"There is an incredible contempt and disdain for all kinds of politics just because Russians are completely certain that there is no possible way to change anything through politics, that no change is possible in general. So for that reason, people prefer to lead their private lives. They have opportunities to do that because most of them are better off under Putin. Any kind of political activity is all just complete nonsense to a vast majority of Russians. If you believe in extraterrestrials, that’s at least interesting. If you are into politics, you’re silly. Particularly for people in business, that’s a complete no go. I always say the best way to spoil the party is to start talking about politics in Russia. You will never be invited again.... The vast majority is either in denial of what is going on in Ukraine or assume this attitude of passive support that the narrative produced by the state is enough for them to keep leading their everyday lives.... The TV show House was actually incredibly popular in Russia precisely because the motto is 'Everyone lies.' This is so to the point with what Russians feel. Everyone lies. There’s no truth at all. It’s endless relativism. And the media was saying all the time that you should never trust anyone, including the media, of course...."
Says Greg Yudin, a political philosophy professor at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, quoted in "'Russia Is Completely Depoliticized' A sociologist from Moscow explains how the nation learned to deny reality" (NY Magazine).
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"If you choose to not politicize, you still have made a political choice."
- Rush, probably
And this differs from America how?
For all the online chatter about politics few people here care and even fewer think anything can be changed.
People are into politics here, but the reality of politics seems to be that a bunch of people who everyone hates somehow gets to impose its will on the country.
"There is an incredible contempt and disdain for all kinds of politics just because Russians are completely certain that there is no possible way to change anything through politics, that no change is possible in general."
Post-2020 election, I sympathize with that attitude.
FWIW, the House motto is "Everybody lies". It's more lyrical.
"There is an incredible contempt and disdain for all kinds of politics just because Russians are completely certain that there is no possible way to change anything through politics, that no change is possible in general. "
Reason enough for the average Russian to avoid the subject. It's nothing new in Russian history. Nor can the average person make a difference in changing anything until there is a crisis moment the government can't hide or deny. As long as the economy doesn't contract too much or the body count get too high the indifference will continue.
Russia's population is 144 million. Plenty of them are interested in political discussions.
Keep in mind, though, that the major media blatantly propagandize for the ruling party.
Keep in mind that comedy shows on television never make fun of the country's rulers.
Keep in mind that the elections seem to be rigged.
It's hard for us here in the USA to imagine living in such political conditions like they have in Russia.
this is just the standard tactic adopted by leftists when they are in the minority. The public (in this case Russia) are apolitical conformist boobs, they don't REALLY approve of what's going on. That's why Yudin is talking the way he is.
the whole "the majority are conformist/nonpolitical" reached its height in the USA during Eisenhower. You had the sociologists writing books like "The organization man" or babbling about "inner and outer directed" people. Now with Liberals in total control, when things 10x more conformist, the Liberal MSM talks about how weird/strange all those dissenters are. No more talk about "apolitical conformists who just go along".
Its hilarious that with the Jan 6th protesters rotting in jail, and the killers of Ashli Babbitt and others walking around with awards/medals, anyone in USA can sneer at Russia for their "lack of true Democracy".
Btw, I've seen Yudin quoted in other MSM publications. He must be their "Go to" guy for the scoop on the Russian public.
Sound like Bokononists.
They completely overlook the humor in truth when it's so out of place. It's like a banana peel in the ballet school.
Russians are Americans are every life matters when we order our lives to follow priorities through reconciliation. If the Russians are apolitical, it's because they enjoy that luxury, or it's in appearance only. Hopefully, the former, and we should wish them well, and that they may live in less interesting times than our own. I'm for boring, indeed.
It's hard for us here in the USA to imagine living in such political conditions like they have in Russia.
Not at all when you see the left's reaction to Musk's offer to buy Twitter.
Btw, I've seen Yudin quoted in other MSM publications. He must be their "Go to" guy for the scoop on the Russian public.
Spot on. They find someone who says what they want to hear and print this bs.
"There is an incredible contempt and disdain for all kinds of politics just because Russians are completely certain that there is no possible way to change anything through politics, that no change is possible in general."
