Fantastic and very much thought-provoking article Barry, thank you. It’s easy to trivialise the idea of choosing to act from love. But it’s really the only life-affirmative choice available. And we must choose life.
one of my close friends reveled to me in a text recently, that his hatred of Russians has greatly intensified in the last year or so.
not of Putin. not of military leaders. but of Russians in general.
this is an educated, intelligent, successful father of 2 telling me this.
what's more, he expressed this to me with the specific intent that I might join in the hatred of this group. in fact, his entire worldview now seems to be defined by who is most deserving of hate. any mention of Tucker, Trump, RFK, Elon, Putin etc. and he immediately seethes with rage and hyperbole. he hates everyone the establishment tells him to hate, yet he believes that he came to these conclusions independently, on his own. and this is the formula: if you can appeal to someones base emotions, it doesn't matter how smart or cultured they are. they will gleefully dehumanize an entire subset of human beings. we saw what they wanted to do to the Unvaccinated. that was just a test run...
A friend of mine of Polish descent, expected to be staunch anticommunist, just allows his historic hatred for Russians (once Soviet) cloud his thinking, sadly. Making no discernment between the People and government. Now ex-KJB man Putin is the enemy, so the wokeass Salinsky comes out clean. How warped!
I just wait for the rant to end, and say: my mom said" hate will destroy you". And exit.
Excellent article. Reference to Malcolm Muggeridge was interesting. I knew his son John and grandson in Welland Ontario . John's wife, Anne Roche-Muggeridge, wrote 2 books dealing with the subversion of the Catholic Church.
Ironically, grandson John, at 62, writes for the Canadian Agriculture Ministry. It pays his bills but I do pray his soul has not been bought and sold. An honest writer would likely meet the fate of an innocent kulak in Trudeau's Chinada. Bastion of woke communism. Religion of hate and fear.
Unfortunately, I know little about Grossman. Of course, all the great writers and journalists are from Russia. As a Soviet Russian Jewish journalist, he would be aghast at the continued hatred of Jews, especially today with all the demonstrations throughout America, cheering on Hamas. Thanks for enlightening me about this. Hate will be any nation’s downfall eventually.
Mike, Not only was Grossman one the great novelists of the 20th Century he was also one of the greatest war correspondents constantly putting himself at the front lines.
As to your last point @Pitchfork Papers said it best:
"'There are consequences of destroying the lives of others'“ - there are consequences. Not perhaps, not maybe, not should be. There are. Over the last years - perhaps in a foretaste of what lies before us - lives and livelihoods were destroyed. By cynical manipulators, by second rate midwits, by erstwhile nonentities drunk on their power and by millions of willing helpers nudged into compliance. There are consequences and we get to choose whether love or hate
I went to University in my 40s. Not before. It was a difficult to get into MA program which let in one experienced person a year without an undergrad degree. I got in my year. It was fun. It was aimed at successful people from different walks of life. Most people were in their 40s. One of the professors was a Communist Marxist from So Africa. He knew Joe Slovo, had regularly been feted in Russia, he knew Mandela etc. a big shot in the Academic community. Heribert Adam. At one point he said ‘those of us in the International Communist community have had our comeuppance since the fall of Russia.’ This class was in 1996. ‘We have had to face up to the excesses of Stalin’. The class to its credit burst out laughing. He said ‘this is no joke. We need to admit the mistakes so we can move forward and implement proper Communism. Stalin made mistakes. He was excessive in some ways and we need to admit this.’ We were aghast at him. Someone said ‘we knew this in, about, 1935. Stalin killed 20 million of his own people. Did you just find this out?’ He was aghast at our impertinence. He is the Big Shot. Students don’t talk to him like that. He was perplexed we didn’t see this as ‘to make an omelette you gotta break a few eggs’. I mean, come on, mistakes were made.
This is first-rate, Barry. Thank you. I've posted a "note" promoting it.
If you don't mind I'm going to put a link to this article in my essay "What's Wrong With The Greater Good", which covers overlapping ground, which I hope you would find interesting.
This is such a powerful essay. Incentivised evil disseminated by the almighty authority can slowly metastasise throughout society promoting its destruction. It's sad and pathetic how humans continue to fall for this - whether in a workplace/institution or a nation. Humans are tasked with an urgent need to resist the lures of promised power by protecting their humanity. Thank you for this important piece.
I read the article last night and it still hunts me.
I try to understand how could the others allow this. I try to understand what kind of sick people follow the orders to make this happen. And I try to understand if the circumstances would allow something like this to happen again.
Reminds me of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. But it also reminds me of covid. The hysteria, people willing to cut off people they loved because of a deeply held belief they had never heard of a few months earlier. Finger pointing. Everything finger pointing and blaming people. No language was too extreme. And then after, like none of it happened.
Fantastic and very much thought-provoking article Barry, thank you. It’s easy to trivialise the idea of choosing to act from love. But it’s really the only life-affirmative choice available. And we must choose life.
Anne, I appreciate your kind thoughts and wisdom.
Tears in my eyes Barry. Thank you 🙏. This is one of your most powerful pieces.
