My Sit(ting) Room – Page 3 – My Own RE:public

Costing a life

During the height of the Covid crisis (hopefully to never venture higher), there was “out there”, where opinions fester and, yes, take on a life of their own, an ongoing debate concerning the value to be placed upon any life; considered in terms of years already lived and the potential for those yet to come. Stated in short: Must society and its institutions protect the older amongst us (seniors or retirees, say) or rather focus on the more productive, those in the middle of life (workers, parents, students) or, indeed, the very youngest with the most years yet before them (infants, school children)? It could hardly surprise, that neither a morally nor a functionally sustainable solution could be agreed upon, rather, as the pandemic wore on, what could be witnessed was only a hardening of the positions and an intensification of already existing tensions between generations – and interest groups (e.g. employers, unions, health services, schools) in their service.

Mostly, I must say, I found these debates exceedingly irritating; often simplistic, and very often the empiric data on which arguments were built being cherry-picked for purpose and presented as evidential – and by all parties. It seemed to me, in the midst of this global crisis that dominated every aspect of many people’s lives, that solidarity should be encouraged and not fault lines created across nations, class and generations. Especially, the latter surprised me. I hadn’t realized the fragility of our modern societal (and familial) structures, in which one is viewed essentially only in relation to the discretely – and discreetly! – numbered stages of one’s life.

Now, an inflammatory issue reemerges (as if it ever went away!) that is in some respects analogous; arising from a quite different circumstance but none the less still concerned with – in fact, springing from – the very murky, ill-defined logic that results from trying to neatly organize all the stages of a human life. I am speaking, of course, of the abortion debate in the US; heating up again following the Supreme Court leak that more than suggests an impending overturn of Roe v. Wade and the Court’s intention of sending abortion rights to the mercy and inconsistencies of state jurisdiction, and being fought with the usual ritualistic fervor.

As in those arguments surrounding measures to curb the pandemic, again, in respect to abortion rights, one is confronted with a situation that seemingly demands a value (of life) judgement. And to an even more radical degree. A complex matter, but one deserving of consideration.

One consideration may follow a scenario like this:

If a foetus is a life, when is it a life? And what value may be placed upon that life? Say, for instance, we take a 10-year-old child; one who may be expected to live for eighty more years; who may earn x amount in that period by some productive means (whereby the productivity is highly subjective and variable) and thereby contribute to society; who may themselves have x children; x grand-children. Is that child’s life more valuable than that of their parents with half of their life (therefore their productivity – in the widest sense, including giving life to this child) behind them, and even more so than that of their retired perhaps ailing grand-parents? Following this logic, does not a 10 week old foetus then have even greater potential, therefore greater worth? And in the preceding embryonic stage, more so again? Generally speaking, and particularly in terms of the latter stages of the argument, I would suggest that most reasonable people would find absurdity in the hypothesis.

(I recall a thought experiment being posed along the lines of: Say, a maternity clinic is on fire and there is the opportunity to save either a mother or a baby from the ward or a collection of IVF embryo cultures in a laboratory awaiting transfer. I cannot believe anyone’s inclination would be to first think about the embryos; our instinct seems to inform us as to what human life is – and it is not to be found in a Petri dish. And such was the unanimous result of the experiment.)

When things fall…

Catching up on some London Review of Books reading – with which I always seem to be in arrears, and which is not always my fault because continental Europe delivery from the island is somewhat tardy – I would very much commend Tom Stevenson’s excellent reportage (LRB Vol. 44 No. 7 · 7 April 2022) of the first weeks of the Ukraine war. Framed by his journey out of Poland, first to Lviv then Kyiv, and described with an observant eye for the landscape and the human elements of the catastrophe that has befallen this land, Stevenson doesn’t shy from the complexities of geo-politics and some of the more technical aspects pertaining to defense and military – strategy, equipment, etc.

With words familiar to me for reasons different but somehow the same – see this recent post – the title of Stevenson’s piece, “Things fall from the sky”, resonated, and came to be explained by this passage in which Stevenson describes his crossing into the eastern side of Kyiv:

[…] A two-chair barber shop in a corrugated metal shed at the side of the road had opened its doors under a sign that read: ‘Express haircuts: fast and quality. 60 hryvnia.’ Marina, the woman working there, was turning away the local babushkas: she only wanted to serve volunteers. She spoke Russian with a heavy Ukrainian accent. The barbershop had reopened one week into the invasion, she said, and it would stay open ‘until things start falling from the sky’. In fact, things were already falling from the sky. […]fragments of a Russian missile – shot down by Ukrainian air defences – had landed on a housing complex next to a nursery school. The crater at the foot of one of the tower blocks was about four metres across. […]
LRB Vol. 44 No. 7 · 7 April 2022

In my blog post that I refer to above, I was pondering – my thinking very much influenced by how it was that so very many clever people over a considerable amount of time failed to recognize Russia’s intentions – the Bruegel depiction of Icarus’ fall from the sky; an extraordinary event seemingly unattended by all and sundry, and here we have Stevenson’s Marina, representative of many of the inhabitants of Kyiv, trying as best she might to get on with her life but ever alert, waiting …

Tom Stevenson’s piece is dated 25th March. Since he wrote, the war has intensified, atrocities against civilians have been uncovered – in Bucha for instance. And, as I write now, both Mariupol and Kharkiv are devastated, as are any number of villages in the eastern and southern regions. Kyiv still stands and with it a nation and a legitimate government, and its allies – with ever more financial and military support (the latest package from the US: a mind-boggling $33 billion). The prospects of an end to warfare, even of a return to diplomacy, have evaporated I fear. But to whom does one talk? To Putin? I think not. I would welcome Stevenson’s reasoned voice again, even when anything said may quickly be overtaken by events.

