If we categorize nations as habitual war winners / war losers, occupiers / occupied, strong or weak, we see the following. Pretty much every ideology or ideological keyword as created by the winners, the strong at the height of their power, left and right was invented just before the French Revolution, liberalism and conservatism descends from the Gladstone-Disraeli era and so on. Ultimately the ideologies are all about how to handle conflict INSIDE a society, like a rich vs. poor, state vs. capitalists, religious vs. atheists and so on. All this because the winner, strong nations can afford to have such internal conflicts, as they were not threatened much from abroad. And the winners being winners, they export their culture and ideologies so now anywhere you go on this planet you find people who describe themselves as left or right, liberal or conservative, but often they are meaningless terms. (Boris “all power to the presidency, fsck parliamentarism, charge ’em with tanks” Yeltsin as a “liberal”, really?)
However these ideological categories do not reflect the actual experiences of weaker, defeated nations. They could never really afford having such internal conflicts, external threats were more important than internal conflicts. Their experience is more like that of internal cooperation in defense. Their primary political categories are the 1) rebel, patriot, who defends the country 2) the quisling who cooperates with foreign, often occupying powers.
This does not map to conventional Western left or right or liberal or conservative. The 1) patriot-rebel is often nationalistic, even racist, hates cosmopolitanism, but with leftie economic views and ultimately their goals are lefty in the sense of liberatory and emancipatory on the grand scale, independence of weaker nations both politically and economically, national self-determination and anti-colonialism and all that, however they will have little patience for lifestyle liberalism, rather they will have a warrior ethic that requires social conservatism about gender roles, gays etc. The 2) quisling-cooperator will be a cosmopolite, often coming accross as enlightened, humanist, clever and non-provincial, but ultimately he is selling out an oppressed and exploited population to ruthless international profit-making forces, so often you will shockingly discover how little empathy he has with the poor of his own nation—all those people who dug ditches all their lives and have nothing to show for should just have modernized themselves and adapted to capitalism better instead of being stupid smelly superstitious peasants—roughly like that.
And these two really don’t map well over.
Sometimes I try to “translate” between Western Europeans and Russians i.e. trying to get people to understand each others political views better in order to reduce these tensions we tend to have these days because it is not smart to hate each with the guys who heat your house in the winter :)
I tend to tell Russians that basically the way Westerners see things is that they are far more afraid of their own leaders than foreign forces. Their No. 1 goal is to prevent tyranny at home and this is what all the talk about liberal democracy reduces to, and this why they call Putin an anti-democrat, an anti-liberal, a tyrant in the making. Russians simply tend not to understand this. They think defending the country is far more important than preventing tyranny, they fear foreign forces far more than their own leaders. They are aware of Stalin’s many crimes against his own people as well, but due to his leadership role in the Great Patriotic War he is still seen somewhere between mixed to somewhat positive. They simply don’t see why would a leader of their own be more dangerous than external powers. Westerns see it oppositely. They tend to see emphasizing foreign threats and using it to sell authoritarianism at home is pretty much a nazi trick. Which it is, but it is essentially just an exploitation of a basic tribal trait that was there all the way through history and prehistory. And this divide, I think, it is not even new, it is not even about the modern ideologies created in the Age of Enlightenment. Having these kinds of internal conflicts, fearing oppression and tyranny at home far more than occupation from abroad is the defining trait of the West since it exists: it was already there in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in Ciceor’s speeches or Athenian democracy. Every ideology the West created, left or right, is based on this rift: not trusting one’s own leaders completely. This simply does not work in a non-Western environment where foreign occupation or influence is seen as far more dangerous than homegrown tyranny. And again this all reduces to being habitual war winners / war losers, occupiers / occupied.
This simply does not work in a non-Western environment where foreign occupation or influence is seen as far more dangerous than homegrown tyranny. And again this all reduces to being habitual war winners / war losers, occupiers / occupied.
I think the problem here is when you try to apply it to Russians, who are actually very much on the side of habitual military victory (albeit often in scorched-earth form), and in fact have crossed over into habitual colonialism of their own quite regularly.
