How much should we empathize with the unjustly affected in the world? Is it okay to empathize with some more than others? Should we let empathy drive our behavior more than other emotional or reasoned factors? How do we empathize and what does it mean to empathize without action?The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has led to an outpouring of public empathy.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces at the end of last month has spawned an industry of think pieces. Comparisons to historic events, times, people, and peoples have been a useful, if not fraught means of attempting to explain something which to most people under 40 seems unexplainable. The End of History, the oft scoffed at thesis of Francis Fukuyama, has well and truly been put to bed. T

The outbreak of ground war between two industrialized states on European soil marks the return of history. Russia’s bucking of international trends and perceived order allows for a real life example of practice in the theories of international relations built and developed since the end of the second world war. The conflict over prevailing thought between realists and liberals has waged on with mostly hypotheticals and tangential ‘proofs’ offered by each side.

How does the interplay of nationalism and pride undercut the ability to think critically about history. Can one be patriotic while still accepting abhorrent acts by those in the nation who came before us? In December, The International Review of Law, an academic journal, published a paper online by the Harvard economist J. Mark Ramseyer in which he called the victims of Japanese rape and torture “prostitutes.” T

The view of history often falls into the trope of unstoppable progress forward. President Obama often referenced being on the “right side of history” even quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in saying that the “arc of history” bends towards justice. While from a cursory glance, this view feels right, we live today in a more stable, just, and safe world than we did just a century earlier. It also lacks the perspective in how fragile progress and justice can actually be