Contempt and disdain, or resignation? Sounds like "since I gave up hope, I feel much better."
It's good to see someone making an intelligent comment on the old series House MD. Everybody lies, so there is no point in trying to discover, or base one's decisions on, reality?
House was created by David Shore, who was one of the writers on the beloved older series Due South. Due South was produced by Paul Haggis, who was somewhat older than Shore, but both were from London, Ontario. Haggis had more more of a big-time Hollywood career, movies as opposed to TV. David Shore graduated in law at Toronto, and practised for a while. It has always struck me that it makes more sense for a lawyer to say "clients always lie" than for a doctor to say "patients always lie." Clients probably think it is clever to reveal some things to a lawyer, with instructions to fight about those, while concealing others. A lawyer has to try to explain that if you hide things that are likely to come out, you are handicapping your own counsel. If patients lie, I assume it is by making up symptoms to get more attention, pretending to be sicker than they are, or falling into hypochondria/Munchausen. The House show never wanted to admit this.
Russia has distinct environment and history:
- Very cold semi-arctic conditions with 6 to 10 month long winters
- Enormous, vast, vast, vast open spaces that make west Texas seem cramped
- Thousands of years of push-and-pull among rampaging warlords. Genghis Khan. Golden Horde.
- Hardscrabble, isolated agrarian lifestyles with simple goals and limited potential
With the above, in the 20th century:
- Stalin killed the successful Capitalist farmers who actually fed everyone (the kulaks), leaving behind starvation, mediocre and controllable workers, and Communist bullies
- Many were shaped by the USSR's "warm embrace" and disregard for life/safety
- Many grew up with Yeltsin/Putin post-USSR confusion
- Alcoholism has been extremely common
I think Russians are still regrouping after the USSR, and don't have the will for anything approaching the USSR's militant political energy. Survival and stability come first.
Russian history has been summarized as "long centuries of misery interrupted by brief flashes of false hope." The Mongols, the Tsars, the Soviets, and now Putin and the oligarchs. For a thousand years (and more) they have known no better. No wonder they just try to make it through their lives.
Depoliticized is too narrow a word. Demoralized covers the bases better like the damned are commanded as they approach the gates of Hell, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
The left has endeavored to demoralize decent Americans for decades, and nearly succeeded in the 2020 grand theft of democracy, but a reckoning is coming fast with talons bared.
In an old job in the late 80's I was made General Manager of a major capital expansion. An employee friend who was a Russian immigrant told me, "You are now General, you will be very wealthy!"
I spent a semester abroad in Russia in the 1990s. A professor there said something that, depending on your perspective could be considered either a critique of Americans or Russians, but it rang true to me and seems on point here. He said both the USSR and USA created propaganda demonizing the other; the difference was that Americans genuinely believed the propaganda because they generally are more trusting of institutions, whereas Russians never believed the anti-American propaganda because they are much more skeptical of anything its government or media says. American trust in institutions has declined a lot since the 1990s though.
"The most important thing to keep in mind is that Russia is a completely depoliticized country. People generally don’t want to have anything in common with politics."
*****************
Yeah, serfs and slaves generally feel that way.
It's not that they don't care---it's that they are made not to care.
And:
Blogger Rollo said...
And this differs from America how?
Are you shitting us? Titanic political battles are going on all around us. If people don't care, then why is there about to be a seismic upheaval in American politics come November?
What was the joke?
What's the difference between readers of the New York Times and Pravda? The readers of Pravda know they're being lied to.
As I once heard Newt Gingrich explain, the alternatives to politics are tyranny and anarchy.
Don’t make geese villains? Go to any playground where geese have gathered and just try and find anyone, child or adult, who has anything good to say about them.
Geese are one of the animal kingdom that anyone who has had no contact with likes. Those with much contact with don’t. Like deer, aka yard rats. Suburbanites start disliking them when hunting is banned in the area and suddenly their flower gardens are getting uprooted and the front ends of their cars are being frequently repaired. Before that happens: “Why would you want to hunt poor little innocent Bambi?” Well, Bambi is tasty.