Podcasting Ukraine

In the midst of a serious (and difficult in many respects) read of Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands (in German translation in my case), a just released Ezra Klein podcast popped up on my screen and lo and behold with the respected (and sometimes polarizing) Yale historian as guest. I usually listen to Ezra’s podcast via Apple or the NYT website, but the first is device dependent and the latter probably on subscription so here embedded is the Spotify version.

Ezra Klein in conversation with Timothy Snyder March 15 2022

Professionally, in the last weeks Ezra has found himself (and almost exclusively so) confronted with this heinous war of Vladimir Putin against the Ukrainian people. And, personally, he seems as moved to outrage as the most of us. It would be fair to say, foreign policy is not usually Ezra’s primary focus, but he is embracing it and probably learning along with his listeners. Also, I rather imagine, as a new second time father, Ezra is coming to terms not just with a present danger but one that will surely affect future generations.

This discussion with Snyder is only the most recent of a number of excellent podcasts released since the beginning of hostilities – including with other such qualified figures as Adam Tooze and Fiona Hill (who mentioned Bloodlands as a must read that offers some historical context to the current situation), and I expect there will be more to come.

Whether I will be able to find words to adequately describe the human and moral catastrophe with which one is faced in reading Bloodlands, I don’t know. What I do know is: Timothy Snyder would surely have not predicted, a dozen years after its publication, that – for all the wrong reasons – there would be a new readership for his book; people like me seeking some historical and cultural context for this war in the middle of Europe that is, at once, upon us and removed from us.

We have a situation …

In the wake of the February 24th 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ultimate rejection of reason (and of international law) which had been preceded by weeks of diplomatic initiative (and hectic) in response to the unpredictable and irrational arguments and demands of President Putin, the reality of a new situation now existing upon this continent has firmly taken hold in the hearts and minds of many here in Germany. A reality that has, in only a matter of days, seen this country abandon many of the principals – not always principled one has to say – which have guided its defense and security decision-making processes since (at least) the end of the Cold War and Reunification.

As one who has only lived in Germany during times of peace and relative economic and political stability – granted, often disturbed by, amongst other things: financial crises and economic fluctuations, contrary continental folk (EU) and even more contrary island folk (Brexit), populist politics, climate change, and during the last two years, the pandemic, but all seen as irritations of various degrees of magnitude that were all somehow manageable – I now find myself struggling with uncertainties and scenarios I had not previously entertained.

German angst is a stereotype of course, but even as such is strangely contagious. The abstract nature of distant conflicts can gain in nearness with every iteration of “just two flight hours from Berlin”. As though Kyiv was something other than two hours from Berlin last week, last year, in 2014 …

How often have I reacted with barely disguised annoyance at the prevalent rhetoric in Germany on any and all matters military, resplendent as they are in phrases such as “given our history…”, “never again …”, at the monumental hypocrisy of allowing an arms industry to arm the rest of the world but not themselves and of imposing sanctions against Russia’s territorial aggression whilst at the same time extending economic cooperation (and refusing to recognize the geopolitical implications!), and a willingness to accept the security afforded by the US presence at home but a reluctance to fulfill their role as ally abroad. And, sometimes my reaction took a milder turn; simply to accept that my socialization at the other end of the world (where “duck & cover” was an unknown exercise) made me less sensitive to “the near and constant dangers” – and hot air – of the Cold War, and my failure to accept the accompanying relief and good will at its end, and just quietly wondered aghast at the German “naivety”. In the last days that word has often been taken out of my mouth, as the belatedly self-reflective identification of a “certain naivety” has found wide echo in all corners of the political spectrum, the media and, seemingly, amongst the volk.

No, I didn’t want to be right about these things, and I didn’t want to write about these things – but maybe I will have to. Yes, there is some measure of guilt attached – too much time spent foraging about in this rarefied world that I have created for myself; a space that then seems, in times such as these, too constrained and inconsequential … or just plain too small.

Of late I have been watching (again!) the hit US political drama from the noughties, The West Wing. Years not so long gone one would think, but in terms of the radically changed (and changing) face of media delivery and consumption, seemingly from a distant epoch. (My viewing observations include: firstly, in style already dated perhaps, but not not necessarily in substance – the more things change, the more they stay the same; and, secondly, a veritable minefield of political incorrectness to be excavated – a playground for ‘woke’ warriors of whichever persuasion!) When all else fails and the proverbial shit hits the fan, Leo will say something along the lines of: “Excuse me, Mr. President, we have a situation”, and with Jed in tow, or vice versa, together they march – or à la Aaron Sorkin ‘walk & talk’ their way – to the closeted security of the “sit. room”. So, it may well be, when I need to have my say on any new and what CNN would refer to as developing situation, I’m to be found in my very own more domesticated version of the Sit(-ting) Room (accessible from the top menu).