Thank you, Kate. One of my favorites too.
one of my close friends reveled to me in a text recently, that his hatred of Russians has greatly intensified in the last year or so.
not of Putin. not of military leaders. but of Russians in general.
this is an educated, intelligent, successful father of 2 telling me this.
what's more, he expressed this to me with the specific intent that I might join in the hatred of this group. in fact, his entire worldview now seems to be defined by who is most deserving of hate. any mention of Tucker, Trump, RFK, Elon, Putin etc. and he immediately seethes with rage and hyperbole. he hates everyone the establishment tells him to hate, yet he believes that he came to these conclusions independently, on his own. and this is the formula: if you can appeal to someones base emotions, it doesn't matter how smart or cultured they are. they will gleefully dehumanize an entire subset of human beings. we saw what they wanted to do to the Unvaccinated. that was just a test run...
Hollis, I hope you are wrong but I fear you are right. And yes, hate quickly crowds out everything else.
Absolutely chilling....
A friend of mine of Polish descent, expected to be staunch anticommunist, just allows his historic hatred for Russians (once Soviet) cloud his thinking, sadly. Making no discernment between the People and government. Now ex-KJB man Putin is the enemy, so the wokeass Salinsky comes out clean. How warped!
I just wait for the rant to end, and say: my mom said" hate will destroy you". And exit.
Excellent article. Reference to Malcolm Muggeridge was interesting. I knew his son John and grandson in Welland Ontario . John's wife, Anne Roche-Muggeridge, wrote 2 books dealing with the subversion of the Catholic Church.
Ironically, grandson John, at 62, writes for the Canadian Agriculture Ministry. It pays his bills but I do pray his soul has not been bought and sold. An honest writer would likely meet the fate of an innocent kulak in Trudeau's Chinada. Bastion of woke communism. Religion of hate and fear.
The more a person rants, the more they feel the need to rant again. It is never released because they keep recreating their story.
Unfortunately, I know little about Grossman. Of course, all the great writers and journalists are from Russia. As a Soviet Russian Jewish journalist, he would be aghast at the continued hatred of Jews, especially today with all the demonstrations throughout America, cheering on Hamas. Thanks for enlightening me about this. Hate will be any nation’s downfall eventually.
Mike, Not only was Grossman one the great novelists of the 20th Century he was also one of the greatest war correspondents constantly putting himself at the front lines.
As to your last point @Pitchfork Papers said it best:
"'There are consequences of destroying the lives of others'“ - there are consequences. Not perhaps, not maybe, not should be. There are. Over the last years - perhaps in a foretaste of what lies before us - lives and livelihoods were destroyed. By cynical manipulators, by second rate midwits, by erstwhile nonentities drunk on their power and by millions of willing helpers nudged into compliance. There are consequences and we get to choose whether love or hate
I went to University in my 40s. Not before. It was a difficult to get into MA program which let in one experienced person a year without an undergrad degree. I got in my year. It was fun. It was aimed at successful people from different walks of life. Most people were in their 40s. One of the professors was a Communist Marxist from So Africa. He knew Joe Slovo, had regularly been feted in Russia, he knew Mandela etc. a big shot in the Academic community. Heribert Adam. At one point he said ‘those of us in the International Communist community have had our comeuppance since the fall of Russia.’ This class was in 1996. ‘We have had to face up to the excesses of Stalin’. The class to its credit burst out laughing. He said ‘this is no joke. We need to admit the mistakes so we can move forward and implement proper Communism. Stalin made mistakes. He was excessive in some ways and we need to admit this.’ We were aghast at him. Someone said ‘we knew this in, about, 1935. Stalin killed 20 million of his own people. Did you just find this out?’ He was aghast at our impertinence. He is the Big Shot. Students don’t talk to him like that. He was perplexed we didn’t see this as ‘to make an omelette you gotta break a few eggs’. I mean, come on, mistakes were made.
William, Thank you for your powerful testimony.
You are very welcome. Thank you for your post.
Leftists: Masters of The Excuse.
This is first-rate, Barry. Thank you. I've posted a "note" promoting it.
If you don't mind I'm going to put a link to this article in my essay "What's Wrong With The Greater Good", which covers overlapping ground, which I hope you would find interesting.
https://whatdoino.substack.com/p/whats-wrong-with-the-greater-good
Thanks for the kind words, Jonathan.
I've written many times about the common good and I would be honored to be linked in your wonderful essay.
This is such a powerful essay. Incentivised evil disseminated by the almighty authority can slowly metastasise throughout society promoting its destruction. It's sad and pathetic how humans continue to fall for this - whether in a workplace/institution or a nation. Humans are tasked with an urgent need to resist the lures of promised power by protecting their humanity. Thank you for this important piece.
Thank you, Nathalie. "Sad and pathetic," indeed! And, yes, more than that humanity is at risk.
Thank you Barry.
I read the article last night and it still hunts me.
I try to understand how could the others allow this. I try to understand what kind of sick people follow the orders to make this happen. And I try to understand if the circumstances would allow something like this to happen again.
Yes, haunting and the questions you raise are at the core of my work.
The essay I will post on Monday is another Grossman based one and it may haunt you even more. He is one of the great authors/thinkers of the century.
Reminds me of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. But it also reminds me of covid. The hysteria, people willing to cut off people they loved because of a deeply held belief they had never heard of a few months earlier. Finger pointing. Everything finger pointing and blaming people. No language was too extreme. And then after, like none of it happened.