The argument works well for some place like South America that hasn’t had sovereignty or hosted a homegrown empire for hundreds of years, or maybe India and Africa, but when you try to apply it to much of the rest of the “anti-colonialist” Old World (ie: Russia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia aka the Middle East) you mostly find that the societies so obsessed with repelling foreign invaders are mainly just butthurt that in the 19th and 20th centuries, they lost for the very first time.
I’d say the major point of my argument would be the internal tyranny danger vs. foreign attack danger, and the minor part would be that those who tend to lose wars feel the external danger even more. But even if they win, a lot of wars close to home (in case of Russia: Poland, Tatars/Mongols etc.) will tend to focus more on external dangers than on potential inner tyrannies.
Close to home is a key point. Here is it is not really useful that we have one noun, war, for both. It is an entirely different experience when you send soldiers far away and the worst thing that can happen is that they won’t return, or when you live in a constant danger of some troops visiting your village for some looting, rape and arson. The second is probably so much more stressful that instead of war it would be more expressive to have two different nouns for this.
Let me put it differently: it seems focusing more on external danger is the default mode of humankind. It is a really unique and special thing that the West invented this whole “don’t trust your own leaders much either” thing, which perhaps is what defines the West as such as it was already there in Greco-Roman times. You could call it the invention of politics a such, very literally, Aristotle’s Politika was already about the different kinds of Greek constitutions which reduce to different amounts and ways to trusting leaders: monarchy, aristcracy, democracy, politeia. But this is not humankinds defaut mode. The default mode is to focus on defeating the external enemy which means there is no politics as such: just follow whatever leader there happens to be as he seems to be winning. When not ,someone will take his place.
So leader-distrust is all of politics in the Western sense, not only liberal politics, not only modern politics, but its whole history, even if someone would argue for theocratical monarchy or something similar, it is political in the sense that there is an argument at all. I don’t really know to formulate it better, but this is in stark contrast with the non-political views outside the West where you just simply whoever is there as long as he is winning, so politics is replaced with fighting the enemy.
Thus the West is completely mistake when it tells others their politics is wrong because e.g. not democratic enough. It is not sure at all they want to have politics.
It is an entirely different experience when you send soldiers far away and the worst thing that can happen is that they won’t return, or when you live in a constant danger of some troops visiting your village for some looting, rape and arson. The second is probably so much more stressful that instead of war it would be more expressive to have two different nouns for this.
If we attempt to take your theory as making serious predictions, you’ve completely failed to explain why Germany or Poland want to operate as democratic societies but Russia doesn’t care. All three of these countries have repeated invasion as their original historical experience prior to the formation of the nation-state—especially Poland, which has been the regular victim of both of its neighbors’ imperial ambitions.
And yet the Poles have a politics beyond “Fight Russia”.
Russian xenophobia isn’t really an argument that Russia faces fundamentally different historical-material circumstances from, say, the countries Russia regularly invades and colonizes. It’s just evidence that Russians have been fed quite a lot of propaganda designed to make them fear the outside world.
They’re not dealing with new and original existential challenges. They just got unlucky in which form of politics took root there. The neoliberal “shock therapy” after the fall of the Soviet Union certainly didn’t help.
However these ideological categories do not reflect the actual experiences of weaker, defeated nations. They could never really afford having such internal conflicts, external threats were more important than internal conflicts. Their experience is more like that of internal cooperation in defense. Their primary political categories are the 1) rebel, patriot, who defends the country 2) the quisling who cooperates with foreign, often occupying powers.
I co-operate, you collaborate, he is a quisling.
Aside from the question of who is right, I think that there is a second or third axis, of dependence-independence, even .in western countries, although it’s a minority interest. Populist parties, as they are often known, want freedom from foreign influence, whether it’s the states, the EU, or immigrants. Superficially, populist parties seem to be on the right, but people often profess themselves puzzled why they back fairly leftist economics, such as a strong welfare state (albeit for genuine Freedonians). Thats easily explained, though, by their drawing support from poorer, less educated voters, who need those services. In medium sized countries, educated elites recognise the influence of large power blocks, and aim for compromises that aren’t too unfavourable. Micronations are only too happy to become protectiartes, it us advantageous for them.
