Barbarism, Alive and Thriving

Physical barbarism

A long time before I lost my innocence, I believed that the advent of the Internet would make it  impossible for genocide to be globally exposed.  The carnage in Ukraine overwhelming proves otherwise. 

There are six basic types of genocide: National, Ethnical, Racial, Religious, ‘Politicide,’ and ‘Classicide,’ (e.g., those last two types of genocide occurred during the French and Russian revolutions.) One genocide, a huge misnomer, was called, The Great Leap Forward, a euphemism for mass murder, which includes ‘war crimes against humanity.’ 

Genocides are usually motivated by land grabs or sheer racist ignorance, even by otherwise fairly intelligent people.

Putin’s justification for genocide, like all justifications for genocides, is totally baseless. For those who know that, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not, no explanation is possible.   

Intellectual Barbarism

I recently saw a clip on television that made my spine tingle with horror. It reminded me of a parallel clip I saw during the Cold War. That clip consisted of Russian university students who laughed at and shouted down their American counterparts as they attempted to describe American values. In retrospect I understand why Russian students unwittingly (and somewhat impolitely) behaved as they did.

However, it recently angered me to watch American university students prevent a politically conservative group of students from expressing their political views by shouting them down. Most of the professors present at that meeting must have been pleased to know that they had taught their students well.  

Unlike their Russian counterparts years ago, the American students derisively and noisily silenced freedom of speech, America’s primary political value. 

For those who perceive the irony of that, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not, no explanation is possible.