To the extent the characterization of Russian people is accurate it makes me wonder how much of it is due to the 3 generations of Soviet rule. Communist rule obviously tends to bad living conditions materially and civically but the fact these conditions go onw while there are endless false proclamations that there is no need to hope because you are already living in a Communist Utopia ahs to cause a lot of bleakness and nihilism. These kinds of feelings can persist and be transmitted from generation to generation. This isn't to say that Tsarist Russia was significantly better either. I don't know enough about Russian history to have an opinion of this but, I have heard that the Russian outlook was much more similar to Europeans until Russia was invaded by the Mongolians. And after that brutal conquest they shifted a lot more towards a less hopeful outlook and more a survival outlook.
"If patients lie, I assume it is by making up symptoms to get more attention, pretending to be sicker than they are, or falling into hypochondria/Munchausen."
I think patients lie like crazy. "How often do you exercise?" "Do you smoke?" "Do you use drugs?" "Do you eat lots of vegetables?" "Do you eat reasonable portions of food?" "How much alcohol do you drink?" "Do you [embarrassing things go here]?" "Have you ever suffered from any form of mental illness?" "Ever had an abortion?" "How many sexual partners have you had in the past year?"
How often do doctors hear patients lie about this stuff? Many times a day, I'd bet
Push back by relatives:
DM:
To the sailors': Relatives of doomed Moskva crew defy Russian censors with unofficial memorial – as Ukraine claims ALL 510 aboard died and US confirms missile DID hit Putin flagship which was 'carrying nuclear weapons'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10722619/To-sailors-Relatives-doomed-Moskva-crew-defy-Russian-censors-unofficial-memorial.html
The vast majority is either in denial of what is going on in Ukraine or assume this attitude of passive support that the narrative produced by the state is enough for them to keep leading their everyday lives....
And if you disagree with the State Media and don't believe Putin is responsible for everything bad in the US you are a Putin puppet.
Everything I’ve told you is false.
Even the lies?
Expecially the lies!
Remember the Silent Majority? Drove through central Sauk County yesterday (40 miles North of Madison) very windy day, maybe that's why I noticed the flags. Never seen so many. We don't usually talk about politics either but it sure looks like a red wave.
What’s the point of being political in any non-democratic country?
As Rollo said, sounds like this country. FBI/cia/doj/ups/news media/social media. Allliars.
And when you don’t specifically lie ( trump/musk/DeSantis) they try to destroy you.
"It's hard for us here in the USA to imagine living in such political conditions like they have in Russia."
Only for those who haven't been oppressed by Biden's committee for state security, known risibly as the United States Department of Justice*, or might be at this moment but they are yet unaware.
*The arrogance of Merrick Garland and the other Biden DoJ appointees would chagrin even the INSOC inner party and the Ministry of Love.
Don’t make geese villains? Go to any playground where geese have gathered and just try and find anyone, child or adult, who has anything good to say about them.
Domestic Geese don't make good villians. Sorry, you ran into some Ms-13 gang geese. Maybe they were canadian geese.
And you know those canadians.
I'm at a loss first as to how different that is from the US and second as to how accurate or objective his view is. My suspicion is that most people in most countries are apathetic or cynical or just uninvolved in politics. There are smaller groups who take politics passionately seriously. Maybe those groups just aren't around in Russia anymore.
It was difficult and took a lot of courage to take a dissenting stand in the days of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov. But there was hope in those days. Now the post-Communist future is here. People see how intractable their country's problems are. Having elections and having a vote doesn't seem to change much, and there are many more satisfactions in private life than there were under Brezhnev.
So yes, a broad-based politically active class may be missing in Russia, but it's also important to recognize how much the politically active groups in the US and other develop countries deceive themselves about how well informed they really are and how much they can actually achieve to make things better. We in the US seem to have adopted the pre-Revolutionary Russian model of an adversarial intelligentsia and it isn't working out that well for us.
Geese is assho!
