There are limits to what any of us can do to help any others of us. In Plato’s “Theaetetus,” Socrates says “I am like the midwife, in that I cannot myself give birth to wisdom”; and he then says, “The many admirable truths which they bring to birth have been discovered by themselves from within.” Our law schools are supposed to base their pedagogy on the Socratic method, whose applicability to real life situations might not always appear very great. That people cannot always argue their way to the establishment of abiding truths may be seen with the great eloquence of speechifying in Congress in the years leading up to our Civil War.
It is said ours is a system of competing interests. And, it can help to know the entire economy of our southern states was founded on the institution of chattel slavery. One should not discount the importance of things like mechanical dishwashers, washing machines and dryers in people’s liberation from different kinds of servitude.
In the vast complexity of interconnected things it can be hard to know where any of us might begin to make a difference for good. It may help to bear in mind some simple skills in navigating interpersonal differences. For example, two people can practice the following discipline: Person A can say to Person B “What you don’t understand about me is this,” and Person B can respond “What I heard you say is that.” They can then go back and forth until Person A can agree that Person B has understood them. Undertaking such work, that does not require financial expense, can assist in allowing trust between Persons A and B.
Most of us here have little sense of what makes people in the Kremlin tick. It might seem easier to understand if they would only let us. I believe they may fear annihilation in the event we should actually understand them. In this sense, I would argue it is eventually impossible to avoid crossing Russia’s red lines. We can only begin by learning to respect both the Kremlin’s fears and ours.
Mary Hall
South Hadley