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Open thread 4/26/22

The New Neo Posted on April 26, 2022 by neoApril 26, 2022

This video says that about one in twenty people are tone deaf. That surprises me; I thought tone deafness was far less common:

Posted in Uncategorized | 58 Replies

On Ukraine: what course others may take

The New Neo Posted on April 25, 2022 by neoApril 25, 2022

Commenter Bauxite wrote:

Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine is a disaster…

There were no good outcomes for the Ukraine once Putin invaded. Once the invasion happened, all of the options that included a Ukrainian victory involved considerable death, destruction, and human suffering for Ukrainians. The options that included a Russian victory involved differing levels of death, destruction, and human suffering along with either the end of Ukrainian sovereiegnty or a significant reduction in Ukrainaian sovereignty.

Given that, it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether different policy choices by the western powers over the 30 years or so since the breakup of the Soviet Union led to the current situation or whether different policies might have avoided it. This is especially the case given the links between US and Ukrainian elites over the past few decades, especially among our administrative class. Did the US politicians and bureaucrats like Nuland, Vindman, and Hill lead western-oriented Ukranians down the primrose path to disaster by making them think that NATO would support them or that the Ukraine would eventually join NATO? Asking that question is not being a “mouthpiece for Putin.” Asking whether the US or other western powers might have avoided the current terrible situation with different policy choices is not acting as “Putin’s press office.”

I agree with much of this – certainly the “disaster” part. But not all of it.

Commenter Art Deco wrote in response:

“Given that, it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether different policy choices by the western powers over the 30 years or so since the breakup of the Soviet Union led to the current situation or whether different policies might have avoided it.”

No it isn’t.

Rather minimal.

Commenter “Bauxite” replied:

“No it isn’t.”

Sure. When a bad thing happen[s], one should never ask why and never consider whether one’s own choices may have contributed to the bad thing. That might cause one to discover out that he or she is not omnisicent. We couldn’t have that.

Art Deco’s answer:

Let go of my leg. That’s the go to narrative of topical commentary, magazine journalism, snap books, and academic literature whenever there is some conflict having vaguely to do with the United States.

In this case, it’s preposterous.

But, as commenter Barry Meislin writes:

The real question is, what is a true reason?; and what is a useful excuse?

However, when one is dealing with either paranoiacs or thugs (or paranoiac thugs—thuggish paranoiacs?), the differences collapse on themselves and all bets are off. IOW, it really doesn’t matter.

In such cases, it only matters whether one has the power to withstand the aggression…and whether one is prepared/willing to use it.

Sometimes people get confused about the assignment of responsibility for some bad result. For example, I don’t go out walking at night in a high-crime area. But if I did, and if I were to become the victim of a crime there, the person who committed that crime is 100% responsible. I bear no responsibility at all. No one forced him (it would probably be a “him”) to break the law and attack or rob me. The fact that my decision could be considered somewhat risky and not all that smart has nothing to do with the fact that he has total responsibility for his own crime and I have none. The fact that the crime would not have been committed – at least, not on me – had I not gone walking there that evening is utterly irrelevant to the apportionment of responsibility.

Putin’s history is that of an aggressor and of a corrupt tyrant who murders his opponents. He has spoken at great length of his desire to reclaim the empire Russia once had, after the fall of the Soviet Union led to what he considers to be a terrible disaster: Russia losing what used to be called by some in the west its “captive nations.” Putin aims to capture quite a few of them again, whether they like it or not.

It probably was not inevitable that Putin invaded at exactly this time – for example, I think he would not have invaded now if Trump had continued to be president. Putin was almost undoubtedly waiting for the right opportunity, and the Biden administration’s weakness plus Europe’s dependence on Russian fuel offered him a golden one. But short of Ukraine’s, NATO’s, and the US’s appeasement of and surrender to most or all of Putin’s unreasonable wishes and demands before the war ever began (and/or of their being so strong as to convince Putin to postpone the invasion until a weaker administration presented itself), in my opinion nothing would have stopped him.

But the arguments in the US continue unabated. In line with this, it’s instructive to look at this interview with Walter Russell Mead, who is talking here about historical strains in US foreign policy:

Q: And it’s the case that if one doesn’t look back to history, one tends to see each case — Kosovo, the debate over NAFTA, relations with China — as a distinct, discr[ete] case study with no overarching view of what it says about our past or how it relates to our past and what it might say about our future.

