Once Again, the Barbaric Hordes Are at the Gates

  Tom Kando 

The history of much of the world over the past two thousand years can be seen as a series of invasions by conquering hordes. 

The prototype is the fall of the Roman Empire. An, urban, literate civilization is overrun and destroyed by savages. In the middle of the fifth century, Attila the Hun and a host of other nomadic tribes deal Rome the coup de grace, officially terminating the West Roman Empire in 476 A.D. The Huns were of Uralo-Altaic origin. They came roaring out of the central Asian steppes. 

Other barbarian tribes descending on Italy and other parts of Western Europe include the Visigoths (A.D. 410), the Vandals (455), the Ostrogoths (488), the Lombards (568) and many others. Most emanated from the East, although some, for example the Franks (405), came from the North. 

My geography of these population movements is Eurocentric: I see a sedentary, advanced civilization in the West, overrun and destroyed by primitive, warlike, nomadic tribes often originating in Asia. 

 

Granted, the tribes that invaded the Roman Empire were in some primitive ways more “democratic.” Granted, also, that many tribes such as the Visigoths were themselves being chased westward by the fierce Huns, seeking Rome’s protection. I merely summarize a process in broad strokes. 

It continues after the fall of Rome: Medieval Christian Europe faces repeated onslaughts. The Magyars (my own ancestors) settle Pannonia (Hungary) at the end of the 9th century. The Ottoman Empire, beginning around 1300 AD, sacks Constantinople, putting an end to the East Roman Empire in 1453, reaches the gates of Vienna and occupies Hungary for a century and a half. 

POWER!

by Madeleine Kando

The information in this essay is based on Bertrand Russell’s: Power, A New Social Analysis, published in 1938. The book is very much a product of its time; a time when war with Germany was about to begin. The Western world was divided between democracies and countries led by successful revolutionary dictators. Similar to what is happening now.

What is power? Is it good or bad? Or is it neutral, like a hammer when you need to put a nail in a wall? The origin of the word ‘power’ comes from the Latin word ‘potere’, which means ‘to be able’. In French the word ‘pouvoir’, both means ‘power’ and ‘to be able to’.

Let’s face it, without power, nothing would get done. My husband needs muscle power to mow the lawn. I need fine-motor power to move my fingers on the keyboard.

But that kind of power is self-contained, it’s neutral. The problem starts when someone wants to have power over other things or beings. Power over humans, non-humans, land etc. There is a difference between the amount of power you need to have enough to eat and pay for a roof over your head, and the kind of power that has caused problems for our species ever since we grew frontal lobes.

There are people who crave power more than others. I myself want power over my cat. I won’t let her pee wherever she likes and when I was a young mother, I had power over my children. I told them when to go to bed, what time to get up, etc. My husband was a CFO and had decision making power over a small staff. We all have some degree of power, if only to control our own thoughts.

But that kind of power is barely worth the name. It is the power of men that lead nations that we should be talking about. Good and bad leaders alike: Mahatma Gandhi, Hitler, Putin and George Washington, to name a few.

Marx had an economic explanation for what drives human behavior, and Freud said it was all about sex. But according to famous philosopher Bertrand Russell, the pursuit of power is fundamental to understanding human nature. ‘Power is a fundamental concept in Social Science, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics’. (From: Power, A New Social Analysis, by Bertrand Russell)

In other words, power stems from an infinite desire for something that will never be satisfied. ‘The Boa constrictor, when he has had his meal, sleeps until appetite revives’. He is content until he is hungry again. But with Man it is different. ‘Imagination is the goad that forces human beings into restless exertion after their primary needs have been satisfied.’

The War in Ukraine Could Affect the Whole World

Tom Kando 

I just listened to a fascinating interview of  Yuval Noah Harari. He is the Israeli historian who wrote the brilliant Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind, among others.

The professor’s first and obvious point is that this war should stop ASAP. The longer it goes on, the more EVERYONE will suffer, not just the Ukrainians, even if there is no global conflagration. The longer the war lasts, the worse the situation becomes. The more hatred is created among the Ukrainians. And no one wants this war, not the Russian people, not the Russian oligarchs. 

Unfortunately, it’s been over a month since this interview took place, and things are going in the wrong direction. I see no imminent peace on the horizon. 

The interview occurred when the Russian peaceniks were still marching in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. By now, Putin’s brainwashing machine has done a superb job in rallying a majority of Russians to supporting the war enthusiastically. Dictatorships are often very efficient at creating Orwellian group think within their borders. In Hitler’s Germany, Tojo’s Japan and elsewhere, large majorities continued to happily kill and die for their governments to the bitter end. 

Harari explains that Putin’s attack on Ukraine is not based on a coherent ideology, as for example the Soviet Union was. Instead, it is based on Putin’s own fantasy, not on facts. It is based on Putin’s single-minded desire to re-establish the Russian empire. It is based on the erroneous belief that the Ukrainians are Russians, that they want to be part of Russia. They do not. Ukraine has a thousand-year old history of national identity. Kyiv was a major cultural metropolis long before Moscow. President Zelensky’s and the Ukrainian people’s heroic resistance can be an inspiration to the world.

No war since 1945 has been as much of a threat to the entire world as the current conflict in Ukraine. For the past seventy-seven years, the world has been largely at peace. Authors such as Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature) (https://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-nature) have documented the decline of war. Since 1945, there have been no wars aimed at obliterating entire countries from the map. By and large, borders have been sacred (or at least the product of negotiations). Countries have ceased ANNEXING each other. No superpower has gone to war in order to aggrandize its empire.