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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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CULTURE WAR IN FINLAND: DEHUMANIZATION DERBY

(blog form)

During the present war the Finnish society has been firmly pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian. Both the state and the civil society have found multiple ways to aid the Ukrainian war effort, and likewise expressions of anti-Russian agitation are, if not formally approved, at least given more leeway than previously. 90% of Finns continue to support giving lethal aid to Ukraine, even while the numbers are falling in numerous other European countries.

For some weeks, there’s been a debate over whether things have been going slightly too far. During this time, multiple celebrities and politicians, including Sofi Oksanen – one of the most important current writers in the country, half-Estonian, known not only for gothy looks but also as a longtime active critic of Russia – announced that instead of spending money on traditional New Year’s fireworks, they’d shell out money on shells – in particular, Ukrainian shells with messages on them.

There’s a service, signmyrocket.com, that promises that they’ll write your personalized message on a shell that Ukrainians will fire on Russian troops. (Some have speculated they’re just using one shell that gets wiped clean and a new message written on it every time the service is used.) Oksanen’s message was “Jaxuhalit” – a maddeningly stupid phrase that is hard to translate succinctly (literal translation would be like “I am giving you a hug for strength”, expect it’s obviously used sarcastically and also written in Finnish equivalent of “I can haz cheezburger?” style argot.)

Anyway, this led to a column (link goes to a fairly readable Google-Translated version) in a major tabloid about how this sort of a thing shows that many Finns have entered into a strange state of mind where they treat the war as a game, engage dehumanization etc. After the requisite accusations of Putinism, it hasled to a surprising amount of nuanced debate on whether this is really the case.

After some back and forth, Jussi Halla-aho, the most important nationalist politician in Finland, made his intervention. A little context about Halla-aho might be in order. He started his political career as a popular anti-immigration blogger, who used his blog followers to form a faction that joined The Finns Party, back then only a minor inchoate populist party, in the early 00s and took it over, turning it into a right-wing nationalist party with immigration as its main issue.

Halla-aho muscled out the former leader’s preferred candidate for party leadership in 2017, leading to some governmental drama as the other parties considered him too extreme, but only stayed in this post for a few years until relinquishing this post to a handpicked successor. Nevertheless, he continues to be the chief intellectual force of the party, and whatever he says will surely have an impact on Finnish nationalist thinking. These days his main method of communication is Facebook, not his old blog.

Now, Finnish nationalism has of course never been pro-Russian, but there has still been a certain amount of division on Finnish populist right on the question of Russian relations. After all, the Cold War era idea that neutrality serves Finland the best and Russia could offer trade opportunities if we ignore all the human rights guff and such continues to have adherents particularly in the older generations having grown up in that era, and pro-Russian narrative from the far-right movements in other European countries have also had some minor effect. Perhaps the only vocally pro-Putin politician in Finnish parliament right now is a conspiracy-theorist bodybuilder who was earlier kicked out of The Finns Party for other reasons.

Halla-aho, however, does not share this view – indeed, beyond being anti-Russia, he can be counted as a genuine Ukrainophile, one of the few Western European politicians to speak Ukrainian (his day job is a researcher of Church Slavonic, so it’s natural for him to know Slavic languages).

Halla-aho’s Facebook post is worth quoting here in full, translated by me by running it through DeepL and doing some light editing:

The pious complaints by Helsingin Sanomat* about the demonization of the Russians are as out of touch with reality as the recent outrage that Ukrainians may have also committed war crimes in the war, such as by executing surrendered soldiers.

The war was started and is sustained by Russia. The war will only end when enough Russian soldiers have been killed that it becomes politically or militarily impossible for the Russian regime to continue the war. Thus, killing Russian soldiers is a good thing, and the Ukrainians should be helped in killing them.

And that is, in fact, what we are doing. Why, exactly, does Helsingin Sanomat think that Finland is supplying Ukraine with lethal material?

We are thus unanimous in our view that the killing of Russians in this situation created by Russia is justified and necessary, regardless of whether the Russians being killed are on the front line of their own free will or as conscripts.

