Comment by ycombinete | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ycombinete | Hacker News Reader

While reading it it felt like the author of this article had an axe to grind. His bitterness towards Havel felt palpable, and some quick googling shows that he's definitely not a neutral party:

As far back as 2014, when he was _First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs_ he was criticizing Havel and his policies from a policy standpoint: https://www.praguepost.com/czech-news/czech-foreign-policy-a...

He pitches the issues between Havel and Kundera as ideological, and representative:

Their exchange reflected the fault line between democratic-socialist and liberal intellectuals: Kundera argued for a new model of society that would be free and fair, avoiding the vices of both Western capitalism and Eastern European authoritarianism; Havel defended Western capitalism as the only desirable model, needing fine tuning, but no major revision.

And his position on the ideological battle is quite clear in the book he published titled Budoucnost Levice bez Liberalismu_ (The future of the left without liberalism).

This isn't to say the article isn't accurate or interesting. (I loved both Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being; and Havel's Summer Meditations). But I think it's useful context, and I'm definitely taking its contents with a pinch of salt, and double checking the falsifiable claims therein.

> While reading it it felt like the author of this article had an axe to grind.

In the last sentences of the article, the author shows his true colors and advocates for a "multipolar world", which is basically a politically-correct way of saying "we should get closer to Russia".

And indeed, if you look him up, you might learn that he signed a petition calling for an end to support for Ukraine[1] and he frequently speaks out against NATO and defends Russia[2][3]

[1] - https://voxukraine.org/en/russian-disinformation-narratives-...

[2] - https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/svet/3439336-valka-neni-v-rusk...

[3] - https://tass.com/world/1460895

>"multipolar world"

Its more of a polite way of saying a great deal of the rest of the world does not want to live in a unipolar world run by the USA and its allies.

So, not quite the dialectic that one would suppose. Russia is but one party to that ideology - there are many, many more, and thats what makes it multipolar.

No, it is a hidden way of saying that small countries have no choice of their own and they have to belong to some pole. And as luck would have it, the closest pole to central Europe would be Russia! How can someone not want that?

Nonsense. That's an entirely pro-American-centric way of looking at the multipolar proposition. You've gotten too used to the hegemony.

Other nations are sick of American/Western influence in their politics - which is vast and extensive, and: undeniably corrupt.

A Multipolar World is one in which the sovereign rights of nations are respected and not superseded/subjugated by extra-national entities/agencies which do not answer to the democracies or indeed legislature of the nation involved.

A unipolar world is one where a single nation can call up a collective cabal to form an imperial army and invade and destroy countless other nations around the world, and not a single other nation can stand against that cabal and bring its war criminals to justice.

A Multipolar world is one in which small countries do have a choice of their own - and they can thus choose to eschew American hegemony. That is happening across the globe in spite of all attempts by America's hegemonic organs to maintain the iron grip they have had for decades over the worlds poor. Thankfully.

wow

But ok, I'll give you that -- I prefer a unipolar world with US hegemony or whatnot rather than a multipolar world where I have to live in the Russian part (which by the way absolutely never respected the nations that it had subjugated, convince me that I'm wrong).

Indeed. We live in interesting times. BRICS to the rescue!

I think you are stuck in the dialectic of Russia vs. USA - but the rest of the world is not so easily trapped.

If you'd prefer to live in the USA hegemony, its probably because you've been the recipient of its war treasure in some way - perhaps as a citizen or resident. But you would be best served in understanding this situation by actually looking at things from the perspective of the masses who have suffered under American boots for too long - the other side of the polarity of your desired hegemonic wealth: the people from whom it was stolen .. all you have to do is go for a non-tourist-package journey through the Americas .. or talk to a citizen of an African nation about the colonization of their continent by American-backed Western entities for decades...

These small nations will in a multipolar world soon enjoy Wagner and Chinese boots instead.

You think that smaller countries cannot make a military alliance against bigger countries? Why? Isn't it what the US and EU did?

These lesser nations are not worthy to make their own decisions, eh?

And anyway: What Chinese boots? If China has invaded, destroyed and decimated another sovereign nation and left its people in tatters in the last 40 years, please inform me. Show me China's Syria? Show me its Afghanistan, its Libya, its Yemen? Show me China's West Bank?

