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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32430 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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So, Curtis Yarvin just dropped a long essay about why he doesn't like the West's support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia: https://graymirror.substack.com/p/ukraine-the-tomb-of-liberal-nationalism

Or, at least, that's what I think his point is. As usual with his writings, it can be hard to tell.

FWIW, reading Unqualified Reservations was probably the single most important event in my journey to this weird part of the internet that we call the Ratsphere, even though Yarvin probably doesn't consider himself a rationalist (and I neither do I, really).

However, on this particular point (Ukraine), I find myself quite frustrated. All those words, and he never once (as far as I can tell - I admit that I only had time to skim the article) addressed what I would think would be the most obvious point if you're trying to convince a bog-standard Westerner why they shouldn't support Ukraine: Ukraine was invaded by Russia. Not a "regime change" type invasion, a la USA vs. Iraq '03, not a "peacekeeping" invasion. A "Russia wants some of the land currently controlled by Ukraine to be controlled by Russia instead" invasion. A good, old-fashioned war of conquest for resources. The kind of war that, since 1945, the industrialized West (or "first world") has tried very hard to make sure nobody is allowed to wage, especially not in Europe. And therefore, the West's support for Ukraine is entirely justified by the desire to make sure nobody is allowed to get away with just seizing territory because they want it.

Like I said, maybe he does try to convince the reader why this policy is wrong, but in true Moldbuggian fashion, he uses 10,000 words to say what would be better said with 100.

Or maybe he assumes that anybody paying attention knows why the standard narrative is wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about how and why Russia invaded Ukraine.

As a side note, I do think it's interesting that the both the most radically right-wing Substack author I follow (Yarvin) and the most radically left-wing Substack author I follow (Freddie DeBoer) both think the West's support for Ukraine is bad. Is this just horseshoe theory? They both hate the United States for different reasons and anything it does is wrong by default?

Like, yeah, does Yarvin genuinely think that if America had decided to turn its back on Ukraine when the invasion started, there wouldn't have been hundreds of thousands of Slavs? The Ukrainians would have still fought - the early victories over the haphazard thrust to Kiev etc. were achieved without direct new support, after all. The Russians would almost certainly control a larger part of Ukraine, perhaps even Kiev and Kharkiv, but those would have been extremely costly battles and there would be more partisan warfare. Heck, even without US support, it's almost a given that there would be support from other Euro countries. (Yarvin would probably glibly dismiss this just by saying that European countries are US satellites and would do as they are told, but he's wrong.)

Also, when, say, Poles start talking about anticolonialism and such regarding their support for Ukraine, this is probably not the framework that they are actually using to analyze the conflict, even progressive Poles. They're just trying to speak the language the assume their particular American interlocutor would listen to, and in case of progressive Americans, that would indeed be the sort of rhetoric that refers to anticolonialism and presumed American arrogance implied in "westsplaining" etc. If that's what Yarvin is hearing from Poles he speaks to, it probably is because that's what would convince him (or, more likely, other people participating in the conversation that Yarvin, whose circles are evidently quite "blue tribe", is also a part of).

I admit to skimming most of this text, because I find Yarvin to be a crashing bore, but the general feeling is basically like when I've looked at various leftist theorizing on why (implicit) support for Russia against Ukraine is necessary because of Ukrainian Nazism and American interference and the need to create a multipolar world and whatever and am like, sure, whatever, but have you seen what I live right next door to?. Ideology is ideology, theory is theory, wanting Russia to get a good hiding so that it becomes weaker and less of a threat to my country is a natural Russian-neighbor reaction.

Also, when, say, Poles start talking about anticolonialism and such regarding their support for Ukraine, this is probably not the framework that they are actually using to analyze the conflict, even progressive Poles. They're just trying to speak the language the assume their particular American interlocutor would listen to

That's sometimes the case with foreigners, but Poland is a bad example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheism

Was Prometheism specifically conceived as an anticolonial movement (instead of a geopolitical strategy to weaken Russia/SU, as the article indicates), though?

I admit to skimming most of this text, because I find Yarvin to be a crashing bore, but the general feeling is basically like when I've looked at various leftist theorizing on why (implicit) support for Russia against Ukraine is necessary because of Ukrainian Nazism and American interference and the need to create a multipolar world and whatever and am like, sure, whatever, but have you seen what I live right next door to?. Ideology is ideology, theory is theory, wanting Russia to get a good hiding so that it becomes weaker and less of a threat to my country is a natural Russian-neighbor reaction.

