The Manufactured Evil of Misunderstanding

As an American, I don't know the Ukrainians.  I only write what I see.  I must honestly say that I have never had a polite interaction with them.  I think most Americans suffer from the same lack of experience with these wonderful people.  If I ask you to imagine them with me--can you see them?  

 

We used to see our brothers and sisters more clearly. I can remember when the Ukrainians were always portrayed in the same way: An image of a young girl, in a spectacularly white vyshyvanka (embroidered with thousands of vivid years of color and culture), peering into a blue sky, standing in a field of sunflowers.

 

Putin, to justify his evil war, would recast this image, and have us believe that which you see before you is no young girl at all, but a risen gorgon. The ribbons in her hair replaced with vipers. Preposterous! I present to you the manufactured evil of misunderstanding.

 

We know that Putin lies. We know that he spreads these lies any way he can. I imagine he has a propaganda room, filled with drug-crazed, adolescent chimpanzees. The bad ones. They all speak Russian and they pound away at typewriters almost like they don’t know what they are used for. They produce hundreds of pieces of propaganda every single day! Much of it intended to justify their brutal invasion of Ukraine.


Dear reader, do you agree that misunderstanding is an evil? What injustice would be done if your mother were murdered, and the murderer claimed self defense! I argue that misunderstanding is a very effective evil, sneaking anywhere it pleases, disguised in plain sight as a ‘truth’ or a ‘conclusion.’ Think of misunderstandings in your own life. Our lives are our loves, how many loves have never been afforded the opportunity to grow, snatched right out of their cradle by that sneak thief!

 

I have been the victim of misunderstanding as well. (Indeed, I remain covered in muck.) Socrates helped me by teaching me his last and best lesson. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates is condemned by the people of Athens to die. A victim of misunderstanding himself, he was found guilty of impiety. How could that be true? If others had received his message from the Oracle, and not believed it, would they have spent their entire life trying to disprove it? He was probably the most pious man in Athens. Simply misunderstood.

 

Before he is led away to be executed by evil men he says that no evil man can do harm to a good man. I am a poor student, and I don’t have that quite figured out yet. But I think I understand it a bit better in looking at my beautiful Ukrainian people. No matter what smut Putin tries to smear on them, their golden hearts shine right through.

 

So now, all of us dirty, and until we are all clean, I will remain among them—I don’t even presume to help clean them (they love each other, they will do a fine job). Instead, I will sweep their floors, and take out their trash, and clean their toilets. And if I am lucky, I will be mistaken for one of them.

 

 

 

Please find below a link to an audio file, reading the above essay.  It comes from the delightful 11Elevenlabs people.  Though they sell the best fake voices, the words are always my own.

 

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