President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes that Ukraine and its allies are very close to the moment when Russia can be forced to end or at least halt the war, but this would require the United States to impose tough sanctions on Russia.
There’s just one thing that Russians really lack - understanding of the importance of truth.
Now that is a universal human trait.
For an American or a German it takes belief in a propaganda device to follow it. For a Russian - just acceptance that it’s likelier to be better in some way.
Americans don’t believe in, whatnot, manifest destiny, their exceptionalism, they live it. Germans certainly don’t believe in classism, yet we’re living it. Generally speaking: The stuff that people are actually following is not found on the propaganda level, but on a level below that, on a cultural carrier wave so to speak. Why propagandise something that people are doing, anyway? Doesn’t make sense.
No. Just the belief that there’s some deeper grey wisdom, a secret, and you’d be an idiot to just give yourself to some specific idea.
That’s just bug-standard metamodernism collapsed into fascism, that is, regressed into modernism. Just to explains terms: Modernism is the age of grand ideas, “one true path to absolve humankind”, while postmodernism is the “yo all that stuff is BS anyway we don’t know shit”. You see those forces oscillating throughout history, metamodernism means their co-existence.
That belief might very well what people are telling themselves, but it’s a shallow analysis. The “deeper grey wisdom” (interesting that you used “grey” btw, “it must be ancient” – why?) is Snokhachestvo, and not the practice itself but the cultural attitudes that enable(d) it. Russia made some progress overcoming that shit, e.g. normalising nuclear families instead of communal ones (the one crucial achievement of the USSR), but the underlying cultural beliefs stay uninterrogated, able to perpetuate themselves. Thus men do to their sons what their fathers did to them, think that’s what being a man is all about, and if you don’t use whatever power and might you have to be cruel, you’re obviously gay. Like Europe.
That is what I meant with “a belief in might makes right”.
A whole country of cynics thinking they know better.
Germany has 80 million national football team trainers. There seems to be a pattern here: Declaring universal human traits as specifically Russian. Those traits are true, no doubt, but they’re not unique.
That’s not how central power functioned back then, and what happens now is a mafia group gratuitously using its vast human resources to just have fun.
It didn’t? The Tsar and the viceroys, plundering the country and living the good life. The General Secretariat or even Secretary and the Nomenklatura, plundering the country and living the good life. “Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others”. In either case, highly authoritarian societies, with varying levels of totalitarianism. Such a setup requires cruelty and ruthlessness, and there’s no shortage of either because, according to Russian culture throughout the ages, good fathers make sure that their sons are strong men by raping the son’s wife. Metaphorically speaking, at least: The “sons” might be subordinate soldiers, and the “wife” their pay checks and materiel. In the position of son, you’re just expected to take it, otherwise you’re weak, and the “father” will make sure that’s an even worse fate. The Siloviki do indeed want to free Ukrainians – so they bomb cities. Free them from their “European gayness”, that is. Such is the perversity of the Russian psyche.
Or, differently put: You sure you’re looking at the water you’re swimming in? I’m not Russian, I only lived there, and I was able to see the water. Swimming feels quite a bit different in Russia than it does virtually everywhere else.
Snokhachestvo and the cultural approaches similar to it are prevalent in those people who are Russia’s elite now, but generally seem very rare as far as I can see.
And that stuff about Europe and homosexuality seems for me a kind of “the hungry doesn’t understand the full”, more of jokes and separation than of really thinking that’s true. It’s just that there are people outside the prison and inside it, and those inside can’t afford to behave freely. It’s almost envy, except without even negative feelings. More like alienation - “they live so much easier that for them homosexuality is a real concern”.
Also there’s the criminal culture homosexuality, as a marker of status in the criminal hierarchy, which is demonstrably non-consensual, and one can see a psychological parallel between living freely in general inside a prison and being gay in a place where people get raped. A nonsensically careless behavior, something like that. And being nonsensically careless is weak.
The Tsar and the viceroys, plundering the country and living the good life.
They followed their own laws. If a law was too cumbersome to make, they didn’t. It was an absolute monarchy, but if you compare today’s Russia’s judicial system to the imperial one - the latter seems very humane. By stats, by procedures, by stories of people who witnessed it.
and there’s no shortage of either because, according to Russian culture throughout the ages, good fathers make sure that their sons are strong men by raping the son’s wife
The kind of peasant communes and huge families where such things happened wasn’t actually natural. It was becoming the more common, the more people were becoming personal serfs. That is, there was that transition during Catherine where state serfs (which in practice meant almost a free man) were given to nobles en masse, she considered that a better arrangement. Sort of a privatization.
In the position of son, you’re just expected to take it, otherwise you’re weak, and the “father” will make sure that’s an even worse fate.
Nah, not that. If we make this comparison, for them it’s the father’s right, and you are subordinate. It’s not about fear of punishment, it’s about enduring for endurance’s sake. Almost morality.
The Siloviki do indeed want to free Ukrainians – so they bomb cities.
No, they don’t. They want to kill and loot and subjugate.
People who you are maybe looking for here are not those who try to somehow explain the state’s justifications for this war. It’s those who think that this has to be finished anyway regardless of whether the war should have been started.
Free them from their “European gayness”, that is. Such is the perversity of the Russian psyche.
I haven’t met such real people. OK, to be honest, probably I didn’t realize but I have.