I've known some people who grew up in Eastern Europe under Communism. As parents, they never discussed politics in front of their children. They were afraid the kids might say something indiscreet at school....I've read of one woman who was part of the nomenklatura who flirted with the French ambassador during a benefit concert. Stalin in attendance at that concert. She ended up in the gulag for ten years. There's cancel culture and then there's the gulag.....I live in NYC and keep many of my views to myself, but I vote the way I want to--although in NYC I'm rarely given the choice of voting for someone I want.
In West Berlin, July 1979, watched a Soviet documentary (with German subtitles) about how the USSR defeated Japan in the Pacific in WWII
Russians are depoliticized until they aren't.
For all the many and still real differences between the US and Putinia, we are alike in that our leaders are corrupt and short-sighted, and equally capable of unleashing hell on us if they feel power slipping away.
Most people in most countries aren't very interested in politics and don't think politicians and elections change much. There are usually small groups that are more activist and take a real interest in civic and political life. If Russia lacks those groups it could be a problem.
It was hard to be a dissenter in the days of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, but there was hope that an end to communism would change things. Today Russians no longer believe that elections will change things or make their lives better. And there are many more satisfactions in private life nowadays than there were under Brezhnev.
We in the US seem to have adopted pre-Revolutionary Russia's adversarial intelligentsia culture. That doesn't seem to be working out very well for us either. I must confess that our activists or pseudoactivists -- people with Black Lives Matter or In This House We Believe signs on their front lawns -- don't seem to contribute much to our civilization.
Lets consider what democracy looked to the average russian, the rise of the oligarchs massive economic dislocations real hunger enabled by a political class who was at best indifferent at worst vindictive, its a wonder you only ended up with putin and not some one worse.
In the little southern village where I live, every couple of years we have these ceremonies we call "elections", and we know the election season is coming when we start seeing signs in front yards and cross roads, touting the candidates.
And within a few days after the first signs appear, we see letters to the editor of the local paper complaining about the signs as a pest on the landscape and demanding that they be banned.
This Althouse post made me think that I should write my own letter to the editor of the local paper saying that the complainant should support Putin, because if Putin is elected, we won't have to worry about politics anymore.
But I won't.
Rh said… “They completely overlook the humor in truth when it's so out of place. “
“Insects don’t have politics… They're very brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect.”
I don't think New York Magazine can present an informed opinion about what goes on in Pennsylvania. I'm going to give weight to what they say about the Russians?
Now all my attempts at humor sound mean. I don’t mean to say Russians are insects. I was referring to an old joke here with a line from The Fly. I’m reminded of the Bill Maher segment, explaining jokes…
It’s funny. I’m at a Waffle House right now and thinking you can’t make a joke without breaking some eggs.
When told by someone that they “weren’t interested in war”, Lenin replied “war is interested in you”. The Russians aren’t interested in politics but politics are interested in them.
As Comrade Trotsky (with some help from Clauswitz) said, The Russian people may not be interested in politics, but politics are interested in them.
There is a difference between Twitter jail and the gulag, between "cancelling" and "filtering" - but where are we heading? If trends continue, where will be in ten years? twenty? In the sixteenth century all European states became absolutist regimes due to the rise of standing armies. Only in England where there was no standing army did the existing assembly develop into a powerful representative institution instead of withering away. Similarly, the rise of digital jailing may destroy our republic unless we get control. Slavka Elon Musk!
Democrats will likely lose Congress this year as the Republicans did in 2018 as the Democrats did in 2010 as the Republicans did in 2006. I'm not sure that means that Americans care much about politics or see much hope in politics. Sometimes people fall in love with a politician. More often we lash out and try to punish them, but how much love or hope for the process is there? Right now, Republicans are convinced the system is rigged. Democrats are glad it's rigged and only come alive when somebody points to Trump as a threat.
Russia's demographics seem worth paying attention to also. This whole presentation is good but here is a relevant bit, the presentation was given Feb 15th, just before the invasion. Russia is currently killing off & disabling a good number of its young men. If this continues the way it has much longer or does spread elsewhere, a lot worse impacts may ensue.
https://youtu.be/l0CQsifJrMc
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