A: Yes. For example, in the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, the Hungarians threw off the Austrian yoke, but the Russians came in and crushed them. The leader of the Hungarian resistance, Kossuth, came to America. His tour of American was an amazing event. Thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands turned up. There was a demand that the President of the United States receive him. People wanted the United States to do something about the crushing of the Hungarian freedom movement and, in general, the crushing of the democratic revolutions of 1848. We actually did send the navy to Rome, where the papal forces had crushed the republican forces in Rome. And we provided political asylum for the refugees of 1848. So we did end up intervening a little bit. But to listen to the Bosnia/Kosovo debate, you would never have thought — and believe me, the 1848 event was not an isolated event, either, in American history — you never would have thought that these debates over humanitarian interventions are something that go back to the eighteenth century in the United States. And that, in general, the forces and the arguments that advocate and resist these interventions tend not to change all that much over time.

That’s about the US. For Ukraine itself, this speech is the way the defenders of the country probably feel in facing Russian aggression:

Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on…In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free…we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a [Russian] guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power…Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!…

…Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!…What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

The Ukrainians are familiar with the Russian yoke, thank you very much, and the vast majority don’t want any part of it.

Posted in Getting philosophical: life, love, the universe, History, Liberty, War and Peace | Tagged Ukraine | 138 Replies

Reports are that Musk will be acquiring Twitter after all

The New Neo Posted on April 25, 2022 by neoApril 25, 2022

Fancy that.

Glenn Reynolds writes: “Twitter has been destructive for the left, but it has also been destructive for the nation. I hope Musk can fix the latter, at least.”

I have written about my own detestation of Twitter quite a few times. Twitter may be a cesspool, but at least let it be a cesspool that doesn’t favor the messages of the left and censor the right.

Posted in Finance and economics | 14 Replies

The trouble with Russian armaments

The New Neo Posted on April 25, 2022 by neoApril 25, 2022

It seems pretty apparent from the Ukraine war that Russia has a problem with its military equipment. This article summarizes some of the reasons, among them [emphasis added]:

–Russia should theoretically have military equipment better than anyone but the U.S.

–One reason they don’t: Attempted capitalism without privately owned arms companies.

–“The Soviet military industry was full of unprofitable State enterprises, obsolete factories and, above all, a great deal of corruption.”

–The U.S. bids out contracts. The Soviets depended on state monopolies.

–“Russia has never embraced free market capitalism.”

“According to Vladimir Putin, the problem with communism was not the centralized economy but an economy based on ideological principles. In other words, if you want to improve the efficiency of the system, it is enough to change the managers and put technocrats in charge. Technocrats who have been forged in the bosom of the KGB and who have a pragmatic mentality, totally free of the romanticism of communism or any other ideology. This type of person has a name: “SILOVIKI”. And so, just what was Putin’s formula for bringing his military industry into the 21st century? Very simple: To put Silovikis in all managerial positions. This is how Rostec was conceived in 2007, a conglomerate of companies designed to be the great umbrella of Russian defense. Under this umbrella are more than 700 armaments companies: all of them State-owned.“

Nevertheless, Russia may have enough functioning armaments to take over portions of Ukraine. They certainly have enough to inflict terrible damage.

Posted in Finance and economics, War and Peace | Tagged Ukraine | 49 Replies

Macron wins re-election in France

The New Neo Posted on April 25, 2022 by neoApril 25, 2022

In a victory that was not a surprise, Macron defeats Marine Le Pen:

Macron’s victory over Le Pen—with 58.2% of the vote to her 41.8%, according to estimated results released at 8 p.m. local time after polls closed—was significantly smaller than the two politicians’ last face-off in 2017. Back then, 39-year-old Macron shot to power as an outsider, with a 32-point lead over Le Pen, by promising to modernize what he called a sclerotic, over-regulated country…

Macron, 44…is the first French leader in 20 years to win reelection—since 2002, when then-president Jacques Chirac won against Le Pen’s rabidly anti-immigrant father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who faced a wall of opposition that blocked his path to power.

