DimitryZ
pfm Member
He does, there ain't no such thing, apparently.
Ukraine V
- Thread starter DimitryZ
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ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Very clearly not. The Met has been found to be institutionally racist. But that does not excuse an individual policeman being racist. Racism is an individual choice.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
I did not say that. Institutional racism is very clearly a thing, but it does not force individuals into being racist. Racism is an individual choice. You are very clearly trying to deflect from your proposition that because an imperial racist attitude is prevalent, that makes the people living under that imperialist attitude individually racist. It doesn’t. The leadership of the US under Trump might’ve created an institutional racism, and the racism in the Met in the UK has been found to be institutionally racist, but that does not mean that all Americans or all Met policeman have no choice but to be racist. Racism is an individual choice. If you self identify as racist, as you have, that is your individual choice, not a choice imposed on you by the institution.
DimitryZ
pfm Member
Well if racism is always an individual choice, we have a truly fascinating phenomenon of great majority of German people in the 1930s simultaneously choosing to become racist and work to exterminate the Jews - all individually, but at the same time.
Human beings have noticed these large scale societal movements before and even began to study them - fields of sociology, political philosophy and public relations were born. But apparently, these are false sciences, since studying group dynamics of humans is impossible. And if you try, you are quickly denounced as "racist."
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
I rather think you have left behind whatever point you might’ve been trying to make about the Synder article. He was talking about Russophobia and how it was an attack on Russian culture in the name of a collective imperial identity.
The study of how Nazism came to power is important, but we need to learn the lessons from that. And the lessons are that we need to be aware of the causes and narrative of racism, and part of that narrative is to assume that “they” are all the same. “They” are the threat. “They” are a swarm. Such collective thinking needs to be opposed, not celebrated.
DimitryZ
pfm Member
Your deflection and total lack of any useful response to the question of the day - what is to be done when a society turns bad - Germany in Hitler's time and Russia in Putin's time - reflects a near total uselessness of the left in debates about this war.
Your only actual advice since you started frequenting this thread is to offer Putin a nice railroad to Berlin as an incentive to stop killing Ukranians.
I think that's it.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Now you are resurrecting another circular argument, which again is total invention. A total lie.
Note worthy that you have turned a discussion of an article by a noted historian of Ukraine into another circular argument for the purposes of ad hom, and in your obsession wit had hom, you seem to forget that it was the right in Nazi Germany, in now the US, in the UK that are the causal problem of racism, not the left.
Hook
Blackbeard's former bo'sun.
I don’t want to join your conversation with ks, but would like to try and make a small academic point or two.
I was taught that when trying to understand human behavior, there are multiple possible explanations: biological, psychological, cultural, social, political and economic. Which one of these explains our behavior best varies, but when we see lots of people acting in unison, the more powerful explanations almost always go beyond the individual. Maybe millions go similarly crazy because of a virus, or perhaps they being coerced under a dictatorship. In the end, we can probably only approach the truth about what we are seeing by weighing the contributions of multiple explanations.
As you know, institutional racism is a very real thing. Whether it was slavery in the US, or pogroms in Europe, we’ve seen throughout history how governments coerce their population into racist behavior though a combination of propaganda and violent threats. This process creates a toxic culture that lives long beyond the end of specific government coercion.
I don’t see how anyone could study the mass coercion that happened in Nazi Germany, and see it merely as a bunch of individuals simultaneously choosing racism. In this example, I strongly believe that the more powerful explanations are economic, cultural and political. I feel the same way about the toxic political culture in today’s Russia.
Apologies for the lengthy, rambling post…
DimitryZ
pfm Member
You did write at the end of the last year that an economic development program, like a Berlin to Moscow railroad would be beneficial in defusing war tensions, did you not?
I thought that it was a tangible (though wrong) prescription for solving this conflict.
However, since then you have been kind of short on actual recommendations.
DimitryZ
pfm Member
I think you are entirely correct.
In Russia's case, there is likely another more prosaic element that isn't common in Western societies - centuries of actual active selection against individualism. Russian people have been systematically killed, deported and punished for behavior that affirmed individual rights and freedoms. During communism it took particularly huge proportions.
Hook
Blackbeard's former bo'sun.
I try my best to empathize with the current plight of most Russians. I know they are experiencing constant propaganda and coercion. Their history has taught them one lesson above all: conform or die. And yet, I can only understand this intellectually. I really have no clue how crappy it would be to have to live in a world like that. A living nightmare I imagine.
DonQuixote99
pfm Member
You get used to it, I think. People are sort of programmed to believe what the others around them believe. The real dissonance would come when the official line changes, and everyone is supposed to change what they think.
Hook
Blackbeard's former bo'sun.
I think you are right, and I suspect there has to be a lot of acting going on. Lots of saying one thing in public, and another at home. It must be exhausting keeping up appearances.
I imagine today’s Russia is becoming more like post-war East Germany or even North Korea. Nobody can afford any friends. Make a friend, accidentally say what you really think about the government, and you wind up in prison.
Having lived where I’ve lived, I’ve been lucky enough to always be surrounded by lots of friends, lots of good, kind, honest people. The thought of constant surveillance, of false arrest and imprisonment, is very frightening. Even worse, the forced conscription and sacrifice of countless young men. Life over there seems almost too horrible to think about.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Yes, agree with much of that. We know that institutional racism is a very real thing, especially in the UK where our Metropolitan Police Force has been found to be institutionally racist. However, that institutional racism, which obviously comprises a weight of individual racist attitudes, does not determine that an individual policeman is racist. That individual is still responsible for their racism and contrawise it would be wrong to say that all policeman are racist.
Likewise in Germany in the 30’s there was clearly a great deal of racism with its roots in history, politics and economics. There was clearly institutional racism in Germany, and while that obviously involved individual racism, that individual racism was not determined by outside forces, but individual choices and to describe all Germans as complicit in Nazism is far too simplistic.
However, Germany in the 30’s does provide a lesson in how racism can be manipulated to create institutional racism. We can see it happening in the US and the UK at the moment. In the UK we clearly have a deeply troubling government policy against asylum seekers that does have a narrative not dissimilar to that used in 30’s Nazi propaganda. While the UK is on a downward slope to a more and more authoritarian type of politics with racism at its heart, that is not an excuse for any individual who adopts that lazy racist narrative. An individual adopting that narrative is not forced to do so by either nature or nurture, it is still a choice. We can see the UK becoming more and more racist, a process led by politics and adopted by far too many individuals, but we cannot say that the British, or more accurately the English, as a people, are all racist.
Interesting (without any real surprises) article in the Guardian about Russian disinformation/propaganda on Ukraine. It seems to be working on the right wing in the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ht-republicans-ukraine?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
PS Is fear racist?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ht-republicans-ukraine?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
PS Is fear racist?
awkwardbydesign
Officially Awesome
Thank you for your support (I think), but I prefer to stick with what I actually said, rather than be second guessed.
awkwardbydesign
Officially Awesome
Say what?
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Indeed.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
It certainly can be, just look at the fear of foreigners in some people in the UK being stoked up to racist ends
Agree entirely. And DeSantis is a more dangerous and subtle form of 'crazy' than Trump. Biden better be eating his greens.
The article reminds me of a certain toxic football manager who is now in Rome telling anybody who will listen that he is both absolutely/morally right and a victim. The same thing pops up in comrade (and far-right) narratives.
PS The Russophiles are assembling:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...d-steven-seagal-meet-russias-friends-overseas
Some talking pointing talks from members here are mentioned.