Russia is a small nation trapped in a large nation’s body :).
http://lesswrong.com/lw/4ba/some_heuristics_for_evaluating_the_soundness_of/ckd2
Can you check a favorite theory of mine?
If we categorize nations as habitual war winners / war losers, occupiers / occupied, strong or weak, we see the following. Pretty much every ideology or ideological keyword as created by the winners, the strong at the height of their power, left and right was invented just before the French Revolution, liberalism and conservatism descends from the Gladstone-Disraeli era and so on. Ultimately the ideologies are all about how to handle conflict INSIDE a society, like a rich vs. poor, state vs. capitalists, religious vs. atheists and so on. All this because the winner, strong nations can afford to have such internal conflicts, as they were not threatened much from abroad. And the winners being winners, they export their culture and ideologies so now anywhere you go on this planet you find people who describe themselves as left or right, liberal or conservative, but often they are meaningless terms. (Boris “all power to the presidency, fsck parliamentarism, charge ’em with tanks” Yeltsin as a “liberal”, really?)
However these ideological categories do not reflect the actual experiences of weaker, defeated nations. They could never really afford having such internal conflicts, external threats were more important than internal conflicts. Their experience is more like that of internal cooperation in defense. Their primary political categories are the 1) rebel, patriot, who defends the country 2) the quisling who cooperates with foreign, often occupying powers.
This does not map to conventional Western left or right or liberal or conservative. The 1) patriot-rebel is often nationalistic, even racist, hates cosmopolitanism, but with leftie economic views and ultimately their goals are lefty in the sense of liberatory and emancipatory on the grand scale, independence of weaker nations both politically and economically, national self-determination and anti-colonialism and all that, however they will have little patience for lifestyle liberalism, rather they will have a warrior ethic that requires social conservatism about gender roles, gays etc. The 2) quisling-cooperator will be a cosmopolite, often coming accross as enlightened, humanist, clever and non-provincial, but ultimately he is selling out an oppressed and exploited population to ruthless international profit-making forces, so often you will shockingly discover how little empathy he has with the poor of his own nation—all those people who dug ditches all their lives and have nothing to show for should just have modernized themselves and adapted to capitalism better instead of being stupid smelly superstitious peasants—roughly like that.
And these two really don’t map well over.
Sometimes I try to “translate” between Western Europeans and Russians i.e. trying to get people to understand each others political views better in order to reduce these tensions we tend to have these days because it is not smart to hate each with the guys who heat your house in the winter :)
I tend to tell Russians that basically the way Westerners see things is that they are far more afraid of their own leaders than foreign forces. Their No. 1 goal is to prevent tyranny at home and this is what all the talk about liberal democracy reduces to, and this why they call Putin an anti-democrat, an anti-liberal, a tyrant in the making. Russians simply tend not to understand this. They think defending the country is far more important than preventing tyranny, they fear foreign forces far more than their own leaders. They are aware of Stalin’s many crimes against his own people as well, but due to his leadership role in the Great Patriotic War he is still seen somewhere between mixed to somewhat positive. They simply don’t see why would a leader of their own be more dangerous than external powers. Westerns see it oppositely. They tend to see emphasizing foreign threats and using it to sell authoritarianism at home is pretty much a nazi trick. Which it is, but it is essentially just an exploitation of a basic tribal trait that was there all the way through history and prehistory. And this divide, I think, it is not even new, it is not even about the modern ideologies created in the Age of Enlightenment. Having these kinds of internal conflicts, fearing oppression and tyranny at home far more than occupation from abroad is the defining trait of the West since it exists: it was already there in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in Ciceor’s speeches or Athenian democracy. Every ideology the West created, left or right, is based on this rift: not trusting one’s own leaders completely. This simply does not work in a non-Western environment where foreign occupation or influence is seen as far more dangerous than homegrown tyranny. And again this all reduces to being habitual war winners / war losers, occupiers / occupied.
