This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I love devarbol Shoigu-posting.
Some quite good YouTube travelogues on Tuva. Apparently Feynman was obsessed with it. Shoigu himself is only half-Tuvan, which makes sense since he looks Hapa.
For non-romantic, non dewy-eyed take on Shoigu, Tuva and Tuvans, see this.
How Shoigu Got His Post - The Tuvin Mafia Conspiracy
If combination of hardcore Russian nationalist takes, mystical anti-Christianity, deep conspirationism and vantablack pills is your thing, this substack is the place to get it.
There's a paywall unfortunately.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I can't recall any cases when Shoigu isn't just a regular nobody who's only good quality is loyalty to Putin. I guess loyalty for Putin is the main attribute he values, quite understandably. Any other good qualities are just getting in the way of loyalty. Is there any cases which suggest more complicated relationships?
I wish Craig Manzin made a sequel to Chernobyl. Not about Fukushima, obviously, but about Spitak. That's when Shoigu stopped being just a regular nobody, in 19-bloody-88.
Does it play any role currently?
Yes, yes it does. There aren't that many politicians in Russia that have their own legitimacy that isn't lent to them by Putin. Shoigu and Kiriyenko (First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration) are probably the biggest ones remaining. Medvedev and Sobyanin are weird cases. On one hand, they drew upon Putin's legitimacy to win the elections; on the other hand, they both won them relatively fair and square.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
A true loyal nobody is someone like Vaino, a terrified worm who owes Putin his everything (not much) in life. Shoigu is, indeed, closer to the generation that had made Putin, he has an aggressive cult of personalty and clearly was being groomed into a possible successor at some point, possesses an ethnic stronghold in Tyva (which, incidentally, had been sovereign until 1944, and iirc has elite continuity from pre-Soviet era – in a sense, it's more ripe for secession than Caucasus or, certainly, Tatarstan meme), a private army (Patriot) on top of control over the regular army and, indirectly, МЧС, and fails upwards with zero reproach for thirty years now. I'm not sure there's anything to the «shizoid Kremlinology», but he does look like a genuinely powerful figure, with his obsequiousness not much more indicative of his essence than Kadyrov's exaggerated insistence that he's «Putin's infantryman» is the reason his people can harass federal center siloviki when they feel like it.
I do not actually believe the theory that Putin is just a frontman and that the real power is behind the scenes, but if Putin was just a frontman it would be a good choice because, various conspiracy theories about his "true" ethnic background notwithstanding, most Russians seem to buy the idea that he is an ethnic Russian. Having an Abramovich, Shoigu, Kadyrov, or even Lavrov in charge might rankle too many feathers given their mixed or entirely non-Russian ethnic backgrounds. On the other hand, many Russian ethno-nationalists respect Stalin even though he was not Russian, so who knows. Probably you have to either be Russian or at least seem competent and tough. A leader who is non-Russian, incompetent, and weak is too much for even the Russian people to put up with.
That is plausible. It works every which way, of course – one can speculate either that Russia is ran by a cabal of noviops, or that the all-powerful Putin allows said noviops to amass power, secure in the knowledge of his ethnically based legitimacy.
I very much doubt they do. Unless one subscribes to the (popular among formerly occupied peoples but completely incoherent) school of thought that Soviet Communism is great Russian ethnic nationalism, in which case that's true by definition.
In practice there's a grain of truth here, Russians who stan Stalin can be arbitrarily casually racist toward non-Russians, gloat about resettlements, endorse The Great Purge on grounds of «at least he got some Jews» etc. But very rarely (that is, much rarer than outside their camp) do they have any sort of positive ethno-nationalist belief, whether mild or extreme, such as interest in Russian demographics, advocacy against immigration, blood purity maxxing, or losses of ethnic Russians themselves from Stalin's policy successes or failures.
Well, if you were non-Russian, it looked this way. Capital of the empire was in Moscow, official language of state, army and administration was Russian, Russian culture was promoted in schools and all media, higher education was Russian, non-Russians who wanted something else than herd sheep or pick cotton had to learn Russian.
Of course, Russian nationalists had higher standards.
(similar case was the Habsburg empire - hated by non-German nationalists as oppressive Germanizing tyranny, and by German nationalists as mongrel Slavic shithole crushing German people)
It's not a question of standards, it's a question of purpose. Would Estonian nationalists approve of a reversed empire, where everyone has learned Estonian and the capital is in Tallinn, but you still live in the Soviet Union, have no protected representation even in Estonia, and then get purged by Georgians, Russians and Jews? No, I think they consider the current condition much more nationalistic.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link