Macron managed that despite barely campaigning for months, preferring instead to play the global statesman in the buildup to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Then over just a few weeks, Macron sprinted across France, warning voters that a Le Pen presidency would ravage their cherished humanist principles, and render the 27-country E.U. untenable…

Yet even so, his shrunken margin of 16.4% of victory signals the fraught political divide he now faces…

Le Pen made it clear her party would immediately begin campaigning for parliamentary seats. “Our historic score puts our camp in an excellent position,” she said in her concession speech Sunday night.

Not only that, but here’s a very familiar divide:

The economic inequality translated into a deep political divide in the election, with about 71% of professional voters choosing Macron, and 69% of working-class voters picking Le Pen, according to the polling company Elabe on Sunday night…

…[M]ore than half the voters in the election’s first round on April 10 chose, among 12 candidates, far-right or far-left politicians— a reflection of widespread anxiety and discontent with mainstream politics. “There is a sense of decline,” Nicolas Becuwe, senior director of Kantar Public in Brussels, said on Thursday, during an online presentation of the polling company’s data across the E.U. “France is the most pessimistic country in all of Europe.”

One problem for Le Pen in this election – and an especially ill-timed one, at that – is that she has long been Putin-friendly and is in favor of France’s withdrawing from NATO. Also, turnout was rather low, with many people not liking either candidate. Macron may have won by a wide margin, but he’s not beloved:

…Macron remains a deeply unpopular figure among a large proportion of the population…

…Euronews takes a look at some of the challenges ahead.

Five of them are listed in the article, including this one:

Macron may face a backlash, despite his victory…

The first round of the presidential election confirmed three newly entrenched blocs in France’s new political landscape: Macron’s pro-European centrists, Le Pen’s nationalist insurgency, and Mélenchon’s hard left.

Broadly, each has the backing of around a third of the public…

France is a very divided nation despite the decisive results in this particular election.

Posted in Politics | Tagged France | 9 Replies

Open thread 4/25/22

The New Neo Posted on April 25, 2022 by neoApril 23, 2022

Prodigies, prodigies, prodigies:

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Replies

The story of my left eye – so far: Part I

The New Neo Posted on April 23, 2022 by neoApril 28, 2022

[NOTE: I’ve decided to write an explanatory piece about my recent eye problems and surgery. It may be long and boring to some, but I think it might be helpful if anyone is going through a similarly confusing time with the medical profession. This is the first of several planned parts.]

I had good vision as a child and young adult, and it persisted through much of my life. I wore distance glasses for only two things: to see subtitles in the movies, and to drive at night. And I didn’t even really need them for either of those tasks, although they helped. I could also usually make do without reading glasses except for small print in low light.

But about twenty years ago I went for my annual visit to the eye doctor and as the technician was looking at my eyes he suddenly said, “Excuse me; I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I had no idea what was going on, but his abrupt departure made me uneasy.

He returned ten or fifteen minutes later with the eye doctor, who peered into my eyes for a while with some instruments, and then told me I would need laser surgery for something called “narrow angles.” My eye structure was such that the drainage system was now potentially compromised, something that happened more commonly in Asian people. I’m not Asian, but I had it anyway, and he told me that meant I could suddenly go blind in a matter of hours after getting the first symptoms, which would be eye pain. It could happen any time, any place, and I had to be near a hospital because I would need emergency surgery in the event of an attack of what’s known as narrow angle glaucoma (not to be confused with the more common sort of glaucoma, which is a different thing with a different cause).

He said that the laser surgery would be very simple, so simple that it really didn’t qualify as “surgery.” It was done in the office and took a minute or two. The procedure was called an iridotomy, with the laser putting a small hole in the patient’s iris so that the fluid would drain if there was an attack and the pressure would never build to damaging proportions. Complications were so rare as to be nonexistent. In one in a million people, the tiny hole in the iris let in light that the retina could perceive as an extra little gleam in the visual field. But that just about never happened.

The whole thing scared me, and I wanted to wait a while and think about it. If I waited, he said, I would have to avoid having my eyes dilated. That could precipitate an attack. I would have to avoid suddenly going into a very dark room – that could precipitate an attack. I would have to avoid taking the following medications – and he proceeded to hand me a very long list.

It was sobering, even though I felt like a wimp for being afraid. My vision was so good that it was hard to accept that I needed eye surgery, even a minor one. But after a year or so and a consultation with another eye doctor who told me I had very narrow angles and really needed the surgery, I decided to do it. The doctor wanted to do both eyes at once, but I insisted on one at a time.