However, there exists a strong in-built inhibition in humans against killing other human beings. In normal times, this inhibition allows society to exist as we know it. In times of war, it is a hindrance. This inhibition is suppressed by stripping the enemy to be killed of his humanity, i.e., by demonizing him or describing him as a rat, cockroach or some other disgusting animal.

Corporal Rokka** sums this up when asked what it feels like to shoot a human being: 'I don't know. I've only shot the enemy."

If killing Russian soldiers in this situation is right and necessary, then anything that contributes to their killing is also right and necessary. Demonization and the carnivalization of killing are right and necessary. If we consider Russian soldiers as dignified human beings and are NEVERTHELESS kill them, this will, I believe, have far more damaging consequences, both for the mental health of the Ukrainian soldiers and the Westerners who help them, and for the reconstruction of the normal society after the war.

Everything bad that is happening in this war is the result of Russia starting the war. If the war continues, the bad things will inevitably continue. The bad things will stop when the war stops, and since Russia cannot be convinced with words, the only way to stop the war is to kill Russians.

I bought one of the signed artillery shells from https://signmyrocket.com/. I urge all those who hate war and want peace to do the same.

Halla-aho’s statement carries extra significance since he is the chair of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, the highest official post his party carries now. (In some other countries opposition parties might be shut out of parliamentary committee chairmanships as a matter of course, but in Finland they will be allotted posts according to their parliamentary strength, and since The Finns are the largest opposition party, they are entitled to this heavy committee and can nominate whomever they wish.)

Halla-aho’s statement has been condemned by many other politicians, and even the party’s new leader thinks it goes too far. Of course, the most obvious point of criticism is that even if one thinks that war requires dehumanization of the enemy, you know, Finland is not actually at war with Russia. There are no bombs falling here or soldiers desperately fighting in the freezing forests of Eastern Finland. Indeed, what annoys myself about the whole signmyrocket affair is that it almost allows chair-warring celebrities to pretend they’re fighting the war themselves, expect without actually having to get a frostbite while guard a snowy dark patch of a forest somewhere or risk getting a bullet in your throat.

Still, others claim that the whole thing is just being direct about what war entails, i.e., shooting and killing, and that the most important thing is supporting Ukraine whatever way there is, and if getting money to Ukraine involves this sort of a gimmick then so be it.

Since being vocally anti-Russia continues to be a right-coded thing in Finland, and worries about whether the society is getting too anti-Russian (in a way that might lead to, say, violence against Russian refugees in Finland) is similarly mostly left-coded (even if these might be the other way around in current America), the whole debate has some equivalence to various other political correctness debates on the left-right axis. Is it important to Say Things Like They Are, or might that lead to problems? Are things even as the people who Say Things As They Are claim them to be, or are they just being edgy?

Whatever the case is, this war is probably not doing good things for the Finnish psyche, but hey, that’s in the eyes of the beholder – there are factions in the Finnish extremely online right who have basically spent the whole war celebrating how the titanic clash with the ancient enemy is making the society more based. And if making Europe more based has ever been Russia's intention, as the narrative sometimes goes - mission accomplished!

*: Finland’s newspaper of record, which was one of the instances to comment negatively on the rocket-signers. Has been a frequent target for Halla-aho for his entire career.

**: The most famous character of Finland’s best-well-known war novel/film.

Demonization and the carnivalization of killing are right and necessary. If we consider Russian soldiers as dignified human beings and are NEVERTHELESS kill them, this will, I believe, have far more damaging consequences, both for the mental health of the Ukrainian soldiers and the Westerners who help them, and for the reconstruction of the normal society after the war.

This is an interesting argument to rationalize one's moral failings. Probably rings even truer in the Baltic states. I happen to believe the exact opposite, and indeed his claim forces me to dehumanize Finns (the fraction he represents) in my head – a little bit. This, of course, validates his theory about the utility of such reactions in the context of group conflict, and we have more robust validations down to oxytocin secretion patterns in warring chimps – but the point is, the burden of civilization is suppressing such nifty natural adaptations. Civilization is about decreasing time preference, finding solutions better than the intuitive ones.

