An amazing aspect of the crisis is that something reminded the West it’s the West—more than a geographic entity but a certain shared history and political traditions, a certain shared human experience, even some shared commitments. So they stood together—a unified Europe. Who would have guessed that would happen? Not Mr. Putin. And maybe not a lot of Westerners.

The reaction is international, and you know this not only from the United Nations General Assembly vote condemning Russia, with only four other dissenters. A friend, an immigrant from Central America, a working woman here 20 years, said wonderingly, “I can’t stop watching.” She meant the video from Ukraine of the explosions, the refugees. She was a child when the Cold War ended, has no special investment in European history, no ties to Ukraine, yet the story has wholly engaged her, and she knows who the bad guy is.

All immigrants understand what it is to flee, to be in the crowded conveyance with the kids crying. And we are a world of immigrants.

But also maybe what’s different in this story is a lot of people would be taken aback that we all still have normal human emotions. Most of the forces of modern life tend toward the synthetic, the presentational—virtual feelings and enactments. And yet here we are, feeling something.