Most of us still look at the world through 20th century eyes. But it is already clear that the 21st century is very different from its predecessor. We must begin to look differently at the world; we must view Ukraine differently too.
Since 1991, the United States has been the world’s only superpower. But its hegemony is being challenged. Latin America defies us, while China acts independently and even harmfully. Southwest Asia and Africa are battlegrounds for the forces of radical anti-Western Islam. Even some European states resist American dominance. The challengers’ self-appointed champion is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which seeks to regain the fear and respect that its former superpower status once commanded.
Some would say these are understandable reactions to American pushiness. In his classic “Jihad vs. McWorld” (1995, 2001), Benjamin Barber argues that the global power of largely unregulated multinational corporations, many of them originating in the United States, provokes radical Islam, each feeding on the other in a relationship of unending mutual recrimination. Consequently, our government and its allies have been “protecting our interests” around the world with ceaseless violence. Ukrainian Americans generally approve of U.S. global interventionism because they believe it protects Ukraine. They also believe it furthers freedom and democracy. So, apparently, do many people in Ukraine.
To be sure, most Ukrainians look first to Europe. But Europe is in crisis – a crisis of liberal democracy, which seems unable to maintain its ideals in the face of a massive influx of mostly Islamic refugees from war-torn and poverty-stricken Asia and Africa, whose youthful and prolific masses threaten to overwhelm an infertile, aging native European population. While, historically, such migrants have assimilated to the higher culture of the receiving countries, Europe’s declining civilization seems to lack the strength to absorb them. As Myroslav Marynovych recently put it, “the wider paradigm in which the world has functioned up to now is becoming exhausted. Faith in the effectiveness of the modus vivendi that has existed until now is failing, but the formula for a new faith has not yet ripened.” (Marynovych, “Shcho vidbuvaietsia z nynishnim svitom?” Patriyarkhat, No. 4 [456], 2016, p. 10)
Why is liberal democratic Europe in decline? Some cite its detachment from its Judeo-Christian roots. Since the Enlightenment, it is argued, the logic of liberalism has led inevitably to a renunciation of Europe’s religious heritage. As in America, the secular state could function successfully only so long as its society remained committed to Christianity. But as secularism permeated the culture, society became morally disoriented. The expansion and multiplication of individual rights at the expense of responsibilities, and in defiance of moral norms and common sense, has created a culture in both Europe and the United States where personal rights trump the common good, and even truth itself. One controversial example is the redefinition of marriage and the family. Since the family is the basic building block of society, its reformulation will likely entail a profound social transformation; its disappearance would remove one more buffer between the state and the individual. That such redefinitions can result in new forms of oppression is an unsurprising paradox of a secular liberalism which, taken to its logical conclusions, contradicts itself. In a recent interview, conservative author George Weigel argued that today’s radically secularized form of liberalism ends with the destruction of belief in reason and the rule of law. (“Patriyarkhat,” No. 4 [456], 2016, pp. 7-9, at 8)
But leading the charge against secular liberalism is none other than Putinist Russia, incongruously wedded to traditions of Orthodox Christianity and atheistic Stalinism, followed by a motley throng of authoritarian demagogues, nationalist revanchists and religious fundamentalists.
So where in this bewildering picture do we find Ukraine? At first glance, it seems a mere footnote to the ongoing world narrative, a mostly flat indefensible territory inhabited by dreamers, some longing for a protective Russia that never was, others aspiring to a civilized Europe that no longer is. Doomed by geography to Russian hegemony, the Ukrainians persist in appealing to a West that largely ignores them, except as a source of cheap human and material resources, or as a diplomatic bargaining chip.
Yet Ukraine is also a microcosm of today’s world. It is a place of encounter between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, between the Latin and Byzantine-Slavonic cultural spheres, and among Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It is a proving ground where one can compare the effects of oligarchic, corporate, cooperative and individual capitalism. It is a vantage point for evaluating Russian authoritarianism and Western democracy. It is a socio-cultural arena where traditionalism competes with modernity. It is a haven for refugees from war and occupation. Ukraine is thus a laboratory where a “formula for a new faith” can be sought to replace the failed panacea of secular liberalism.
Mr. Marynovych believes that, to survive its encounter with Russia, Ukraine needs “a new civilizational alternative.” That requires “the mobilization of its own Ukrainian intellectual and spiritual resources.” (Marynovych, p. 12). What would this new paradigm look like? First of all, Ukrainians must find a coherent philosophical basis for their civil and political order. They could start by looking beyond the facile dichotomies of Left and Right, liberal and conservative, and seek the true aim of politics. Next, they need to rebalance nation, community and the individual. Other features suggest themselves: freedom and democracy not for their own sake but as means for the common good, solidarity and cooperation, as well as competition, responsible stewardship of nature and sustainable use of resources, the equitable distribution of means of production and opportunities for economic enterprise, and an economy based on human needs rather than consumerism. These are not new ideas, just good ideas that have been largely ignored. Ukrainians may come up with better ones. As long as they rely on their own intelligence and resources, they will find their way. They might even set an example for the West.