Why do we admire Volodymyr Zelenskyy?

The question is almost self -answering.

We admire him because, compared to unequal probabilitystands the president of Ukraine.

Because it proves the truth of the saying that a person with courage does more.

Because it shows that honor and love for the country are virtues that we renounce at our own peril.

Because it captures the power of personal example and Physical form.

Because he knows how words can inspire actions, give them shape and purpose, so that the actions, in turn, claim the meaning of the words.

We admire Zelensky because he reminded us how rare these qualities have become in our own politicians.

Zelensky was an actor who used his celebrity to become a statesman.

Western politics is being attacked by people who act like statesmen to eventually become celebrities.

Zelensky made sure to tell the Ukrainians the harsh truth that the war was likely to escalate, and to rebuke the so -called supporters that their words were hollow and their support lacking.

Our leaders are primarily experts at telling people what wants to listen.

We admire Zelensky for who and what he is up against.

Vladimir Putin it does not represent a nation or a cause, just a totalitarian ethos.

The Russian dictator defended the idea that truth exists to serve power, not the opposite, and that politics is focused on making propaganda for those who swallow it and imposing fear on those who don’t.

Ultimately, the purpose of this idea is not just to seize power or territory.

It is the removal of consciousness.

We admire Zelensky because he put the idea of ​​the free world back in its rightful place.

The free world is not a cultural expression, as in “West”; or a security concept, as in NATO; or an economic description, as in the “developed world.”

Membership in the free world belongs to any country that agrees to the notion that the power of the state is first and foremost to protect individual rights.

And it is the responsibility of the free world to help and defend any of its members from the threat of aggression and tyranny.

How it is in Ukraine, will eventually be in the rest of us.

We admire Zelensky because he contains two great Jewish archetypes:

David faces Goliath and Moses faces Pharaoh.

Is he sneaky loser who, by skill and intellect, had compensated for the lack of his fear and strength.

And he was the prophet who rose up against the humiliation and imprisonment of his people, and was determined to lead them through trials into a political culture based on self -determination, freedom and ethics.

We admire Zelensky because he resists.

Fighting should not be a virtue in civilized societies that value dialogue, diplomacy, and compromise.

but the world not always civilized:

there are things that civilized people and nations must prepare to fight if they do not want to perish.

Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people reminded the rest of the independent world that a liberal and democratic heritage which its citizens forbade threatened to seize at the will of its enemies.

We admire Zelensky because he awakens the best angels of our nature.

His leadership was made Joe Biden a better president, Germany a better country, NATO a better alliance.

It removed most of the United States isolationist stupor where he gradually falls.

It forced the political and business classes in Europe to stop looking in a different direction at Russia’s descent into fascism.

He reminded free societies that there may still be a important center in politics, and at least when it comes to things that matter.

We admire Zelensky because he maintains a sense of human proportion typical of a democratically elected leader.

Consider the difference between his public encounters with journalists, cabinet members, foreign leaders, and ordinary citizens, and the Stalinist antics of Putin’s court.

In the pageants of Russian power we see the human smallness who exercises it:

the paranoia and insecurity of a despot who knows that one day he will have to sell his kingdom for a horse.

We admire Zelensky because he models what a man should be:

wonderful without being wonderful; confident without being rude; clever without pretending to be infallible; sincere rather than cynical; courageous not because he is not afraid, but because he moves forward with a clear conscience.

Young Americans in particular, grew up with ridiculous ideas of what masculinitythey should be guided by his example.

We admire Zelensky because he hopes that our own chaotic democracy can choose leaders who can inspire us, honor us, and even save us.

Perhaps we can do this when it is not too late as it is now for the people of Ukraine and their relentless leader.

c.2022 The New York Times Company