What do you think?
I think the problem here is when you try to apply it to Russians, who are actually very much on the side of habitual military victory (albeit often in scorched-earth form), and in fact have crossed over into habitual colonialism of their own quite regularly.
The argument works well for some place like South America that hasn’t had sovereignty or hosted a homegrown empire for hundreds of years, or maybe India and Africa, but when you try to apply it to much of the rest of the “anti-colonialist” Old World (ie: Russia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia aka the Middle East) you mostly find that the societies so obsessed with repelling foreign invaders are mainly just butthurt that in the 19th and 20th centuries, they lost for the very first time.
I’d say the major point of my argument would be the internal tyranny danger vs. foreign attack danger, and the minor part would be that those who tend to lose wars feel the external danger even more. But even if they win, a lot of wars close to home (in case of Russia: Poland, Tatars/Mongols etc.) will tend to focus more on external dangers than on potential inner tyrannies.
Close to home is a key point. Here is it is not really useful that we have one noun, war, for both. It is an entirely different experience when you send soldiers far away and the worst thing that can happen is that they won’t return, or when you live in a constant danger of some troops visiting your village for some looting, rape and arson. The second is probably so much more stressful that instead of war it would be more expressive to have two different nouns for this.
Let me put it differently: it seems focusing more on external danger is the default mode of humankind. It is a really unique and special thing that the West invented this whole “don’t trust your own leaders much either” thing, which perhaps is what defines the West as such as it was already there in Greco-Roman times. You could call it the invention of politics a such, very literally, Aristotle’s Politika was already about the different kinds of Greek constitutions which reduce to different amounts and ways to trusting leaders: monarchy, aristcracy, democracy, politeia. But this is not humankinds defaut mode. The default mode is to focus on defeating the external enemy which means there is no politics as such: just follow whatever leader there happens to be as he seems to be winning. When not ,someone will take his place.
So leader-distrust is all of politics in the Western sense, not only liberal politics, not only modern politics, but its whole history, even if someone would argue for theocratical monarchy or something similar, it is political in the sense that there is an argument at all. I don’t really know to formulate it better, but this is in stark contrast with the non-political views outside the West where you just simply whoever is there as long as he is winning, so politics is replaced with fighting the enemy.
Thus the West is completely mistake when it tells others their politics is wrong because e.g. not democratic enough. It is not sure at all they want to have politics.
If we attempt to take your theory as making serious predictions, you’ve completely failed to explain why Germany or Poland want to operate as democratic societies but Russia doesn’t care. All three of these countries have repeated invasion as their original historical experience prior to the formation of the nation-state—especially Poland, which has been the regular victim of both of its neighbors’ imperial ambitions.
And yet the Poles have a politics beyond “Fight Russia”.
Russian xenophobia isn’t really an argument that Russia faces fundamentally different historical-material circumstances from, say, the countries Russia regularly invades and colonizes. It’s just evidence that Russians have been fed quite a lot of propaganda designed to make them fear the outside world.
They’re not dealing with new and original existential challenges. They just got unlucky in which form of politics took root there. The neoliberal “shock therapy” after the fall of the Soviet Union certainly didn’t help.
Interesting.
I co-operate, you collaborate, he is a quisling.
Aside from the question of who is right, I think that there is a second or third axis, of dependence-independence, even .in western countries, although it’s a minority interest. Populist parties, as they are often known, want freedom from foreign influence, whether it’s the states, the EU, or immigrants. Superficially, populist parties seem to be on the right, but people often profess themselves puzzled why they back fairly leftist economics, such as a strong welfare state (albeit for genuine Freedonians). Thats easily explained, though, by their drawing support from poorer, less educated voters, who need those services. In medium sized countries, educated elites recognise the influence of large power blocks, and aim for compromises that aren’t too unfavourable. Micronations are only too happy to become protectiartes, it us advantageous for them.