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I meant more "why does Materialism imply support for Russia?"
Because the soviets were in many respects "the great white hope" and this vibe has been carried over to neo-soviets like Putin. Couple this with the rationalist attachment to inductive reason IE that the side with superior numbers/weapons must win. that the underdog must loose, and you explain the rationalist support for Russia.
That said, if I wanted to be uncharitable I'd explain it away as a general affinity for technocratic authoritarianism amongst the intellectual class.
This feels exactly backwards to me.
My survey of westerners who think Russia will/should win includes old school Chomskyites and the deep/distant/far/dissident-right types. Both for the same reaons: they like to think of themselves as realists and/but despise the American foreign policy establishment too much to think of them as competent.
Your invocation of Hobbes/Rousseau I'm either reading incorrectly or is really out of step with reality given the people affecting this belief in this very thread count some of the most radical Hobbesian libertarians we have (or likely, exist).
The people who even have a shadow of sympathy for the original soviets here to carry over would be the Chomskyites, but not only does it feel a bit harsh to accuse them of liking authoritarianism, the idea that they would be enamored with Putin seems delusional.
If you mean to say that the dynamic of dissidents being sympathetic to ennemies of the regime is similar to communists during the cold war, you do have a point, but the analogy stops there. The ideological reasons, class of the people involved and power dynamics outside of that are either completely different of straight up the other way around.
If you're talking about @KulakRevolt, he's an old school bourgeoisie anarchist type, which is about as explicitly Rousseauean as one can get without actually participating in the French revolution.
The Hobbesian mindset holds that violence, oppression, strife, etc... is the default state of human existence, and that it is only through building institutions, social hierarchies, and other constructs that we can hope to escape/rise above it.
The Rousseauean mindset basically takes the inverse. That rather than providing refuge, institutions and social hierarchies are the cause of all violence, oppression, strife, etc... and that the only way to escape is to tear those institutions and hierarchies down.
Libertarians in general, and Kulak in particular fall into the latter camp more than the former.
As for sympathy for the Soviet Union, that comes back to what I was saying above about "Red Diaper Babies". Academia has always skewed secular and authoritarian relative to the rest of the US population, and the gray tribe is very much a product of that cultural milieu. Accordingly I can't help but notice that right up until this most recent debacle, a lot of Berkley-educated Marxists turned Bay Area Strivers, were holding Putin up as a sort of ideal of who a "rational" and "intelligent" world leader should be, and rather than being out of character it was perfectly on brand.
I encourage you to actually read Hobbes, not just assume the bumper sticker slogans can stand in for 60 chapter argument that is as intricate as a finely timed motor.
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He says subjects can only resist soveriegns in the narrow circumstance where the sovereign is extralegally aggressing against them... but then books 18-30 go on to define almost anything the founders would describe as a rights violation as a form of aggression which would warrant the subject's rebellion or disobedience...
He goes so far as laying out an intricate theory of Judicial review that's if anything more stringent than anything SCOTUS ever dreamed of.
This is why royalists and Absolutists denounced Leviathan in its day as a "Rebel's Catechism".
Hobbes conceives of rebellion as merely the state of war renewed, and that the actions of the sovereign, vastly moreso than the actions of the subject, are what bring these conditions about because the sovereign ceasing to protect or enable the ends for which the subject enters society makes it rational for the subject to rebel and create a new social order by carving one out himself with fire and sword.
I spent 3 years in courses with either Hobbes as a core text, or the sole text... I have drunk deep of that well.
Hobbes is the reason my libertarianism is so violent and absolutist. he lays out the logic of exactly what rights are necessary for a free people (as oppose to those directly living under relationships of sheer power and whom do not participate in the social contract ie. Slaves) to exist within a society, and the logic by which they can and logically must engage in violence if those conditions are not met.
I've read Leviathan granted that was something like 15 years ago now, but I've read it. I've also read a number of Hobbes' contemporaries.
Hobbes is pretty explicit about his book being a response to the recent social and political upheaval, that is the 30 Years War on the continent, and the outbreak of the English Civil War on the British Isles. Specifically why did it happen, and how can such strife be avoided in the future. You in contrast have stated, on multiple occasions, a desire to return to those days when widespread political and religious violence were the norm. In short I expect you to have a rather skewed reading of Hobbes given that your goals and priors are 180 degrees apart from each other.
Yes, Hobbes effectively invented, or at the very least codified and popularized the concept of judicial review. That is merely one of the reasons that his regarded by many as the father of modern political science. And?...
Hobbes being an advocate for judicial review doesn't contradict anything I've said above, if anything it supports it. Part of avoiding sectarian violence/ensuring political stability is making sure that there are means of conflict resolution other than "the losers gets the bullet" that all of the factions involved can agree to. Part of Hobbes' thesis is that Hierarchies imposed from above don't survive, that they require buy-in from the plebs. It's not the crown the makes a man a king, it's the willingness of other men to die for him. Those at the top are as much if not more beholden to those below as those below are to those above.
Likewise you say "Hobbes conceives of rebellion as merely the state of war renewed" and I say "Yes, No shit", or in Hobbes framework a return to the state that the entire raison d'etre of civilization is to escape from. In other words that's a condemnation of rebellion, not an endorsement.
You say that you've "drunk deep of that well" but I got to ask "Which well"? Hobbes', or your Marxist Poli-Sci professor's?
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