OPINION:
The invasion of Ukraine has turned out to be pretty good television and excellent media content. Ratings for both cable and network news have increased dramatically.
No doubt some of that is part of the legacy of local news: If it bleeds, it leads. No doubt some people have gotten bored with the endless emphasis on COVID-19, former President Donald Trump, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia or whatever and are happy to have something else on which to focus.
But there is more than that to our uniform obsession with the invasion of Ukraine.
The simple truth is that the invasion and the resistance are the stuff of myth; they confirm the validity of the West’s religious, cultural and moral codes. They also provide a powerful, obvious and visceral counterpoint to what has been a generational effort in much of the English-speaking world to deconstruct those codes and marginalize those who live by them.
The men of Ukraine have been what the codes of behavior and expectations encourage and promise they will be: brave, resourceful, resolute. Without hesitation (and in most cases without training), they have taken up arms to protect their families, towns and nation.
The women have been resilient and fearless, caring for their families, neighbors and loved ones, and oftentimes making the long journey to safety with their children and elderly relatives.
Their leader has been resolute and, at times, seems like a wartime president sent from central casting. In the first days of the war, his statement to the Americans who wanted him to leave Ukraine (“I don’t need a ride. I need ammunition.”) sounded like it was written for John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart. He is a man who has been called to greatness by this time and in this place. He has responded manfully (if we are still allowed to use that adverb).
There has been no talk about heteronormative patriarchy, toxic masculinity or historical and systemic oppression of whomever. The carnival barkers who intrude everywhere in our society have been driven to silence by the ongoing demonstration of the virtues they generally and loudly despise.
Having been exposed daily to what an actual existential threat looks like, no one has put the phrases “climate change” and “existential threat” together, not even our president. There is a newfound appreciation for the importance of energy that works on-demand, as well as a clear-eyed understanding that if you are reliant on other nations for fundamental commodities such as food and oil and natural gas, you may not be as independent as you think you are.
Now that people fully understand what a trigger is and what it leads to, there have been mercifully few mentions of being triggered or trigger warnings or any of that nonsense.
In short, we seem to be in the middle of an outbreak of maturity and rational thought, courtesy of the Ukrainians.
There is no doubt that when this war is over, Americans will retreat into their trivialities; our “educational” system and the media virtually guarantee it. The good news is, however, that we have now seen and know that the values and virtues upon which this civilization is built remain; that they endure. That efforts to ignore, alter or minimize them are, in fact, themselves trivial.
That should be a source of great comfort to all of us.
Recently, the Ukrainian foreign minister alerted his Russian counterpart: “There is no purgatory for war criminals.” They go straight to hell.
Whatever else you might think about that, it is a remarkable thing to say in the early 21st century. Not only does it come down squarely on the correct side of the theological question of purgatory, but it also betrays a willingness to identify actions and people as good or evil, right or wrong, and to say so with clarity.
We could all use more of that, which is probably why this war at this time and in this place has captured our imagination.
• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is the co-host of “The Unregulated” podcast. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House.
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