It doesn't exist - and that is precisely why your 'lesser' nations are choosing the "Chinese Belt and Road initiatives" over "Western-made Syrian Open Slave Markets" and "American-made Depleted Uranium Deposit States", etc ..

People across the globe don't believe the American lie any more. They've seen the products of American war hegemony, even if American citizens haven't, and they're not impressed. Better to do a deal with China that results in roads and hospitals being built, than to do it with the USA, resulting in roads and hospitals being bombed.

Of course China hasn’t, because it’s a unipolar world. The USSR tried, but was contained and defeated. We will see in the future. And as others have said. I’m not defending the misdeeds of the USA.

China West Bank? Ehrm, Tibet? Hong Kong?

I just think the alternative will be worse, much worse.

The unipolar world, in case you hadn't noticed, isn't stopping China from doing a single thing it wants to ..

Taiwan is still free.

Nonsense. Taiwan is a political hostage to two great powers. The USA is only "protecting" it for as long as it takes to get its local fabs booted up ..

Right... but the citizens enjoy their personal liberties a bit more in Taiwan, right?

Chinese citizens say what?

While I can definitely believe that China is going to try take Taiwan one day, I don't really believe that they will mount military expeditions to other continents. It goes too much against Chinese civilizational history. The Chinese were mostly interested in themselves only and the barbarians outside were just a good source of tribute (nowadays: resources). Plus, empire building is very expensive, as both the British and the Americans would attest.

Unless some kind of longevity revolution comes soon and Xi stays on the throne forever, I would expect the next Chinese leader to turn inward again.

Most of the hatred piled on China by members of Western nations currently engaged in imperialist endeavours, invasions, destruction of sovereign states, and occupying the wealthy regions of its enemies states', is really just projection.

Americans' don't want anyone else in the world to do to them, what their nation has been doing for 40 years: dropping bombs on mostly innocent people every twenty minutes.

China has managed to lift a billion people out of poverty into a new era of prosperity. It has created a wealthy middle class for millions and millions of people to improve their lives. Keep that in mind when the anti-China agitprop gets triggered by American exceptionalists.

The USA is not capable of doing that for its own people.

Replying here bc max comment depth.

Absolutely not, boffinAudio, the other way around! It was you who brought US into this discussion, I did not. I am a citizen of a former satelite country of the Soviet Union and I do not want this situation repeated. But some people do not understand that you can hate being a Russian/Soviet subject (as the Polish, Czech...) without having to love the US.

And FYI, part of my family is from South America and I am well aware of the anti US sentiment there and understand its reasons. But it just bears no relevance on what Russia did in Central and Eastern Europe. It's still the same story -- country A attacks country B, but you say. Yes, but country C did this to country D before! So country A has right to do it. Bad luck country B!

> But some people do not understand that you can hate being a Russian/Soviet subject (as the Polish, Czech...) without having to love the US.

Then we are essentially aligned, because I believe that this dialectic is a fallacy, also. You can not want to be ruled by Russia or America - that is a multi-polar perspective (See also: China) - and still believe in peace, freedom and democracy, which are not exclusively American properties, nor are their antipodes exclusively Russian-owned.

The "unipolar world" of American hegemony is over. The poorer nations are defeating it, finally, their own way: by walking away from the petrodollar. And given the sheer statistics of war crimes committed to sustain the petrodollars' hegemony, it can't happen fast enough.

Even if Americans ignore the crimes of their state, the rest of the world doesn't. Its a lot clearer to those with access to the atrocities that America's crimes against humanity far, far exceed those of any other nation - by a wide magnitude.

However, that doesn't mean that the pro-Russian path is the right one to take, either. In the same way that the ultra-wealthy need to start paying their taxes, the American (and Russian) people need to start confronting the crimes of their state with a great deal more honesty. The rest of the world watches.

You use quotes around “multipolar world” but it’s not a quote. I think you should be clearer about that. The final paragraph suggests we should avoid “the trap of political absolute-whether socialism or capitalism, economic pragmatism or national populism—and using the power of irony against those who claim to have found the ultimate truth.”

That seems like a very healthy suggestion to me, irrespective of whether you think randomly invading your friendly neighbourhood democracy is reasonable or not.

Even if the author is shown to be obviously pro-Russia in other sources, this here is a suggestion to resist absolute truths and to read you some Kundera. There’s nothing wrong with that.

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