why I feel so. Could it be that sitting safely in the United States, I cannot exact any retribution and enact justice for the weak and downtrodden? I can only fume in powerlessness. Yes, I want to see Russian soldiers guilty of war crimes punished severely, but this desire for justice or vengeance conflicts with my empathy for those Russians who have been forced into the maiming, killing, and destroying. I feel for those men who were seemingly conscripted just to die needlessly in the so-called meat grinder of eastern Ukraine because a power-hungry Vladimir Putin has hegemony in mind.
Acts of evil challenge our sense of compassion. The indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainian buildings that destroyed hospitals and schools makes empathizing with a wounded Russian soldier difficult. Yet, I know that many Russians have been convinced that Ukrainians were Nazis about to attack, as though 2023 were 1941, when Hitler invaded Russia. I also know that the controlled Russian media have served as Putin’s puppets and that they continue to spew propaganda to a largely uninformed populace. One of the components of empathy is knowledge of others. Many Russians, some even with family and friends in Ukraine, do not know whom they injure and kill. But isn’t that always the case in war?
Anti-war poems, fiction, and songs by those horrified at the travesty of conflicts have for millennia (at least since Aristophanes comedy Lysistrata) tried to show the futility of war and its unnecessary suffering. Those works often point us toward our commonality and, thus, to our motive to empathize. They “humanize” the fallen. Take Keith Douglas’s “Vergissmeinnicht,” for example. Returning to the site of an attack, a soldier discovers a picture that the dead attacker carried. Douglas writes:
Look. Here in the gunpoint spoil
the dishonoured pictures of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht
in a copybook of gothic script.
Or think of the scenes described in Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels and Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, both Civil War novels that show the dehumanizing and humanizing aspects of war and the occasional interruption of violence by moments of compassion. Take into consideration lyrics of the 1951 Irving Gordon song “Two Brothers,” that contrasts the lives of one who “wore blue” and one who “wore grey.” The song’s last stanza ends with two women waiting by the railroad track for the brothers to return, each woman in a different color: “one wore blue and one wore black.” As the lyrics tell us, “one came home; one stayed behind.” * The haunting melody (in the slower versions) emphasizes empathizing.
Think of those lyrics in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Slavic peoples both. Brothers (and sisters) forced into the tragedy of war. Does that not elicit empathy even for the invaders? They were, many of them forced to fight their genetic relatives. And the same could be said for those in the Middle East, where Palestinians and Israelis share a close genetic heritage, for North and South Koreans, and for all those Catholics and Protestants who fought during the Reformation in the 16th century or during the Irish conflicts of the last century. Brothers and sisters all. "Do we not feel for our kin?"
And then we wonder: If we are eventually capable of feeling for our perceived enemies, why do we make them enemies in the first place? Do we need to dehumanize to empathize and to cycle the wheel of feeling through hate to get to the platform of empathy, where we could all stand together?
*Various versions:
https://genius.com/Tom-jones-two-brothers-annotated
See other versions n YouTube by Ali B. Olmo and Tammy Tuckey or the one by Mindy Brasach
I suppose the truest test of our humanity is our ability to empathize with those whom we don’t like when they are suffering. Although I personally found myself readily empathizing with Ukrainians under attack from the very beginning of the Russian invasion, I struggled a bit with empathizing similarly with the conscripted Russian soldiers and their families. And then I realized that even those young men were—what should I call them?—human beings and victims themselves.
It’s probably true that some of those Russians, reportedly mostly those in the Wagner Group, acted savagely against the innocent people of Ukraine, and it’s probably also true that they have committed war crimes (that evidence seems to be piling up). Am I angered? Sure. Would I like to see them punished? Definitely. But what about that young Russian drafted into a war for which he had no interest, no passion, no sense of loyalty to a futile cause, and no desire to end life prematurely.
Okay, maybe we are all guilty of some kind of evil, maybe a snub, a word in gossip, even a thought of a comeuppance for someone. But, sinner that I am, I would still like to see all evildoers punished in a way commensurate to the degree of evil they committed. I’m especially vengeful when evildoers victimize the unsuspecting and undeserving innocent.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always felt that bullies of any kind and at any level need to be confronted and punished. That feeling is tough to overcome when I see the helpless abused. So, when I think of the needless killing perpetrated by some Russian soldiers, I want some kind of retribution. And that makes me ask why I feel so. Could it be that sitting safely in the United States, I cannot exact any retribution and enact justice for the weak and downtrodden? I can only fume in powerlessness. Yes, I want to see Russian soldiers guilty of war crimes punished severely, but this desire for justice or vengeance conflicts with my empathy for those Russians who have been forced into the maiming, killing, and destroying. I feel for those men who were seemingly conscripted just to die needlessly in the so-called meat grinder of eastern Ukraine because a power-hungry Vladimir Putin has hegemony in mind.
Acts of evil challenge our sense of compassion. The indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainian buildings that destroyed hospitals and schools makes empathizing with a wounded Russian soldier difficult. Yet, I know that many Russians have been convinced that Ukrainians were Nazis about to attack, as though 2023 were 1941, when Hitler invaded Russia. I also know that the controlled Russian media have served as Putin’s puppets and that they continue to spew propaganda to a largely uninformed populace. One of the components of empathy is knowledge of others. Many Russians, some even with family and friends in Ukraine, do not know whom they injure and kill. But isn’t that always the case in war?
Anti-war poems, fiction, and songs by those horrified at the travesty of conflicts have for millennia (at least since Aristophanes comedy Lysistrata) tried to show the futility of war and its unnecessary suffering. Those works often point us toward our commonality and, thus, to our motive to empathize. They “humanize” the fallen. Take Keith Douglas’s “Vergissmeinnicht,” for example. Returning to the site of an attack, a soldier discovers a picture that the dead attacker carried. Douglas writes:
Look. Here in the gunpoint spoil
the dishonoured pictures of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht
in a copybook of gothic script.
Or think of the scenes described in Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels and Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, both Civil War novels that show the dehumanizing and humanizing aspects of war and the occasional interruption of violence by moments of compassion. Take into consideration lyrics of the 1951 Irving Gordon song “Two Brothers,” that contrasts the lives of one who “wore blue” and one who “wore grey.” The song’s last stanza ends with two women waiting by the railroad track for the brothers to return, each woman in a different color: “one wore blue and one wore black.” As the lyrics tell us, “one came home; one stayed behind.” * The haunting melody (in the slower versions) emphasizes empathizing.
Think of those lyrics in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Slavic peoples both. Brothers (and sisters) forced into the tragedy of war. Does that not elicit empathy even for the invaders? They were, many of them forced to fight their genetic relatives. And the same could be said for those in the Middle East, where Palestinians and Israelis share a close genetic heritage, for North and South Koreans, and for all those Catholics and Protestants who fought during the Reformation in the 16th century or during the Irish conflicts of the last century. Brothers and sisters all. "Do we not feel for our kin?"
And then we wonder: If we are eventually capable of feeling for our perceived enemies, why do we make them enemies in the first place? Do we need to dehumanize to empathize and to cycle the wheel of feeling through hate to get to the platform of empathy, where we could all stand together?
*Various versions:
https://genius.com/Tom-jones-two-brothers-annotated
See other versions n YouTube by Ali B. Olmo and Tammy Tuckey or the one by Mindy Brasach
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