The Three Rs

This is one of many notes that missed the basket, metaphorically. There is no actual basket. There is a folder named The Basket in the Documents section on This Computer. Lots of stuff goes in there: essays I don't want to show you because they don't satisfy my inner critic, old notions that may have been useful at the time but have proven wrong or irrelevant as circumstances changed and I got older.  What went in the basket may yet prove useful. I don't revisit the basket often. When I do, it reminds me of past choices so next choices might be better informed. There is a paragraph in the basket about the three Rs (Respect, Restraint, Reciprocity), a thought which I offer here as a cure for what ails the world.

Not all baskets are waste baskets. When we were kids, the family stopped at The Red Rooster in Guelph on the way to the beach at Port Elgin. [I was wrong. It was the Green Rooster according to the Guelph museum] Our default menu choice was Chicken-in-a-Basket. What went in the basket was the good stuff, chicken and fries. Can't say for sure, but I think there was a side salad that didn't go in the basket. Protein, salt, fat and carbs in the basket, greens on the side: that was the nutritional wisdom on which I was raised. The world has moved on. We now live in Guelph and there are restaurants where the basket is all raw veg, nuts and seeds, kimchi, hummus and guacamole, and the good stuff without all the fiber and vitamins is missing. Some folks go there. Seventy years ago, those places would have closed after the first week. Wisdom evolves and some folks live longer. Please pass the guac. I'm not ready to die.

Which brings me to imperialism, specifically Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We may not have noticed, but imperialism never left the menu and we have all been indulging as if that were the only thing on offer. We avoid calling it imperialism to quiet the objection of those who suspect that imperialism causes cultural senility and has no future. Yet it remains on the menu and this place is still open for business and Putin eats here. I wonder, can we get a side order of the three Rs: Respect, Restraint and Reciprocity? 

I am not a historian. I fill my basket from the Google buffet.
Robert D. Kaplan, In Defense of Empire, The Atlantic, 2014.
An opposing opinion: The Failure of Imperialism by John Michael McGrath published in his blog. 
The Wikipedia article on Imperialism: more than I want to know.

P.S.
The lessons we haven't learned on the international level are yet to be learned on the species level. Humanity is an aggressive imperialist as regards other species and the physical world. Our waste basket is a planet full of the detritus generated by our consumption and growth. Belonging to the biosphere with Respect, Restraint and Reciprocity, we could yet find a way forward if we aren't ready for extinction.