The Solution to Zelensky's Ethical Rubik's Cube*

*This post, first published at 2:40 pm, Dec. 9, has been substantially updated with a screenshot inadvertently omitted from the original and by additional commentary such that, in the poster’s opinion, it should be republished with the additional material at the stamped time.

The plot context for this is so baroque that it obfuscates the solution. These are the words of Yuriy Chuiko, the disgraced, imprisoned, death-faked, exiled Prime Minister of Ukraine at a debate where Vasya Goloborodko and Dmitry Surikov were to appear. At Dmitry's behest Yuriy is flown in to appear for Dmitry. After revealing the truth, that Vasya, with a corrupt act, got Yuriy released from prison; after listening to former candidates salivating over the red meat of Vasya, Yuriy delivers the following ethical mini-lecture:

                                             I.e. there are different truths. There is no Truth. Not all lies are the same. And, a corrupt person like Yuriy can still tell the truth. An honest person, Vasya, can still lie. WE ALL TRUTH-TELL, and, WE ALL LIE!

                            ("RESORT". Fucking swine translator.)

 

 

                                                          (Olya attempted to double-cross Dmitry, got double-crossed by him, and sits with Vasya's team.)

 

 

 

 

In previous commentary I dismissed as absurd President Goloborodko's practical moral philosophy that "A head of state must never lie". Lying for the sake of the nation--hell yes!...Usually. Lying for your own personal benefit--Depends. Usually not as moral. I wrote that the "slippery slope" argument was facile, that it denied human agency in the judgment whether to stay on the slope or jump off. And here is Yuriy, Yuriy (!) making the argument that a lie is NOT a lie is not a lie, and the truth is NOT the whole truth or even the best choice sometimes. Turn the cube once more: Is Yuriy's truth-telling completely altruistic? See, we are learning. We are learning by just asking the question. (Through this episode, I now forget the number, Yuriy is telling the truth without self-interest.)

 

"CRUCIFY".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ethical solution: there is no solution; there are solutions. There is no truth; there are truths.

                                                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I scent an imprecise translation in "masochists." Maybe "self-destructive.")

Vasya described the Ukrainian people in his IMF speech in similar, but opposite terms. "We are a nation of open-minded, intelligent and talented people." Both. BOTH! Ukrainians are both masochists and open-minded, intelligent and talented. BOTH! Corrupt liars and honest public servants. They are human. God is the collective conscience of mankind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the first time in this monologue on Dialogue Zelensky has the camera pan to the audience. Recall Abraham Lincoln's appearance bedside on the evening of Goloborodko's first inaugural address; Recall Lincoln's second inaugural address. God gave to "both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came." We the People were responsible for the Civil War. We in the North, who would tolerate slavery just not its expansion, and those in the South who would sustain it and expand it. Lincoln did not spare the people of the North, or himself, as "those by whom the offense came"; Zelensky as Goloborodko never spares the people of Ukraine, which includes him, from fault for corruption. He holds a mirror to them as well as to himself.

 

 

                                        

("Sick"? Could be. "Thick," could be thick, too.)

For emphasis Yuriy hits the podium, figuratively the heads of the people of Ukraine, two or three more times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven time he says "truth" or versions. Five different truths.

This is high practical moral philosophy, ladies and gentlemen.