Russian politician honestly explains the goals of the Ukraine war, admits any peace deal will only be temporary
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He should avoid being near windows, and also eating or drinking.
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Sense of belonging? This is exactly what I am mean by genocidal imperialism being universal among russians.
You (and other russians) fundamentally do not believe in self determination and will always find excuses to justify violence, occupations, torture and ethnic cleanings. The russians are even OK with being put down and abused by their own regime as long there is imperial conquest.
I don't buy the "dark history" narrative. There is nothing inherent (in a physical sense) about russians that leads to degeneracy and debauchery. It's all the choices they make. The somewhat peaceful breakup of the USSR was a unique opportunity for russians and we can see the choices they made.
Source: I've lived in russia for many years and I speak fluent russian. I've also lived in North America, Asia and Europe and speak other languages.
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No chauvinism. These are facts. And you know this. There are even russians who agree with what I am saying, not because they lack decency, but because they actually want their society to change.
Playing into russian victimhood narratives, treating them like children and coddling their worst instincts is not doing russians any favour.
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Kinda weird that you assume that I know, and you know, what the overwhelming majority of Russians is thinking. I mean, I can make a general assumption, that obviously, they are no revolutionaries. They go to work every day. They have children they have to take care of. They have a pretty similar life to ours and therefore don’t want trouble upending their lives for the worse. If the government has imperial ambitions, it usually collides with people’s interests.
I can say that without knowing one Russian.Now I have a little bit of an…advantage? That is, I do know many Russians and yeah, none of them has genocidal tendencies. They also don’t claim that it is one of their national traits. National victimhood is just pretty fashionable inside nationalist governments. It is not limited to Russia, too.
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Usually sweeping generalizations about an entire ethnic group are spurious at best.
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So do you believe the propaganda they are being fed is going to push that Ukraine needs to be taken back or left to their own permanent sovereignty? In this day and age we have to realize that in a authoritarian government led country with an oligarchy, that their propoganda is what the general population is going to go with. When it comes to civil war or war on their neighbors, and they have already gone to war with their neighbors... Its hard to believe round 2 they won't choose war with their neighbors as well. Animosity only grows for the neighbors when the military members come back and spread stories.
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Why do you think this is a sweeping generalisation?
This is backed by a variety of research (both quantitative and qualitative, with different methodologies, some even run by opposition-minded russians). Not to mention historical reality since the breakup of the USSR. You do realize that russia is occupying 3 independent countries and is openly pursuing a policy of destruction of national identity?
Keep in mind that things like "preference falsification" can actually be measured and there is a wide variety of research that specifically estimates preference falsifiaction (with some rather interesting results). So don't play dumb with the "they are all afraid to say the truth!1!!" and "all research is wrong if it doesn't portray russian society in a good light."
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Life isn't a Star Wars movie. Going to work everyday and taking care of your children is not incompatible with being a genocidal imperialist. You can even not want any invasion to impact your directly and still be a genocidal imperialist.
So what that the russians you know aren't genocidal imperialists? All the russians I speak to aren't genocidal imperialists either, what are you trying to say? The reason why I said you know this and you're just playing is because of these sort of arguments.
"We don't know anything and even if we do it is all wrong unless it portrays russians as innocent children and who should never take responsibility for anything."
You almost certainly know that all research (literally from any source, using any methodology, even multi-decade longitudinal research) shows that anything between a strong majority to an overwhelming majority of russians support genocidal imperialism.
And unlike you, I've actually lived in russia for many years and I speak fluent russian (and yet I constantly had to deal with racism by the russians because I of a mixed ethnicity).
So spare me your fake humanism. It's just more convenient for your to white wash their support for genocidal imperialism.
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Your assumptions about me are just as ludicrous as the ones about Russians.
Goodbye
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57 upvotes and zero downvotes.
based.
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Unfortunately, these are not assumptions, but factual results of a very broad range of research, sometimes conducted over decades.
You on the hand assume that I am just shitposting or "spreading hate against the innocent". That's why I brought up the fake humanism. You can't even imagine the possibility that I more than happy to read critiques and alternative viewpoints on the research I am alluding to. The problem being is that none of it is convincing and similar to your arguments it devolves into "trust me bro!" and "all research is wrong unless it aligns with my opinion of russian society". Do you want some examples?
If you knew what you were talking about and weren't engaging in fake humanism, you would have had an argument that goes beyond "your views are ludicrous!1!1!!".
But you don't.
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Ah, the research you are alluding to:
all research (literally from any source, using any methodology, even multi-decade longitudinal research)
Why should I trust you, bro?
Instead you want to show me examples of your arguments with some other posters? I’ve seen some examples here, and all it boils down to are anecdotal references of yours. That’s also why I brought up mine. Of course they don’t account for much.
You really didn’t bring up anything to prove your accusation of enthusiasm for genocide ingrained in the Russian people.
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The carve-out for neutral nations might throw people off ("This shall not prejudice...") but with Sweden and Finland not neutral any more only the Austrians are left and we can manage without the catastrophe relief force they call an army.
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I don’t buy the “dark history” narrative. There is nothing inherent (in a physical sense) about russians that leads to degeneracy and debauchery. It’s all the choices they make.
There's a fuckton of cultural baggage from, following Emmanuel Todd, exogamous communal family structures. Stuff like this. There's a whole theory about how the "really existing socialism" states started out with that family structure, replaced the actual pater familias with a grand national one, to silently change the actual family structure to nuclear in a rebellion against the violence inherent in that particular arrangement (Todd explains that way better than me). But the fundamental values that the system was an expression of still isn't gone, and definitely alive and well in the military context. And mafia / prisoner culture. There's one truth in that system: If you're not a perpetrator, then you're a victim. As such the "fear drives people to do things" is true, the question Russia should be asking itself, though, is where that fucking cart of theirs is headed. Where they want it to be headed. Have yourselves a February revolution and this time not have it usurped by October.