Ender Wiggin had it right. People who cannot into consistent morality, who feel the need to call the enemy bugs, pigs (case in point: Russian «patriots»), dogs, pigdogs, Orcs, roaches, rats and such to pull the trigger, who turn murder into a jovial matter – are poor warriors and strategists, deluded and infantile. More importantly they are superficial, morally subhuman. What he suggests is adorning subhumanity as a protective wear for the supposedly soft genuine nature of a civilized Finnish people; but it's not something you get to take off and put back into a closet. Like a beast's hide in a fable, it grows on you. Turks and Azeris, for example, will never take it off, neither will, I suspect, Palestinians and Jews – or Serbs or Kosovars or Croatians, or the current international roster of «Fellas». Nor will Balts. And if, like Germans, you end up receiving some forceful help in this matter, much of your original content and soul and culture will be ripped out as well.

One may hold that the material benefit of supposedly higher morale at wartime and ease of popular conscience after the victory outweighs this loss. What even is lost, tangibly? How are, say, Latvians worse off than Czechs? After all, vaticinating about sovls is just a crazy thing Orcs do. Maybe. It's pretty nice that Ukrainians who actually do the killing are for the most part better than those hysterical Twitter women, activists and Westerners. Even when they are boiling with hatred.

And this is another trivial mechanic of group conflict. People far from the front, especially women and cowards, want to feel useful, to «do their part», and also show they're not traitors sympathizing with the enemy. Thus, they will lie, they will demonize, and they will clap to 50 Stalins. A Ukrainian linguist and politician Irina Farion, an enthusiastic Communist in her Soviet youth, has said recently of refugees from the Eastern regions:

Why must my Dmitrik, my grandson, who is 3.5 years old, when he enters the kindergarten, see some Grisha in front of him, who says to him: 'Hello' [Russian]. And my grandson has to teach him with his little fist the Ukrainian language. Because my child comes home nervous and says: "Grandma, there's a Moskal in the kindergarten". [...] All parents who come here [to Lviv] with their Moscow-mouthed [slur for Russian-speaking] children should understand that their child should speak the state language in kindergarten, so that my child does not pick up fleas of the Muscovite language. If you don't like it, what's the problem? Get on the tank with the letter Z or V and get out of here! – said the linguist.

Earlier, Farion called on Ukrainian servicemen not to speak the language of the aggressor country because, in her opinion, it is "the main motivation of Putin to unleash war with Ukraine".

Back then, she received the following in response:

Hi, I'm Sgt. Makhno, I'm going to say my thoughts. If you don't agree, I'm glad you have yours. I saw a video on the Internet where a woman named Irina Farion called Russian-speaking Ukrainians animals. Said that those who speak Russian don't deserve the right to live in Ukraine, don't deserve support and help. I understand that you think you are super patriots, super-Ukrainians, wearing vyshyvankas and blathering in studios about how things should be in Ukraine. But I'll tell you one thing: if my Russian-speaking sworn-brothers, fighters, the wolfhounds, the Russian-speaking volunteers who help us, the Russian-speaking people who support us, leave our Ukraine – then you will speak Ukrainian, but quietly in the kitchen or in basements. And you will most likely live in a Federal District. So, please, bullshit and insult the people who really defend our Ukraine less, although they are not like you. [...] We even have Russians in our unit who have been defending our Ukraine since 2014, fighting the Kremlin regime. The Russian language was not invented by Putin, it was there long before he was born. There are no bad nations, there are bad people and bad regimes. So when we win, let there really be democracy. If we are going to Europe, everyone has the right to exist and live in our country. We will not offend others. Those who will offend, we will clean up.


In closing, here's a recent note from Arestovych. It's mawkish, like much of his writing, but I like that the Adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, and one of the main talking heads on that side, finds it necessary to cajole the masses in such a manner.

– I'll tell you one smart thing, and you, please, be offended.

It is important that you be offended, then you have a chance.

A chance to think.

I'm about the font from the dead, and the wave of fun that has swept the networks and in which many of us have participated.

You can't even begin to imagine what you've wound yourselves up with this "fun."

You can't make fun of the dead.

Not in any way.

I'm already skipping the "we're a European army of a European country," I'm skipping the "reaction of the West," but I still want to save your own personal souls.

Karma in war is very dense.