The day came, and the surgery was an odd experience but not such a terrible one. They lasered my left eye first. Afterwards my vision was unclear because they put some sort of sticky substance into the eye, but after a few hours it cleared.

Except for the new light in my eye.

My iridotomy hole was at two o’clock in my vision and the light was at eight o’clock, reflecting the flipping of images by the retina. I was panicked and distressed, and went back to the doctor who had done the iridotomy. He was almost as upset as I was; maybe even more so. He said it was the first time this had ever happened in an iridotomy he’d done. He also said that my iridotomy opening was very large because when he used the laser my iris “split like a broken zipper.” Ugh. He told me, though, that over time the brain adjusts and the extra light becomes much less disturbing.

And that’s what happened. After a few months, I often didn’t even notice it, although at times it became quite annoying again depending on light conditions. But now I faced having the other eye done. This time I went to a fancy eye clinic in Boston, and the doctor used a different technique for the iridotomy on the right eye. Fortunately, no broken zipper and no extra light in that eye.

And that’s the way it remained for many years.

[To be continued….]

[NOTE: Part II can be found here.]

Posted in Health, Me, myself, and I | 37 Replies

On the split on the right regarding the Ukraine war

The New Neo Posted on April 23, 2022 by neoApril 23, 2022

You’ve probably noticed the split I’m referring to, on this blog and others. I’m planning a piece on the topic one of these days. But till then, I recommend reading this article. The author is far more familiar with and knowledgeable about Russia and Ukraine than I am, including being able to read the languages.

Posted in Politics, War and Peace | Tagged Ukraine | 106 Replies

Annals of woke literature

The New Neo Posted on April 23, 2022 by neoApril 23, 2022

A while back I saw a link at Powerline to an article in The Critic entitled, “On the chopping block.” I idly clicked on it, wondering what it was about, and saw that it concerned one of those all-too-common flaps over some author’s use of statements some group or other finds objectionable. This began a cascade of events that led to the resignation of Sir Philip Pullman, president of “the august writers’ institution the Society of Authors.”

These are Brits, in case it wasn’t obvious by now. But it could just as easily have taken place here, or in Canada, or just about anywhere in the Anglosphere. A bit of inside baseball; I hadn’t ever heard of that “august society” before. Nor had I heard of Sir Philip Pullman, or the book in question, or its author Kate Clanchy. But I became curious to learn what her offensive words or phrases had been, and so I quickly read the article and discovered that they’re not even quoted in it, although they’re described this way: “ableist” and racist. The book itself is entitled Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, and it won something called the Orwell Prize.

Orwell? Yes, that Orwell:

Each year, our independent panels award prizes to the writing and reporting which best meets the spirit of George Orwell’s own ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’.

So what language did Clanchy use that was so terribly offensive? I read another entire article on the brouhaha and then a third one before I found anything that gave me a more precise idea. It’s as though her words were so toxic that they couldn’t be mentioned, even in an article covering the episode.

But here they finally are, in an article in The Guardian entitled “Kate Clanchy to rewrite memoir amid criticism of ‘racist and ableist tropes’”.

Rewriting a memoir to suit current political demands – what could be more deserving of an Orwell Prize?:

Kate Clanchy is rewriting her critically acclaimed memoir after widespread criticism of her portrayal of her pupils, particularly children of colour and autistic children.

It follows reports that the publisher, Picador, had been in discussions to update future editions of the Orwell prize-winning book Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, after days of online scrutiny over offensive passages, and was criticised for not going far enough in its initial statement.

Readers and fellow authors had been critical on Goodreads and Twitter of descriptions in the memoir, including the use of racial tropes such as “chocolate-coloured skin” and “almond-shaped eyes”, and references to one student as “African Jonathon” and another being “so small and square and Afghan with his big nose and premature moustache”.

Another passage was highlighted for the inclusion of ableist descriptions, in which Clanchy, a poet and teacher, refers to two autistic children as “unselfconsciously odd” and “jarring company”, and writes “probably, more than an hour a week” in their company “would irritate me, too, but for that hour I like them very much”.

The award-winning teenage author Dara McAnulty, who is autistic, shared the passages and tweeted: “Some people didn’t believe me when I shared some of my education experiences and how teachers felt about me … We can understand how you really feel about us.”

