History is neither a refuge nor an alibi. It is a mirror. And within it, every human being stands alone, confronted with their own actions. No order cancels conscience; no authority nullifies responsibility. If there is hope for a world without violence, it will not arise from the heights of power, but from the refusal of the individual to become the hand that carries it out. There, in the single person’s “no,” begins the true rupture with the history of barbarism.
In yesterday’s text Diotima, in her response regarding the soldier who decides to wear khaki and, if necessary, to fight, writes:
“It is often a being trapped:in mechanisms of power,in social and economic necessities,in ideologies implanted in him since childhood,in fear (of death, punishment, exclusion from the community).
History indeed does not easily absolve—but neither does it simplify things to the point of placing the entire burden on the last link in the chain.
If there is something dangerous in your text, it is this:that it transfers the main responsibility from systems and authorities to the individual who stands at the lowest level of power.
And yet:wars are not started by sergeants,decisions are not made in the trenches,the ‘Trumps’ and the ‘Putins’ (to use your symbolic language) would not exist without the structures that produce and sustain them.
That is where the center of the problem lies.”
History, Diotima, does not grant indulgences. The heart of History—which is not primarily and solely historiography, but judgment and critique—beats in individual responsibility. It does not forgive crimes because they were carried out by those executing orders rather than those giving them. It distinguishes perpetrators and victims. Agents and the murdered. Regardless of titles and forms of address.
This is precisely why we categorically and with revulsion refuse to adopt the misleading and, above all, ahistorical view that “the center of the problem” is Trump and Putin, and not the “sergeant” in Iran and Ukraine . Paranoid and bloodthirsty leaders are the “drunken” drivers of a cart pulled by young, strong, and tamed horses—exactly in the sense of the ancient Greek word alogos: one without reason, without mind and logic. The “sergeant,” in this case.
War, repression, captivity—in the end, violence—is exercised from below upward. By hands. The head commands; it does not take part in the clash. It observes from above, safely, and directs the struggle, which is carried out, however, by the “willing” and strong hands. And it is these hands that hold the swords and shed blood.
“Trapped in mechanisms of power, in social and economic needs, in ideologies implanted in him,” as Diotima says—was not the Nazi also such a case? The ordinary German next door who set fires in the school in Kalavryta to burn children alive? Was he too a victim of Hitler? Shall we grant him absolution as a victim of implanted ideologies, as Diotima suggests? Let her grant it. We will not commit such a crime of acceptance and endorsement. The Nazi “sergeant” is 100% a perpetrator, a criminal. And so is his Russian or American counterpart—today and in the past.
Let the myth of shifting responsibility from top to bottom end. Let it not continue in these days of the new revolution proclaimed by Artificial Intelligence. Let it not regurgitate and reproduce the same old mantra of the “priesthoods” of power. The “dirty work” is done by those who carry out orders. Never by those who give them. Their hands are always clean of the blood shed by the direct perpetrator. They are not even accused as moral accomplices. At most, they accept… political responsibility! They do not kill, they do not imprison with their own hands. The “legitimate violence” is exercised… by others. In the name of those who produce and impose the law.
Even if the historian wanted to agree with Diotima, he would fall into contradiction. For there stands the OTHER—the different one, the one who does not obey murderous orders. How can you justify yourself before those who embody self-awareness, responsibility, empathy, and reason? Before the one who refuses to serve destruction, to shed blood, to enslave the innocent?
Socrates of Plato—whether real or not—indeed the philosopher of ancient Athens himself, who created him, has no justification when he not only accepts racism and discrimination but praises slavery. And let later interpreters of Platonic harshness rush to justify it as a pathology of that era, something the philosopher could not easily reject, using the convenient historical tool: “we judge with the eyes of that time, not our own.”
Such ahistorical views are overturned by the also ancient king of Sparta, Nabis, when a few years after Socrates he declares that there are no slaves and masters, no men and women, no poor and rich. And he puts this into practice. He frees all helots, distributes land equally among citizens, appoints a WOMAN as head of the Spartan army. And he leaves the Roman consul Flamininus astonished, unable to comprehend the thinking and behavior of the… communist (!) Spartan, when he asks him:
“How is it possible, king, that you overturn the natural order with all this? That you consider slaves and women as human beings, that you give equal bread to all?”
Only to receive the famous reply of the proud revolutionary:“Better leave it, consul. Even if I explain it, you will not understand. Live in your world, and I in mine.”
What can Socrates answer to Nabis? And what about the poor man who refuses to hold a baton and a gun, or to wear khaki and carry a weapon for pay? Across the pages of History march armies of conscious, everyday people—not necessarily heroes—who refuse to serve violence in any form, against the beliefs of their time and the “herd” of their fellow humans, who do not possess such sensitivities of personal responsibility.
What can you answer to such voices while adopting Diotima’s view that “not everyone can rise to this height—and that does not automatically make them equally guilty as those who plan and give orders,” as she wrote yesterday?
THE SERGEANT IS GUILTY, DIOTIMA—JUST THE SAME. AS IS TRUMP WHO ORDERED HIM TO DROP BOMBS ON IRAN. AND HE DID NOT REFUSE! HISTORY DOES NOT DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THEM IN THE RESPONSIBILITY EACH BEARS.