Related to Christianity i.e. Orthodox in both Russia and Ukraine (effectively had their own schism), while Catholic Pope Francis takes the lead in calling out war (plus Russian Orthodox Priests down the food chain & Ecumenical Fener Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul).

It's not a 'good look' for Russian Orthodox Christianity which is presented as central to Russian identity; like other supposed 'Christian values' nations e.g. Hungary and Poland. However, increasingly most of the population do not practise and increasing numbers do not believe (but many oldies will vote for such perceived 'values', Govts. give financial support to Churches, hence, electorally important).

However, as we observe in Australia, Christian churches or more activists in media and politics, demand more rights and protections for themselves i.e. special treatment, but too often at the expense of another community (become very political).

Non mainstream Christians maybe good for a 'conservative' vote, but they are not very libertarian and too many maybe moral and ethical actors vs. following charismatic political and/or religious leaders?

Thanks Graham for your article. Kudos to a Cassandra.

Cassandra was fiction. Always right, never believed. No actual person can be always prescient. The most they can hope for is to temporarily insightful. Churchill's Cassandra moment occurred in the decade from 1933, recognising the threat from the rise of the Nazis and then that Britain alone stood in the way of the victory of darkness. (Roosevelt encouraged Churchill's bodyguard to protect him because he was the most important man in the world at that time).

(as an aside, the Dardanelles strategy devised by Churchill was sound and brilliantly conceived but incompetently implemented by the British General Staff not Churchill).

Graham write: "We're used to the rule of law: politics and lawfare rather than warfare.....yet Putin and his troops have piled on the massacres one after the other."

I have written here before that many people fail to see just how unique our period is in world history. Rulers from Sargon the Great to Peter the Great and all in-between, would have fully understood and concurred with what Putin is doing. Its only been the last 300 years or so, when British notions of the rule of law, human rights and the sanctity of all life have held sway that we saw laws to try to limit the worst impulses of nations.

Slavery is only frowned upon in the world because of the supremacy of the Anglosphere's way of viewing the world. Equally, open imperialism and the open slaughter of the enemy to achieve imperial aims, is only held in check in a world under the influence of British liberalism. The second that liberalism is no longer the dominant force in the world, will see the reappearance of imperial warfare, great nation rivalry, slaughter and slavery. Even now it can be argued that Putin's Ukrainian adventure is predicated on the notion that the US, so incompetently lead, is in decline and with it the power of the liberal world order and therefore Russia could revert to kind.

Unless the Anglosphere reasserts the primacy of the Liberal world order, expect to see many more Ukraines in the decades to come.

I've only just read Graham's article.
And I found it to be "inspiring," to say the least.
I also read what mhaze posted just recently. I
was equally impressed.

Sometimes people can and do suprise.
That's why I love the forum!

Thank You Graham - as editor.
And mhaze - on behalf of those who post here.

Both contribute a great deal.

mhaze- Kudos. I don't think that Graham Young was wrong- he was painting a picture- you just layered some clarity and context and relativism. I've been trying to say what you just said for a while but haven't been able to come up with the right words. Still Locke Liberalism has fundamental issues because it's based on profligacy- and so I would say that many aspects of the Liberal Order is based on Aristotle's seventh form of government that of rule of law- despite John Stuart Mill's- On Liberty as being the basis of so called modern views of freedom- and perhaps the associated John Locke the so called father of Liberal (Representative) Democracy. Aristotle (or as Paul1405 calls him Arsethrottle) probably believed in positive freedom/ virtue rather than Mill/ negative freedom. I suppose that Liberal Arts includes modern forms of Liberalism as a subset. Again Kudos mhaze.

"Attend, and possibly invent more secular ceremonies that commemorate the past......And let's all join the movement to reintroduce a modern form of the classical education – Socratic, stoic, and universal, exploring the true, the beautiful, and the good. Let's rediscover the meaning of citizenship"

Is this not what the Nazi's did, invent more secular ceremonies with 'torchlight processions' and rallies of the faithful. Was not Hitler searching for the greatness of a past Aryan Germany. Did not the philosophy of National Socialism allow for truth, beauty and all that is good, whilst rejecting all what was false, ugly and bad, as defined by the edicts of authority. Classical education, what, reading approved authors, burning the works of the unclean, whilst listening to Wagner. In this way the right people are idealised as good and wholesome citizens, the wrong people are cast out and eliminated.

In the wrong hands;

The only thing the "modern version" may lack is the uniforms, but I'm sure that would soon be remedied.