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Did you ever ask for any research on this topic or even meaningfuly engage with what I was saying E.g. How do you know this? Have you considered the limitations inherent to specific research methodologies? What about the "philosophical" arguments about the validity and interpretation of political polling?
You never mentioned any of the above points and just went "you are chauvinist and an enemy of all that is decent in this world!". And I went with your flow, is that really surprising to you?
Who said anything about ingrained? I don't believe it is ingrained in a physical or biological sense. It's a reflection of the choice they make. One that I would argue are enabled by people like yourself who feel the need to deny reality and whitewash russian genocidal attitudes.
Sources
- The reluctant consensus: War and Russia’s public opinion - Relatively recent.
Some more specialized research that addresses some of the clown logic that you often hear in discussions "they don't actually support genocidal imperialism, the vast majority are very afraid and lying in the polls!!!"
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Solid support or secret dissent? A list experiment on preference falsification during the Russian war against Ukraine - Note how the authors explicitly state that their preference falsification adjusted estimate for support for the full scale invasion (65%) likely underestimates the true level of support.
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Do Russians support the military invasion of Ukraine? - This is minor part of the report, but they do show how preference falsification is irrelevant with respect to often criticized (by allegedly liberal russians) Levada findings about ~85% support for the annexation of Crimea that has been stable from 2014 to 2021.
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«А когда уже победа-то наша будет?» - In russian, maybe somebody made a good English language translation, I don't know. A damning take on "non-political" russians' view of genocidal invasions. The funny thing is that this qualitative research was run by opposition-minded russians. I am surprised they even published it.
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The tricky part is justifying that without a source due to the state of journalism in Russia
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I don't believe in cultural or ethnic essentialism. And at any rate, to move away from what you describe as cultural baggage, you have to start somewhere. A lack of desire to move beyond this is a choice made by the vast majority of individuals that constitute russian society.
Even large parts of their allegedly liberal opposition supported the annexation of Crimea (and the 2008 Georgia invasion). They are not even trying, they see genocidal imperialism as a good thing irrespective of any cultural baggage.
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From one of my posts in this thread. [2] explicitly addresses the canard about russians all being secret liberals and humanists but being forced to answer in support of genocidal imperialism because they are afraid. [3] also briefly touches upon this (among other things).
Sources
- The reluctant consensus: War and Russia’s public opinion - Relatively recent.
Some more specialized research that addresses some of the clown logic that you often hear in such discussions "they don't actually support genocidal imperialism, the vast majority are very afraid and lying in the polls!!!"
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Solid support or secret dissent? A list experiment on preference falsification during the Russian war against Ukraine - Note how the authors explicitly state that their preference falsification adjusted estimate for support for the full scale invasion (65%) likely underestimates the true level of support.
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Do Russians support the military invasion of Ukraine? - This is minor part of the report, but they do show how preference falsification is irrelevant with respect to often criticized (by allegedly liberal russians) Levada findings about ~85% support for the annexation of Crimea that has been stable from 2014 to 2021.
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«А когда уже победа-то наша будет?» - In russian, maybe somebody made a good English language translation, I don't know. A damning take on "non-political" russians' view of genocidal invasions. The funny thing is that this qualitative research was run by opposition-minded russians. I am surprised they even published it.
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Don’t trust opinion polling about support in Russia for the Ukraine invasion. A weak counter argument to findings similar to [1], does not in any way address the general points in [2],[3],[4]. The author explicitly denies [2] without providing any context or explanation. It's the "I don't believe any research unless it portrays russian society in a good light" factor so to speak.
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They are not even trying, they see genocidal imperialism as a good thing irrespective of any cultural baggage.
Who's being essentialist now. Culture is more than the decisions of individuals, there's reference frames, there's inertia, generally speaking there's natural laws dictating how and when cultures change. Even if a Russian oppositional were to suddenly be perfectly enlightened, to make any sense to their compatriots they would have to use language, reference frames, that the others can understand. We're not talking about fashion, here, this is deeper -- not "let's stop hating black people and move on to Muslims" or something, that's not a fundamental shift in culture, but "let's stop hating people". That's a very different thing.
The usual way how this kind of thing gets overcome is by getting your gob bashed in, because as long as all goes well for the culture which is being an asshole it will justify the assholery with the success it's having, and indeed you'll see Russians taking pride in Russia's capacity to withstand its own cruelty. The tentative good news is that there's no nation better suited to cut of Russia's balls than Ukraine precisely because they're so closely related, because a kind of brotherly envy is part of the equation. Maybe the specific choice was even a kind of death drive, subconsciously Russian culture knew where it could the battering it desires so that's where they went.
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What's essentialist about what I said? I genuinely don't see it.
Large parts of the russian opposition do not see genocidal imperialism (e.g annexation of Crimea and destruction of Ukrainian and Crimea Tartar identities) as a bad thing. They have made no efforts to oppose genocidal imperialism. They openly called for supporting chauvinist parties under their ironically named "smart voting" strategy, even though they knew that those parties are not independent and are directly controlled by the Kremlin.
Your point about "reference frames" honestly sounds like white-washing russian genocidal imperialism. This is not a matter of becoming perfectly enlightened, it's a matter of understanding that if someone is committed to genocidal imperialism, they are not going to choose a hypothetical Navalniy over putin. They will choose the real deal.
But let's just say I agree with you for the sake of argument. So what has the russian opposition achieved by using imperialist reference frames (that you seem to imply they don't actually support, but need to use to connect with russians) in their outreach?
What are their achievements over the last 15 years? Surely tacit endorsement of imperialism would have helped them connect to the average russian?
