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I just read Kulak's review of "India: The Worst Country on Earth" on his Substack, Anarchonomicon. https://www.anarchonomicon.com/p/film-review-india-the-worst-country
I had never heard of this film and haven't seen it, but I have read other stuff from Kulak. While there are definitely points I take from his posts, I do not consider myself a confederate and find his takes to be pretty divergent and extreme from my own. His writing is solid enough I don't get bored so I consider him an example of "what a reasonably intelligent far-right person has to say." He might not be far-right, but I think that's how he identifies. I'm certainly no expert, I've read maybe 4 or 5 articles and I seem to remember him from Reddit...maybe? I would be glad to hear other opinions/warning/lauds.
In his review he claims the film is
Now that I know the film exists, will I watch it? No, I think it's unlikely. I don't really harbor Pollyanna-ish views on India that need to be rewired, but I also don't get into watching death, rape and destruction in my free time. I find it psychically damaging and can admit I prefer ignorance to knowing the true depth of human depravity. The review reminded me a lot of how people would describe "Faces of Death" back when I was a kid--another film I never had any interest in watching and remain largely ignorant of, aside from knowing it's just watching an endless string of people getting horribly killed.
I would like to know if people here are familiar with the film and what their general impressions are. I would also like to discuss some of the following:
Is it true? Can a feature-film length series of horrible phone videos give us an accurate view of what India is really like? I have no experience with the country beyond discussions with people who have been there or come from there and some low-level Youtube vids. Is this really the worst country on Earth? If so, what's the deal with the subcontinet? Is this level of degeneration directly tied to IQ? If not what caused India (I think there's some talk that Pakistan and Bangladesh are in the same boat) to be like this? If this is human degeneracy, what keeps a society from degenerating? Are we degenerating? Is India the future for everyone?
Is it perfect RW propaganda? Kulak's point is that it is so disturbing it forces Westerners to adopt an "Ohmygod the West is so much better than this I'll defend it with my life," attitude. I would suspect that hardcore universalists and "brotherhood-of-man-types" would find ways of countering the narrative, but I wouldn't be satisfied with, "it's just nasty fascist racists," if the truth content is high. Bad people can have high signal-to-noise ratio content even if I don't like it.
Is it really that bad? The horrible deaths and mutilation parts I might be able to stomach, but the accounts of the varieties of rape and abuse had me squirming just in their retelling. The scenes of ecological devastation and anti-sanitation sound almost as bad. Is India truly this decrepit and insane or is it just a white-power-washing of a place I'm meant to develop a revulsion towards so I have the correct opinon of H-1B visas? would watching the film bring me closer to understanding or just turn me into a gibbering racist? Should I go to India and see for myself? People I know who have gone there tell no happy tales so I'm biased toward believing it's as bad as they say.
Is it important? Will this film actually pin itself to history? It's hard to claim that "Faces of Death" was an important series of films from any kind of cinematic or virtue position, but it did make an impact and we remember it. Is it possible that even as pure culture-war propaganda, it's message might actually help people, either by protecting themselves when they're in India or forcing the country/global community to force some changes on the culture? Does something like 'India:TWCoE' need to happen to turn the ship? Does the left need far-right propaganda thrown in their faces from time-to-time? Does the West need to understand how terrible things could become if they don't reverse their own degeneracy? Is this an argument for AI control of humanity or will we necessarily revert to the mean where we use warfare, colonialism and slavery to force the best genes to emerge...like, are we simply doomed?
Anyway, these are just some initial thoughts, but it seems like pure, uncut culture war and I thought y'all might have more perspective on this than me.
I’ve seen the whole thing. Like many male millennials, I discovered the “shocking, extreme, gory, etc.” parts of the internet — Rotten.com and the like — when I was in middle school, so I’ve developed a fairly strong stomach for this type of content.
Like everything Kulak posts, his description of the film and its significance is bombastically overstated, emotionally overwrought, but with a kernel of truth. The film does indeed make a persuasive case that there is a lot of fucked-up stuff going on in India. The only part that I found tough to watch was the part where people are literally eating shit, but obviously there’s plenty in there to trigger nearly anyone’s distress. The lower-caste people of the subcontinent really do seem to be profoundly dysfunctional and unpleasant, and there’s ample footage of their problems to cherry-pick and compile into a worthy propaganda reel.
My mother and father traveled to the subcontinent on their honeymoon, and my mother found it a fairly distressing place. She’s spoken about the leering behavior of the men on the trains, how she felt as though at any moment they might begin pawing at her like a pack of hyenas surrounding a dying elephant. She complained about the shocking poverty she saw, the overall levels of filth, and the several times she witnessed people openly shitting in public areas. This was in the very early 90’s, so presumably some things about the country have improved since then. The footage in the film appears, based on video quality, to mostly be filmed more recently than that, though, so clearly many of the problems have not gone away.
I also want to take a road trip through India at some point — mostly to visit ancient architectural sites, and also to see some of the more modern architectural delights bequeathed on the country by British administrators — but I know I’m going to have to carefully plan my itinerary to maximally avoid exposure to the grosser aspects of the place. Maybe I’ll have more objective anecdotes to convey here once I’ve done so. It’s certainly not the worst country on Earth, if for no other reason than it still contains the remnants of a legacy of magisterial glory from its past, and enough intelligent and clear-eyed individuals who have so far committed themselves to preserving it. If they start blowing up Mughal and Zoroastrian monuments out of some revisionist Hindu nationalist vendetta, then I’d be willing to comfortably call it a contender for the worst.
agree. I find it over-the-top, but I'm still kind of glad it exists. I've lost the plasticity-of-mind to "go there" anymore.
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