The point is - almost nobody really thinks that about gayness and what not, but everybody thinks it’s smarter to play along, that’s what I meant by the amorphousness of mind of Russians.
Or, differently put: You sure you’re looking at the water you’re swimming in? I’m not Russian, I only lived there, and I was able to see the water. Swimming feels quite a bit different in Russia than it does virtually everywhere else.
It does, but it’s more of a culture of virtuous suffering, like doing your work the hard way instead of loosening up a bit and doing it better, but with less “honest labor” or something. And lies. The virtuous suffering thing is often stupid, but sometimes a strength. The lies however are usually stupid, yet Russians somehow always start with lies and then maybe work it up to saying the truth.
Now that is a universal human trait.
Americans don’t believe in, whatnot, manifest destiny, their exceptionalism, they live it. Germans certainly don’t believe in classism, yet we’re living it. Generally speaking: The stuff that people are actually following is not found on the propaganda level, but on a level below that, on a cultural carrier wave so to speak. Why propagandise something that people are doing, anyway? Doesn’t make sense.
That’s just bug-standard metamodernism collapsed into fascism, that is, regressed into modernism. Just to explains terms: Modernism is the age of grand ideas, “one true path to absolve humankind”, while postmodernism is the “yo all that stuff is BS anyway we don’t know shit”. You see those forces oscillating throughout history, metamodernism means their co-existence.
That belief might very well what people are telling themselves, but it’s a shallow analysis. The “deeper grey wisdom” (interesting that you used “grey” btw, “it must be ancient” – why?) is Snokhachestvo, and not the practice itself but the cultural attitudes that enable(d) it. Russia made some progress overcoming that shit, e.g. normalising nuclear families instead of communal ones (the one crucial achievement of the USSR), but the underlying cultural beliefs stay uninterrogated, able to perpetuate themselves. Thus men do to their sons what their fathers did to them, think that’s what being a man is all about, and if you don’t use whatever power and might you have to be cruel, you’re obviously gay. Like Europe.
That is what I meant with “a belief in might makes right”.
Germany has 80 million national football team trainers. There seems to be a pattern here: Declaring universal human traits as specifically Russian. Those traits are true, no doubt, but they’re not unique.
It didn’t? The Tsar and the viceroys, plundering the country and living the good life. The General Secretariat or even Secretary and the Nomenklatura, plundering the country and living the good life. “Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others”. In either case, highly authoritarian societies, with varying levels of totalitarianism. Such a setup requires cruelty and ruthlessness, and there’s no shortage of either because, according to Russian culture throughout the ages, good fathers make sure that their sons are strong men by raping the son’s wife. Metaphorically speaking, at least: The “sons” might be subordinate soldiers, and the “wife” their pay checks and materiel. In the position of son, you’re just expected to take it, otherwise you’re weak, and the “father” will make sure that’s an even worse fate. The Siloviki do indeed want to free Ukrainians – so they bomb cities. Free them from their “European gayness”, that is. Such is the perversity of the Russian psyche.
Or, differently put: You sure you’re looking at the water you’re swimming in? I’m not Russian, I only lived there, and I was able to see the water. Swimming feels quite a bit different in Russia than it does virtually everywhere else.
Snokhachestvo and the cultural approaches similar to it are prevalent in those people who are Russia’s elite now, but generally seem very rare as far as I can see.
And that stuff about Europe and homosexuality seems for me a kind of “the hungry doesn’t understand the full”, more of jokes and separation than of really thinking that’s true. It’s just that there are people outside the prison and inside it, and those inside can’t afford to behave freely. It’s almost envy, except without even negative feelings. More like alienation - “they live so much easier that for them homosexuality is a real concern”.
Also there’s the criminal culture homosexuality, as a marker of status in the criminal hierarchy, which is demonstrably non-consensual, and one can see a psychological parallel between living freely in general inside a prison and being gay in a place where people get raped. A nonsensically careless behavior, something like that. And being nonsensically careless is weak.
They followed their own laws. If a law was too cumbersome to make, they didn’t. It was an absolute monarchy, but if you compare today’s Russia’s judicial system to the imperial one - the latter seems very humane. By stats, by procedures, by stories of people who witnessed it.
The kind of peasant communes and huge families where such things happened wasn’t actually natural. It was becoming the more common, the more people were becoming personal serfs. That is, there was that transition during Catherine where state serfs (which in practice meant almost a free man) were given to nobles en masse, she considered that a better arrangement. Sort of a privatization.
Nah, not that. If we make this comparison, for them it’s the father’s right, and you are subordinate. It’s not about fear of punishment, it’s about enduring for endurance’s sake. Almost morality.
No, they don’t. They want to kill and loot and subjugate.
People who you are maybe looking for here are not those who try to somehow explain the state’s justifications for this war. It’s those who think that this has to be finished anyway regardless of whether the war should have been started.
I haven’t met such real people. OK, to be honest, probably I didn’t realize but I have.
The point is - almost nobody really thinks that about gayness and what not, but everybody thinks it’s smarter to play along, that’s what I meant by the amorphousness of mind of Russians.
It does, but it’s more of a culture of virtuous suffering, like doing your work the hard way instead of loosening up a bit and doing it better, but with less “honest labor” or something. And lies. The virtuous suffering thing is often stupid, but sometimes a strength. The lies however are usually stupid, yet Russians somehow always start with lies and then maybe work it up to saying the truth.