Oh, the horror!

When Clanchy’s book was awarded the prize, the group described it as “moving, funny and full of life”. The publishing world and the woke twitterati seem bound and determined to leach those characteristics out of all future offerings.

Posted in Language and grammar, Literature and writing, Race and racism | 25 Replies

Open thread 4/23/22

The New Neo Posted on April 23, 2022 by neoApril 23, 2022

Posted in Uncategorized | 29 Replies

How the left is further taking over public schools in Minnesota

The New Neo Posted on April 22, 2022 by neoApril 22, 2022

This sort of educational project is being exposed more and more now, but for a long time such things have been happening outside of people’s awareness. And that was part of the left’s plan.

It’s hard to say how many states have experienced this degree of change in the goals of public education. What percent of the whole? Is it happening only in bluer-than-blue states, or has it penetrated elsewhere? My guess is the latter, at least to some extent.

Here’s part of the story in Minnesota (MDE stands for the Minnesota Department of Education):

When MDE appointed the standards drafting committee, it took the unprecedented step of excluding academic subject matter experts in history, civics, geography and economics. Instead, it stacked the committee with political activists, community organizers and their allies, who dominated the process.

These activists’ goal was not to revise and improve “rigorous standards” in “core academic subjects” in our state’s K-12 public schools, as law requires. On the contrary, they view Minnesota’s public education system — as drafting committee member Jonathan Hamilton, of Education for Liberation Minnesota, has described it — as a “white supremacist puzzle that must be taken apart and exposed for the lie it is (emphasis added).”

Activists’ weapon of choice in taking our schools apart is Ethnic Studies. Forget about teaching students about the historical leaders and events that shaped our democracy, like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and America-led victories in World War II. MDE’s new “fifth strand” trains K-12 students to view our nation’s social and political institutions with suspicion and hostility and seeks to enlist them in what Hamilton has referred to as a “political struggle” to change the social, economic, and cultural system that underlies our polity.

How will Ethnic Studies play out in Minnesota classrooms?

When the Minnesota Legislature adopted our state’s social studies standards in 2004, it authorized MDE to revise them every 10 years to “raise academic expectations for students, teachers and schools.” By law, state standards must be both “objective” and “measurable,” and “consistent with” the U.S. and Minnesota Constitutions.

But MDE’s proposed standards fail on all these fronts. Under the new Ethnic Studies standards, one of which is entitled “Resistance,” for example, students are instructed to “organize” to resist America’s “systemic and coordinated exercises of power” against “marginalized,” oppressed groups.

“Education for Liberation Minnesota” – Minnesota is in need of liberation, but not the kind that Jonathan Hamilton seeks. No wonder the left is so against Florida, DeSantis, and what’s happening there, as well as demonizing writers such as Christopher Rufo who have been hard at work exposing the left’s racist education game. The left is well aware that most Americans are against this sort of pedagogy, but the hope was to accomplish it under the sneaky guise of something that sounds righteous such as “ethnic studies.” Now more and more of America is becoming alerted and alarmed.

I am reminded of some passages from Allan Bloom’s prescient 1980s book The Closing of the American Mind. He knew what was happening and what it meant, and tried to warn us. Here’s a passage of Bloom’s that I quoted in this previous post:

Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum. It wants to produce a certain kind of human being. This intention is more or less explicit, more or less a result of reflection,; but even the neutral subject, like reading and writing and arithmetic, take their place in a vision of the educated person…Over the history of our republic, there have obviously been changes of opinion as to what kind of man is best for our regime…A powerful attachment to the letter and spirit of the Declaration of Independence gently conveyed, appealing to each man’s reason, was the goal of the education of democratic man…

But openness…eventually won out over natural rights, partly through a theoretical critique, partly because of a political rebellion against nature’s last constraints. Civic education turned away from concentrating on the Founding to concentrating on openness based on history and social science. There was even a general tendency to debunk the Founding, to prove the beginnings were flawed in order to license a greater openness to the new. What began in Charles Beard’s Marxism and Carl Becker’s historicism became routine. We are used to hearing the Founders being charged with being racists, murderers of Indians, representatives of class interests. I asked my first history professor in the university, a very famous scholar, whether the picture he gave us of George Washington did not have the effect of making us despise our regime. “Not at all,” he said, “it doesn’t depend on individuals but on our having good democratic values.” To which I rejoined, “But you just showed us that Washington was only using those values to further the class interests of the Virginia squirearchy.” He got angry, and that was the end of it. He was comforted by a gentle assurance that the values of democracy are part of the movement of history and did not require his elucidation or defense. He could carry on his historical studies with the moral certitude that they would lead to greater openness and hence more democracy. The lessons of fascism and the vulnerability of democracy, which we had all just experienced, had no effect on him.

