Wars in Europe indicated a failure of intelligence and adaptability in political leadership. That is not surprising in an era of marketing products and people as products. pre-Socratic philosophers were not so superficial. In an age that believes itself wise because of scientific knowledge and quite assertive about rights and litigation, arguments and eros as a matter of course it isn't a paradox that politicians have no interest in understanding an opponent's viewpoint on issues; a necessary step toward avoiding conflict.
"... men know not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they do in sleep."- Heraclitus
Heraclitus sought the nature of what exists as a philosophical inquiry. His ideas arrived at monism and apparently he regarded pluralism as contingent being. Russian, Ukrainians want the same things concerning land- to own it, yet for politicians owning land or territory is an absolute and exclusive concern that precludes reason from the social process of adjudication.
Heraclitus stresses the unity of opposites. One of his edifying fragments providing an example of the concept is "Changing; it rests". Politicians should invoke the intelligence of changing the criterion to unify opponents in peace- the new synthesis. Heraclitus also wrote (B12) "Upon those who step into the same rivers different and again different waters flow".
Plainly peace is preferable to war and prosperity to poverty. A healthy environment is better than a sick polluted one and everyone involved loses much time when somewhat equally balanced military conflicts occur in a protracted paradigm lasting years. If reason and problem solving can end conflicts in a way that belligerents can live with that would better serve the world economy and even wholistic, non-partisan ideas of justice.
Heraclitus had several tings to say about opposites merging into the One at some level. One could take that as God creating quarks, fields, mass and virtual energy in an apparent vacuum and allowing energy and mass to take form...though temporal configurations change it, or evolve it as some prefer to say, the process is God's and that which exist is comparatively like a dream.
Russia and Ukraine could have an armistice in place and a race for the political powers to create a plan and discover finance to rebuild all areas of the conflict with a fifty mile wide D.M.Z. and free trade zone roughly divided in half between Ukraine and Russia. Ingenuity and finding ways to expedite peace and prosperity should transpire rather than to allow the visage of Mordor and Doom cloud the land.
Heraclitus said; "The road up and the road down are the same." and "The beginning and the end are common on the circumference of a circle." Those without ossified brains should be able to learn something from Heraclitus.
Heraclitus saw unity through the pluralism evident in all things; "though at variance with itself, it agrees with itself. It is a backwards turning attunement like that of the bow and the lyre". In that he could have been speaking of day and night- different phases of the diurnal solar cycle.
There is a free MOOC course available from which the quotes of Heraclitus were sourced for this post. It's here... https://www.coursera.org/learn/plato?
Ancient Philosophy: Plato & His Predecessors
Heraclitus' Fragments B1
B1 (Sextus Empiricus, Against the mathematicians, VII, 132):
"Though this Word is true evermore, yet men are as unable to understand it when they hear it for the first time as before they have heard it at all. For, though, all things come to pass in accordance with this Word, men seem as if they had no experience of them, when they make trial of words and deeds such as I set forth, dividing each thing according to its nature and showing how it truly is. But other men know not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they do in sleep."
B54 (Hippolytus, Refutation of all heresies, IX, 9, 5):
The unseen harmony is better than the visible.
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