Those who consider pics made from corpses acceptable and virtuous will be held to account not by the metaphorical Putin or some scandalised religious Republicans, but by the Lord himself. [H/t @4bpp]

To participate in such "fun", a person needs two prerequisites:

– A degree of animalistic brutality,

– The desire to partake in the fun of the mob.

These are all signs of personal weakness and stupidity.

Trying to match the degree of beastliness of one's enemies means losing to the enemies.

F-Foolishness.

Failure to refrain from sharing the mood of the mob means W-Weakness.

All kinds of people die in war.

But the weak and stupid are almost guaranteed to die, even if they stay alive.

"Died at thirty, buried at eighty."

You don't want to dig a foxhole – death.

Lazy to stand watch – death.

Multiplying fucked-up stuff – death.

All the old soldiers know, mock the dead = die. And die in a bad way at that.

But physical death is not the worst.

Dying alive is the true reward to the weak and stupid.

Trying to "defeat" your enemies who are already dead, you die alive and kill your own still living close ones.

Don't ask afterwards whom the bell on YouTube tolls for.

It tolls for you.

Hi, I'm Sgt. Makhno, [...] So when we win, let there really be democracy. If we are going to Europe, everyone has the right to exist and live in our country.

I don't understand that. These people are really fighting to give their nation away to the EU/NATO?

'We must defeat the Russian invasion at all cost so that we may welcome a much bigger African invasion'

???

This seems a curious deficiency. Why are you unable to understand that people have different views on armed invasion versus voluntary association and the travails of dealing with migrants?

Why are you unable to understand that people have different views on armed invasion versus voluntary association and the travails of dealing with migrants

I just find it odd that 'nationalists' would run from the Russian Empire to immediately jump into the Western EU Empire.

Either way, the Ukrainian people is not going to be in charge of its destiny. If you abhor the Russian language, wait until you see what they speak.

voluntary association

Haha yes 'voluntary'. We just choose to go along the propaganda. How lucky we are to suddenly have a desire for transgenders and gay marriage and open borders!

migrants (who have not, to date, prioritized going to the poorer eastern countries over richer parts of Europe)

It's inevitable. These Ukrainians are apparently attempting to become wealthier. With wealth comes migrants.

Unless by this statement, the brave Ukrainian soldier means that he wants to be like Poland and refuse to take in the refugees that the EU asked them to:

'everyone has the right to exist and live in our country.'

I just find it odd that 'nationalists' would run from the Russian Empire to immediately jump into the Western EU Empire.

This is indeed a curious limitation. Why are you unable to understand why people might want to run from an empire that has, is, and signals a clear intent to continue brutalizing a people, to an association that does not?

Between the two immigration policies, the one that doesn't have the migrants bringing in heavy artillery and conducting war crimes would indeed seem to be the preferable immigration policy.

voluntary association

Haha yes 'voluntary'. We just choose to go along the propaganda. How lucky we are to suddenly have a desire for transgenders and gay marriage and open borders!

If you have a desire for transgenders, gay marriage, and open borders, that's on you and your electorate, but that really has nothing to do with voluntary association of a nation to voluntarilly associate without a threat of war for not doing so.

Well, I suppose other than the 'will be invaded by Russian' context, but this isn't an ultimatum extended by Europe, and so any dismissal of the voluntary nature leaves the blame with Russia, not the Europeans.

migrants (who have not, to date, prioritized going to the poorer eastern countries over richer parts of Europe)

It's inevitable. These Ukrainians are apparently attempting to become wealthier. With wealth comes migrants.

Clearly not, or else migrants would be going to the wealth in Africa, which is the highest it's ever been in human history, and not to wealthier countries elsewhere. This distinction in grades of wealth is itself held within the European Union, where Ukraine would not be the wealthiest, and thus not in the area where migration flows would be intending to go.

Not clear why you're unable to understand why people might have different levels of care about the importance of migraiton policy over threat of invasion, though. That still seems weird.

Unless by this statement, the brave Ukrainian soldier means that he wants to be like Poland and refuse to take in the refugees that the EU asked them to:

'everyone has the right to exist and live in our country.'

Seems like you've solved your racial objection.

If your objection with association with a less brutal neighbor is refugee policy, and have identified a European model that does not entail having to take in refugees, you have just resolved your own objection.

