Ukraine at war is a territory where the literal and the metaphorical meet, where abstract words take on a bloody reality, and where physical objects swell with symbolism.
“Fighting for democracy” is something people do in Ukraine every day, laying down their lives for the right to live in a society where their voice matters. Russia kills and arrests elected officials and imposes violent dictatorship wherever it occupies.
“Civil society,” that web of horizontal social interconnections whose loss is always being lamented in the U.S., actually exists here—citizens band together to build city defenses, clean up the debris after missile hits, nurse the wounded and orphaned.
Ukraine reminds what “family values” really mean: the whole country fights like one great family.
“Patriotism,” “sovereignty”—terms which have become so wasted in the West, are imbued with meaning in Ukraine.
But even as Ukrainians make talk about “democratic values” tangible, so the physical world here also pushes into the metaphorical, into the cellars.
How is this news? Christ, Putin has been actively trying to put Russia itself back into the Soviet cellar. He’s a big sympathizer of the old regime.
It’s time to clearly understand the difference what Russia wants and what it actually can
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Ukraine at war is a territory where the literal and the metaphorical meet, where abstract words take on a bloody reality, and where physical objects swell with symbolism.
“Fighting for democracy” is something people do in Ukraine every day, laying down their lives for the right to live in a society where their voice matters. Russia kills and arrests elected officials and imposes violent dictatorship wherever it occupies.
“Civil society,” that web of horizontal social interconnections whose loss is always being lamented in the U.S., actually exists here—citizens band together to build city defenses, clean up the debris after missile hits, nurse the wounded and orphaned.
Ukraine reminds what “family values” really mean: the whole country fights like one great family.
“Patriotism,” “sovereignty”—terms which have become so wasted in the West, are imbued with meaning in Ukraine.
But even as Ukrainians make talk about “democratic values” tangible, so the physical world here also pushes into the metaphorical, into the cellars.
How is this news? Christ, Putin has been actively trying to put Russia itself back into the Soviet cellar. He’s a big sympathizer of the old regime.
It’s time to clearly understand the difference what Russia wants and what it actually can