Iconoclasms Op-Ed advises Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

The Unthinkable Option

No, Reader, not that Unthinkable Option- not the one you’re thinking about already. The Unthinkable Option I’m recommending to Vladimir Putin here is that he renounce his political office and become a Pacifist monk. Not a Russian Orthodox Church monk, or any other institution that subordinates the teachings of Christ to crude geopolitics. Earlier than that, to original primitive Christianity, like Leo Tolstoy, truest and most great-hearted Russian prophet of the Christian way. Isn’t it strange, that Russia has such an example of pacifism in its intellectual culture that the West can’t match? I don’t buy the line that Vladimir Putin is Hitler, and therefore beyond redemption. William McKinley is more like it- an imperialist and militarist, to be sure, but not entirely the worst Chief Executive that the US has ever had, and certainly not in the same league as Adolf Hitler as a historical villain. I get how Putin must be insulted by that comparison, which has obtained so much currency in the intellectually lazy foreign popular media.

To return: Vladimir, this will require giving up the benefits of high political office, and much of your accumulated material wealth. It will be worth it. You have the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of Leo Tolstoy, rather than an egotistical second-rate courtier like Mayakovsky. You can surpass the achievement of the great pacifist of Buddhism, the Indian Emperor Ashoka, who renounced the ways of war on the battlefield. Ashoka renounced war in a vow of remorse after emerging victorious in the conquest of Kalinga. It is perhaps not as nearly as great an achievement to turn against war in the aftermath of victory as it is to call a war off in the middle of hostilities. For you to do so, Vladimir Putin, would provide you with a legendary status far beyond that which you might have ever imagined. The worst of your adversaries would be utterly confounded by such a bold step, a decision that they could never anticipate. I suspect that you have a unique perspective on some of the aspects of the current situation to know that better than I.

Or, you could continue down the path of Raskolnikov.

Beware the unconscious drives of humans- in the absence of transcendent moral standards, we’re a treacherous lot. One of our poets, Alia Johnson, wrote of that Shadow back in 1981, with a warning garbed as mockery, in the ironic detachment of the naively self-absorbed:

WHY WE SHOULD DROP THE BOMBS

it would be so exciting

it would be so powerful

it would punish us for our sins

things wouldn’t be so boring anymore

we could get back to basics

we would remember who we love

it would be so loud

it would be so hot

the mushroom clouds would rise up

we could start over

we wouldn’t have to be afraid of it anymore

we wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore

we would finally have done it

better than Raskolnikov

it would release our anger

in the ultimate tantrum

then we could rest

Alia Johnson (Poem published in CoEvolution Quarterly magazine letters, Fall 1981.)

Another CEQ letter, addressed “to all editors”, Summer 1981:

You don’t win by killing, because they kill you back. You don’t win by growing, because you grow too big, and fall over. You don’t win by spending, because you spend too much, leaving only the percentage which is either stolen or imaginary. You don’t win by winning, but by living.

Sincerely, David Wann, Indian Hills, Colorado

Poem and letter both reprinted from page 88 of the CEQ article compilation 1974-1984; News That Stayed News. I found them appended to the Spring 1977 article “How To Run The Arms Race Backward”, by Stewart Brand. (the first step: everybody has to want to do it.)

Well, that’s about all for now, Prime Minister. It looks like your rumored aliments aren’t the imminent crisis that they were made out to be in some American press reports, and that rumors of your impending demise are exaggerated. I wish you good health. Tomorrow is your 70th birthday. May the passage of years confer wisdom on you and your future decisions. May you one day get thrown another stick to chase, and just keep on running. Just to show Pavlov who’s boss.

P.S. Please don’t murder me, man. I don’t want to murder you. I’m pretty close to ground zero. So are we all. Whether we realize it or not.