I feel like this is one of the fundamental disconnects between the comfortable bourgeoisie types @johnfabian was complaining about and the more pragmatic. Somewhere in my discord history there is one of those JuanCarlo Esposito memes that reads "You're sporting a Ukrainian flag because it looks good on Instagram, I bought a case of tourniquets and donated them because I grew up with my Grandad's stories about life in the Soviet Union, we are not the same".

Does the invasion even happen without the CIA providing intelligence and training for the Ukrainians? Is Minsk II ignored without American armaments and implicit support? Yarvin says we don’t have this war without western deep state meddling, and that seems trivially true. Ukraine as Russian client state saves a lot of lives. If it’s worth it is a separate question, for Americans, Ukrainians, and Poles.

Ukraine as Russian client state saves a lot of lives.

I continue to find myself baffled at the assertion of this counterfactual. Like, yes, maybe in a different timeline, Ukraine and its people just collectively shrugged their shoulders, lowered the bicolor Ukrainian flag and replaced it with the Russian tricolor, but I don't think we can really say with any earned level of confidence that the change of flag would have cost less than 3-4 figures of lives. There is the implication here that Ukrainians have, or should have, a kinship with Russia (similar to the kinship between Sweden and Finland), and I simply do not think this follows. I, in fact, have been under the impression that Ukrainians already didn't like Russia long before the events of the Euromaidan, as they very much wanted nothing to do with the legacy of Communism and the USSR.

But let's grant the hypothetical that Russia got to peacefully absorb Ukraine. What then? Is Ukraine run like the rest of the Slavic East, sinking to the same levels of stunted ecnonomic development and low societal trust, having to somehow cajole Russia into giving it distinct privileges a la Chechnya?

There is the implication here that Ukrainians have, or should have, a kinship with Russia (similar to the kinship between Sweden and Finland), and I simply do not think this follows. I, in fact, have been under the impression that Ukrainians already didn't like Russia long before the events of the Euromaidan, as they very much wanted nothing to do with the legacy of Communism and the USSR.

Definitely not what I meant. Think more in terms of Hong Kong and China, or the varied demands America has placed on Central and South American states vis a vis drug manufacturing; some shared history, but most of it is a big player who gets to tell small players what to do. But since there isn’t any doubt that the big kids wins every fight, we don’t have entire cities reduced to rubble.

I think you’ve also papered over the real ethnic differences that underlie the ongoing conflicts in the Donbas for the past 10 years, although you certainly aren’t alone there. Western Catholic Ukrainians want to join the west and Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians want to reintegrate with Russia. This conflict wouldn’t have happened if splinter states for ethnic Russians were permitted, as the local referenda asked for. This war is not a noble fight between a tyrant and an underdog, but a civil war backed by opposing global powers. Seems bad to me.

According to Wikipedia, 72 % of Ukrainians are Orthodox and 9 % are Catholic (including Greek-Catholics). The numbers were already essentially the same before 2013, ie. before Crimean invasion. It's pretty clear that already then rather a greater share than 9 % wanted to join the west, and certainly far less than 72 % wanted to reintegrate with Russia.

Perhaps before talking about papering over the real ethnic (here: religious?) differences underlying the conflict it's worth it to check what the actual differences even are.

My bad, posted off the cuff and should have been more granular and done a bit more research. The conflict best maps as Catholics + Ukrainian Orthodox vs Russian Orthodox. This link from 2021 has UOC-MP as the largest denomination in the country, which is now 4% according to Wikipedia. Here’s a very nice map of the Ethnic/linguistic composition of Ukraine, notably missing from the exhaustive wiki page on Ukrainian demographics. I’m sure there’s more interesting West vs. East stuff I could dig up, but it’s not worth my time. We’re pwned, and it’s only going to get worse.

(Huh. This is what it must have felt like to be a Quaker during WWII.)

I'm sure there are Eastern Orthodox Ukranian's who wish to reintegrate w/ Russia, but the actual actions of the war show that while there may have been some eastern citizens who may have no liked the shift toward the EU, it seems overwhelming, even in the East, they dislike the whole invading the country thing more.