Why are you unable to understand why people might want to run from an empire that has, is, and signals a clear intent to continue brutalizing a people, to an association that does not?

It would have remained a mostly peaceful special operation if the US and EU had not meddled like they did in so many other countries in the last few decades.

Clearly not, or else migrants would be going to the wealth in Africa, which is the highest it's ever been in human history, and not to wealthier countries elsewhere. This distinction in grades of wealth is itself held within the European Union, where Ukraine would not be the wealthiest, and thus not in the area where migration flows would be intending to go.

Yet the EU intended to distribute them to Hungary and Poland.

Plus at some point being overrun by migrants will have an impact on the Western economies.

The migrants are not leaving Africa to settle in a colder Africa.

and have identified a European model that does not entail having to take in refugees, you have just resolved your own objection.

There is not.

Hungary is getting punished for its immigration policies, by getting cut off from EU gibs.

Similarly, Poland will get punished, or its American and EU 'allies' will see that they elect a government worthy of investing so much NATO money in, ie a government that celebrates gays and Africans.

And if people like Sgt. Makhno are in charge of future Ukraine, it seems that they will welcome everyone.

Ukraine will be very gay and very African or it will not be.

It would have remained a mostly peaceful special operation if the US and EU had not meddled like they did in so many other countries in the last few decades.

Even setting aside the factual inaccuracies, this doesn't explain your own inability to understand other people's viewpoint or priorities.

Clearly not, or else migrants would be going to the wealth in Africa, which is the highest it's ever been in human history, and not to wealthier countries elsewhere. This distinction in grades of wealth is itself held within the European Union, where Ukraine would not be the wealthiest, and thus not in the area where migration flows would be intending to go.

Yet the EU intended to distribute them to Hungary and Poland.

Ah! So you're not arguing the immigrants are going to Hungary and Poland because they're wealthy places now, I see. Will you update your prior argument accordingly?

Plus at some point being overrun by migrants will have an impact on the Western economies.

This does not explain your inability to understand why other people may not care about this as much as a quite violent invasion.

There is not.

Then why did you raise Poland as an example?

Ah! So you're not arguing the immigrants are going to Hungary and Poland because they're wealthy places now, I see. Will you update your prior argument accordingly?

Migrants are going to the EU because there is wealth there, and it's probably easy for migrants to take some of that wealth compared to other wealthy African countries where they have actual border and law enforcement and little welfare.

The EU has laws to force member countries to welcome these migrants even if the member countries don't want them.

This does not explain your inability to understand why other people may not care about this as much as a quite violent invasion.

I call it a mostly peaceful special operation. There would be way less violence if Ukraine had implemented gun control, disbanded their law enforcement and just let the Russians burn down their neighborhoods, like NATO likes to do at home.

Then why did you raise Poland as an example?

Poland is an example of a country that is ardently anti-Russia and seeks support from NATO and EU, like Ukraine.

However, they do not follow Sgt. Makhno's idea that 'everyone has the right to exist and live in our country.'

And they are getting punished for it by the EU.

Poland would love to have authoritarian immigration controls but they have chosen to bind themselves to globohomo EU/NATO.

Apparently, Sgt. Makhno loves the idea of a globohomo Ukraine where everybody is welcome, but then, why does he even care about Ukraine as a country?

The heads of EU and NATO hate traditional Ukrainian culture and want it erased with the rest of Western historical culture, so what is he fighting for?

Why not just flee to Poland or Germany, UK or USA?

It would have remained a mostly peaceful special operation if the US and EU had not meddled like they did in so many other countries in the last few decades.

No, more probable that it would have been an even bloodier affair, possibly even bloodier, and the fight would be in the urban areas of Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv. With the same consequences as the siege of Mariupol.

Ukraine will be very gay and very African or it will not be.

What's your obsession with Africans? It's fine to tell, I won't kink-shame.

There is not.

Lithuania, Estonia and Denmark are probably getting punished as well?

Africa is a big continent with the youngest, biggest, poorest population, and it's right across from Europe.

That's why most of the migrants to Europe are Africans.

Lithuania, Estonia and Denmark are probably getting punished as well?

That's correct. They are bound by EU laws to welcome migrants.

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