"brutalized and brutalizing"

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/the-russian-way-of-brutality/

Rich Lowry essentializes modern Russian culture as "brutalized and brutalizing" in his recent piece in National Review.

I get the temptation. But to be fair:

1. Humans of all kinds are capable of both monstrous cruelties and remarkable acts of kindness.

2. Americans can be pretty darn efficient killing machines, too: ask the people of Dresden and Nagasaki. Worse than any city in Ukraine so far, and I hope it stays that way.

3. A lot of the cruel S*Bs mentioned in his article and the thread that accompanied it were not, in fact, Russians. That includes the worst of the bunch, Joseph Stalin, a Georgian. Ivan the Terrible had Greek, Serbian, Hungarian, and Mongol grandparents or ancestors. Beria was Georgian. Lenin was a mutt.

4. Yes, Russia has landed in a rut, thanks in no small part to communist culture. The US could also have been nicer after the fall of the USSR. (See my article Pray for Russia, Too at the Stream.) Yes, the brutality of the Russian army no doubt derives from the brutality of Vlad the Invader. Culture perks down.

5. Russia has also given the world a LOT of great stuff. Simply ignoring or dismissing their contributions is narrow and counter-productive.

6. We're all sailing one vessel: we have to find a way to get along. (In that Stream article, compare the present situation to working, in my youth, on a Soviet fishing vessel with Russians and Ukrainians.)

7. We should keep seriously thinking about those thousands of Russian nukes. One talks more carefully with a madman with a bomb, than with a random madman. Bombast is not helpful right now.

Demonizing Russian culture is not the path forward. Even if we merely want to shame them, it is better to hold up the most glorious aspects of their culture to do so, not talk self-righteously as if they were some tribe of sub-humans.

None of us has clean fingers, in the broad historical view. We can be patriotic, without being self-righteous.