Regarding mental pathways: Where Ukrainians are going

It may be the case that my own mind is setting and hardening in its positions on all kinds of things, political and otherwise. I now routinely extrapolate from human cognitive biology, social behavior, moral philosophy and the limited current events and history I think I know and understand. It took years to get here, but here I am. 

In that vein, I am beginning to see striking similarities between my mental trip starting from defending rank and file Republicans and conservatives. I defended them because for decades they had been deceived, lied to, emotionally manipulated and taught to accept crackpot motivated reasoning as sound thinking. However, my sympathy decreased in the years after they elected Trump. Over time, his morally rotten, corrupt, mendacious personality became undeniably clear for all to see and understand. The same is now true about the moral rot that has radicalized and corrupted the old Republican Party. Now, I don't see large differences in culpability between the elite Republican propagandists, manipulators and betrayers and the rank and file who are deceived, manipulated and betrayed. 

Another society looks to be undergoing a similar mindset shift. This one is happening fast and going farther, into real hate. The affected minds are cooking in a pressurize cauldron of war, death and destruction. The New York Times writes:

Much of the bitterness is directed at President Vladimir V. Putin, but Ukrainians also chastise ordinary Russians, calling them complicit.

Trapped in his apartment on the outskirts of Kyiv during fierce battles over the weekend, the well-known Ukrainian poet Oleksandr Irvanets composed a few lines that encapsulated the national mood.

“I shout out to the whole world,” he wrote in a short poem published online by his fans, who have since lost touch with the writer and were worried that he may have fallen behind Russian lines. “I won’t forgive anyone!”

If there is one overriding emotion gripping Ukraine right now, it is hate.

It is a deep, seething bitterness for President Vladimir V. Putin, his military and his government. But Ukrainians are not giving a pass to ordinary Russians, either, calling them complicit through years of political passivity. The hatred is vented by mothers in bomb shelters, by volunteers preparing to fight on the front lines, by intellectuals and by artists. 

The emotion is so powerful it could not be assuaged even by an Orthodox religious holiday on Sunday intended to foster forgiveness before Lent. Called Forgiveness Sunday, the holiday is recognized in both the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches.

And this hatred has overwhelmed the close personal ties between two Slavic nations, where many people have family living in both countries. 

Billboards have gone up along roadsides in gigantic block letters, telling Russians in profanity-laced language to get out. Social media posts in spaces often shared by Russians and Ukrainians have been awash in furious comments.

Some Ukrainians have posted pictures of people killed in the military assault in Russian chat rooms on the Telegram app. They have vented by writing on the reviews pages for websites of Moscow restaurants.

And they have been mocking Russians in scathing terms for complaining about hardships with banking transactions or the collapsing ruble currency because of international sanctions.

“Damn, what’s wrong with Apple Pay?” Stanislav Bobrytsky, a Ukrainian computer programmer also trapped in the fighting around the capital, Kyiv, wrote sarcastically about how Russians are responding to the war. “I cannot pay for a latte in my favorite coffee shop.”  

Many Ukrainians chastise Russians for increasingly accepting middle-class comforts afforded by the country’s oil wealth in exchange for declining to resist limits on their freedoms. They blame millions of Russians, who Ukrainians say gave up on the post-Soviet dreams of freedom and openness to the West, for enabling the war.

I clearly see the mental pathway that many Ukrainians are on. They are learning to hate. That's a pathway I am on. I'm not at the point of hate, but it is in sight. 

The intensity of my negative emotions and feelings toward the elites in the Republican Party is significantly greater than for the rank and file. The elites are the deceivers, irrational manipulators and betrayers. The ranks and file are the deceived, irrationally manipulated and betrayed. They're just not the same. Not yet at least. The time could come when they merge into one. 

Can the Ukrainian people be blamed for where the their mental pathway took them? Can Americans be blamed for taking a pathway similar to mine about some of our fellow Americans?

Ukrainians in Kyiv last week making incendiary bombs 

to be used against Russian forces

Ukrainian volunteers in intense military intelligence, 

first aid and weapons training