If the people in the Donbass wanted to split from Ukraine, there are a myriad of political ways to do it, that would actually get you widespread international support. Look at Scotland or the Basque people, for example. However, one way to lose that support is to team up with a neighboring country to start a low-scale terrorist action within your action for nearly a decade, then play the victim once the actual sovereign government punches back.

What of the democratic election of Yanukovych, based on support from the Eastern Russian speakers? What of the Donbas referendums for independence? The context for Ukrainian secession is more Bosnian War than Scottish progressives. This is Eastern Europe, my man; the legends aren’t good, but Грозный.

Like, yes, maybe in a different timeline, Ukraine and its people just collectively shrugged their shoulders, lowered the bicolor Ukrainian flag and replaced it with the Russian tricolor

This is not what being a client state means. The world is full of client states that are not absorbed into their patron, and it seems uncontroversial that Belarus (which still has its own flag) is a very pronounced example of a Russian client state, and even Ukraine under Yanukovich (2010-2014, before Maidan) was argued to be sort of one.

There is the implication here that Ukrainians have, or should have, a kinship with Russia (similar to the kinship between Sweden and Finland), and I simply do not think this follows. I, in fact, have been under the impression that Ukrainians already didn't like Russia long before the events of the Euromaidan,

Who are "the Ukrainians" here? People with citizenship of Ukraine (the country) or people who speak Ukrainian (the language), which is roughly the set of people that one would refer to as ethnically Ukrainian? What you said is true for the latter, but not true for the former; that's why Yanukovich was elected to begin with, and the Euromaidan was not peaceful. To try to deny that a distinction exists between the two categories is a rhetorical tool that is useful for the Western-Ukrainian (ethnic, government) coalition in this war, but the resulting set of definitions does not carve reality at the joints.

I view Yarvin in much the same way I view guys like DeBeor and Rod Dhrer. They couch thier opposition in "concern" for ukrainian lives but when you cut through all the bullshit what it really boils down to a mix of frustration and fear. Ukraine was supposed to be a silly made up country that no one really cared about, national sovereignty was also supposed to be a silly outmoded concept that no one cared about (never mind be willing to fight and die for), the Ukrainians were supposed to welcome the Russians as liberators because "fellow slavs".

The idiots who were confidently claiming that no one was going to fight a war over eurovision January, have spent the last year watching Ukraine go full Brave Horatius and it disturbs them because that's not something that's not something that's supposed to happen in a rational world ruled by inductive reason and comfortable academic theories like "identity politics".

I was musing as I walked through a fairly rich neighbourhood of Toronto today (Riverdale, for reference) that if I had a good reason to cheer against Ukraine, it would be these fucking pricks. Walking past a bunch of single-family homes each worth millions of dollars decked out with Ukrainian flags (and converted Canadian flags; i.e. replace the colours of the Canadian flag with a yellow maple leaf/outer bars and blue interior) didn't exactly radicalize me, but it slightly annoyed me. These types of neighbourhoods are filled with rich, intellectually vapid bourgeois PMC types who aggressively support the newest aesthetic cause (you'll also see lots of trans-inclusive pride flags and "we love our neighbours in tents!" signs) while actively working against the material interests of everyone they claim to uplift. I don't know about Moldbug because I've not read much from him, but I bet you that DeBoer, like me, tends to be annoyed by this segment of the population more than any else (because it's the crowd I most often rub shoulders with).

I suspect much of the people who claim to have high-minded reasons to root against Ukraine are more motivated by baser and petty reasons. As is the same with most political things, I would think.

I was musing as I walked through a fairly rich neighbourhood of Toronto today

Canada has a huge Ukrainian population. It’s rather centered in Prairies, and not the GTA, but it’s possible that they actually might have real ties to Ukrainians?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Canadians

In this particular neighbourhood, not very likely. The actual Ukrainian community here is located mainly ~10ish km away. This is a well-off neighbourhood too, mostly a mix of old money WASPs and new money Chinese.

I suspect much of the people who claim to have high-minded reasons to root against Ukraine are more motivated by baser and petty reasons. As is the same with most political things, I would think.

I've suspected that many of the people who oppose support for Ukraine from the right are motivated by the same thing motivating people who oppose support for Ukraine from the left: anti-Americanism. But, now, they associate 'America' the state with what they call 'neoliberalism' and wokeness so they have begun to adopt the left's attitudes on foreign relations.

I can certainly sympathize.

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