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Naked Greedy Nostalgia
Feb. 24th, 2022 02:25 pmSo. Putin has used Russia to further his dream of restoring the glory of the Soviet Union. All this waffle about Ukrainians *really* being Russian says it all.
And the world is reacting in the same way that Canadians reacted to the Ottawa Occupation - disbelief and late reaction.
Both Putin and the Ottawa Occupiers are powered by greedy fantasies of the good old days, which certainly weren't good when they were new. Both sets of people are powered by hate for anything that is unlike themselves. Not white, not male[1], not heterosexual, not Christian, not nuclear family, etc etc.
They feel left out and unregarded even though they have so much.
I have been thinking about The Dawn of Everything by Graeber & Wengrow. They talk about schismogenesis, where groups define themselves against each other. We are this and not that like those terrible people. Canadians do it all the time: we don't know who we are, but we sure know that we are not American. The Good Old Days people define themselves as for "family values" etc, and not like those loosey goosey namby pamby bleeding hearts that have no standards at all. So, anything that the Loosey Goosey people embrace, like vaccines, must be repudiated.
I think that John Heilemann is right in the points he made on Stephen Colbert last night. Putin may be evil, but he is not insane. He wants something, and he has been successfully waging campaigns towards that goal. The information is couched in terms of how it affect the USA, but it is still cogent. Here's the clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOIOdVxw4Ls
Putin is emblematic of the fearful urge to return to a fantasied past. For whatever reason, Putin feels that *merely* being a head of state of a powerful country is not enough - he must be acquiring more or he feels he has less. Todd Gordon in this article from the Midnight Sun points out that the Ottawa Occupation is/was powered by the Canadian Petty Bourgeoise, feeling squeezed out by the current economic order:
https://www.midnightsunmag.ca/fascism-is-as-canadian-as-the-maple-leaf/
The Dawn of Everything's main exploration was of the premise that the story of human history, as it is usually linearly told, says that our (male) epic journey from caves to corporations is one-way and that we are now locked into a soul-destroying hierarchical crushing machine - and we are stuck here. Graeber & Wengrow's exploration showed that the human story is not linear. Humans have dabbled in all sorts of ways of organizing and feeding themselves, giving up steps in the linear one-way story to go "backwards" when economics, weather, and neighbours made a change valuable.
So that's encouraging, because we are not locked-in to anything. But it is also discouraging because it seems that whenever a more egalitarian[2] female-forward society occurs, it isn't long before a male-forward hero culture occurs in reaction and then attacks and crushes the female-forward group.
So. I think Putin views himself as the world's current Magnificent Hero, and so is busy crushing everything not like himself.
I think the Ottawa Occupation is also powered by people who view themselves as Magnificent Heroes, rescuing the world from its descent into tawdry feminization.
Because female-forward societies tend to be consensus-seeking, with all the debate and time-consuming oratory, they also tend to be more fragmented in purpose. And they also expect adults to do the courtesy of detailing the merits of their positions for scrutiny, whereas the male-forward hero culture just sticks a sword in it and calls it a piece of cake.
Putin and the Ottawa Occupiers aren't interested in consensus.
We all need to come to grips with that PDQ.
[1] - yes, there are female supporters, but I think this is two impulses: one is to be the *special* one that proves the rule, and another is to hitch one's wagon to a powerful male star and be slightly protected.
[2] - not unproblematic, but that's for another day.
And the world is reacting in the same way that Canadians reacted to the Ottawa Occupation - disbelief and late reaction.
Both Putin and the Ottawa Occupiers are powered by greedy fantasies of the good old days, which certainly weren't good when they were new. Both sets of people are powered by hate for anything that is unlike themselves. Not white, not male[1], not heterosexual, not Christian, not nuclear family, etc etc.
They feel left out and unregarded even though they have so much.
I have been thinking about The Dawn of Everything by Graeber & Wengrow. They talk about schismogenesis, where groups define themselves against each other. We are this and not that like those terrible people. Canadians do it all the time: we don't know who we are, but we sure know that we are not American. The Good Old Days people define themselves as for "family values" etc, and not like those loosey goosey namby pamby bleeding hearts that have no standards at all. So, anything that the Loosey Goosey people embrace, like vaccines, must be repudiated.
I think that John Heilemann is right in the points he made on Stephen Colbert last night. Putin may be evil, but he is not insane. He wants something, and he has been successfully waging campaigns towards that goal. The information is couched in terms of how it affect the USA, but it is still cogent. Here's the clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOIOdVxw4Ls
Putin is emblematic of the fearful urge to return to a fantasied past. For whatever reason, Putin feels that *merely* being a head of state of a powerful country is not enough - he must be acquiring more or he feels he has less. Todd Gordon in this article from the Midnight Sun points out that the Ottawa Occupation is/was powered by the Canadian Petty Bourgeoise, feeling squeezed out by the current economic order:
https://www.midnightsunmag.ca/fascism-is-as-canadian-as-the-maple-leaf/
The Dawn of Everything's main exploration was of the premise that the story of human history, as it is usually linearly told, says that our (male) epic journey from caves to corporations is one-way and that we are now locked into a soul-destroying hierarchical crushing machine - and we are stuck here. Graeber & Wengrow's exploration showed that the human story is not linear. Humans have dabbled in all sorts of ways of organizing and feeding themselves, giving up steps in the linear one-way story to go "backwards" when economics, weather, and neighbours made a change valuable.
So that's encouraging, because we are not locked-in to anything. But it is also discouraging because it seems that whenever a more egalitarian[2] female-forward society occurs, it isn't long before a male-forward hero culture occurs in reaction and then attacks and crushes the female-forward group.
So. I think Putin views himself as the world's current Magnificent Hero, and so is busy crushing everything not like himself.
I think the Ottawa Occupation is also powered by people who view themselves as Magnificent Heroes, rescuing the world from its descent into tawdry feminization.
Because female-forward societies tend to be consensus-seeking, with all the debate and time-consuming oratory, they also tend to be more fragmented in purpose. And they also expect adults to do the courtesy of detailing the merits of their positions for scrutiny, whereas the male-forward hero culture just sticks a sword in it and calls it a piece of cake.
Putin and the Ottawa Occupiers aren't interested in consensus.
We all need to come to grips with that PDQ.
[1] - yes, there are female supporters, but I think this is two impulses: one is to be the *special* one that proves the rule, and another is to hitch one's wagon to a powerful male star and be slightly protected.
[2] - not unproblematic, but that's for another day.