In my post, I added this observation:

I find that passage about the obtuseness of Bloom’s history professor astounding as well as very descriptive of how we got here. The complete dominance of the radical professors as far as numbers go are a more recent manifestation, although there have long been some. But Bloom was a student of that history professor back in the mid-1940s, having been born in 1930 but having also been precocious enough to get his undergraduate degree at the age of eighteen from the University of Chicago after having entered at fifteen. The unnamed history professor Bloom describes in that passage was almost certainly not a radical. At most he was probably only mildly liberal. Perhaps he even passed for what was then known as conservative. If so, he was also unaware of the lessons to which Bloom refers to in that last sentence I quoted, even though – as Bloom notes – they had just experienced those lessons in WWII. The professor did not see any relation between what he was saying about the Founders and what would ultimately undermine our republic and all the values he probably held dear.

But Bloom, his student, saw it, even back then, even at so young an age.

Note also the tone of barely-restrained sarcasm; Bloom seems to have had a certain amount of contemptuous anger at those academics who could have been so stupid as to not have realized the effects of their throwing out the precious baby and leaving the dirty bathwater (it seems his first history professor was none too happy with his challenges, either). As the book goes on, some of the best passages involve Bloom’s description of the faculty’s craven abdication during the student uprisings of the 1960s, when he was one of those who tried (in vain, as it turned out) to hold his finger in the dike of the best traditions of Western Civilization.

So here we are.

Posted in Education, History, Race and racism | Tagged Allan Bloom | 25 Replies

A Russiaphile writes about the war in Ukraine

The New Neo Posted on April 22, 2022 by neoApril 22, 2022

Here’s someone who’s not inclined to judge Russia harshly. And yet this war has caused him to rethink his former love of the country and its people.

It’s a very sad reflection on how it is that events can challenge and change even long-held and deeply-entrenched beliefs. I know the feeling well, although not regarding Russia. However, like the writer, I have loved Russian literature from the moment I first encountered it (which in my case was in high school), and took college-level courses in the subject as well as some Russian history. As a young child, I saw this wonderful movie in a Manhattan movie theater, and it opened my eyes early on to the fact that the Russian people were not our enemies and how deeply they had suffered during World War II. But I never lost sight of the tyranny of the Soviet government towards the Russian people and to the inhabitants of the countries of Eastern Europe, and rejoiced when they gained their autonomy.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

I have been a Russophile for as long as I can remember. Or, to put it more exactly, since I was eight years old, when I attended a school play performance of Gogol’s The Government Inspector…

At the age of 26, I moved to the Baltic State of Estonia, and I was seeing Cyrillic signs on the building and hearing Russian spoken around me. I was meeting real Russian people who were angry about the loss of their Empire, and bitter to find themselves suddenly a minority in a country which had abruptly seceded from the USSR. But I also found that such people were invariably generous and happy to discuss literature and answer my questions over a cup of black tea.

That was 25 years ago, and in the intervening years, Russia and its culture consumed my adult life. I became interested in other post-Soviet countries—Hungary, Romania, Estonia—but as they say in Hungary, “When it rains in Moscow, the umbrellas go up in Budapest.” Everything in this region, like it or not, begins and ends with Russia. Not a week has gone by when I haven’t tried to understand it better. I can speak Russian now, I converted to Russia’s Orthodox church, and I have a half-Russian daughter who knows barely a word of English. What was once so distant and unfamiliar has become a part of my daily life and, in my child, a part of my family too. I often said while I was living there that the Russians did not feel like a foreign people to me, and that in my Southern Russian city I felt, to a great extent, that I was among my own. I continued to feel that way until the early morning of February 24th, 2022, when a chasm suddenly opened up, perhaps permanently.

Please read the whole thing. It really cannot be summarized.

Posted in War and Peace | Tagged Ukraine | 92 Replies

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