The Closing of the Bulgarian Frontier
switchyardmag.com
switchyardmag.com
If you try to have your career go the same way as you would expect in Western Europe/USA - go to the best school, get the best internship in the best company and be rewarded for following the rules you'll be infinitely disappointed in this country. There is no shortage of people who feel unrewarded and unappreciated for their qualifications and credentials.
But if you try to make your own way - getting a skill by practicing yourself and searching out people who need that skill it might work surprisingly well and take you far.
Btw if you enjoy the linked writing you should check out Time Shelter, it won the Booker prize recently.
I assure the readers that there is ample frontiers in northern canada
A place where it is dangerous and you will have to break your back, but the payout is nice and allows you to climb societal ladder fast.
Vorkuta is an opposite of frontier despite being the reference cold area.
This is because, when I step on the motherland soil I don't feel like I have mission or that I'm part of a large community. Instead, it feels like it just exists on its own and its up to me to figure out what what I want to do. I can see that things are happening, people are up to something but I don't feel the flow - if you know what I mean.
Especially in Turkey, being a collectivist society, is very limiting because it makes me feel like I must have an explanation for everything I do. It's like everyone has a well defined persona and everything is done in certain informal way and you don't have even the slightest wiggle room. Things change for you only as much as you can change your persona. For example, if you manage to get into a good school you suddenly enter in a new space with a different wiggle room. You don't feel the world much, all you can operate in is the society and you can't get out of it.
Germany, I find it interesting. It made feel like entering a well oiled machine and there's a strong flow but also opportunities. You are still free, it's not like Turkey but unlike Bulgaria you need to pay close attention on how stuff works and do it that way.
UK, feels closer to Turkey in many ways - it feels like you have a mission and place in the society. The wiggle room is much better than Turkey though, and unlike Germany you are allowed to mess with how stuff works and propose changes. It's more goal oriented than process oriented in that regard but you definitely feel boundaries of your place in the society. Also, in UK I felt like at the edge of the civilisation and I was allowed to reason why things are done the way they are done(in contrast with Turkey, where it's extremely energy consuming to question anything).
Belgium was a bit like Bulgaria: You don't feel like you have a mission but unlike Bulgaria it felt like a lot is going on but the flows are rigid and hard to get into the stream.
No, they didn't, maybe some of the newly well-off people wanted to do that, like the parents and grandparents of the author of the article here, and that was mostly happening because they could afford to fail because they had money, but the great, great majority of people in Eastern Europe back in the '90s most certainly didn't "want to do something bold with their newfound freedom", they just wanted to be able to, like, literally live, meaning to be able to pay the bills and to put food on the table. Both of those things (paying the bills and putting food on the table) had become impossible for many of our parents back then, my parents eventually did have to sell their one-bedroom apartment in the early 2000s because of unpaid bills.
But I get it, the children of the well-off people from the 1990s went on to study in the West and now they're back lecturing us about this and that and that other thing. Maybe they could just try and open their eyes a little more and realise how difficult and excruciatingly hard life was for the majority of us back then, people who didn't have our parents join well-paid jobs in Western companies.
I'm not Bulgarian, but I did grew up in a city just 11 kms from the border with Bulgaria, one of my first memories as a kid is going with my mum to a Bulgarian border city in order buy some stuff from there (in the mid-80s the Bulgarian stores had more diverse stuff compared to stores in Romania). I'm also about the same age as the author of the article, I think a year older, thereabouts.
For me as a young West Berliner, it was a fun time with lots of opportunities.
For many people in the former GDR it was a trauma, their lives collapsed.
And Bulgaria has not received high transfer payments.
So it is more a personal frontier than anything else. A frontier is usually where little exists and by building something from the ground up you have more to say about things. While most people may not have had much of a say in the first place what happened in Eastern Europe and also more slowly in the rest of Europe was still mostly the opposite. It has been more of a frontier for others, like the French bank mentioned, than the local population.
> The States felt like an old place, weirdly older than Europe, a place where, for all its breathless movement, time seemed to have stopped. There was too much of everything: rules, work, wealth, poverty, guns, art.
> Perhaps that was why the Communist regimes all across Eastern and Central Europe collapsed in the final run. Not so much because of their beleaguered economies, although that was an important factor, but because no one believed anymore.
What has happened is that the only thing worth anything anymore is property... and the prices of that have gone through the roof!
The recurring themes now are all nuts-and-bolts concerns: housing, transport, employment, the environment, public spaces. These are things that aren't solved well with our existing coordination structures, since they tend to result in win/lose or lose/lose game-theoretic outcomes.
My feeling is that all the troubles we’ve been witnessing over the last decade—Trumpism, Brexit, the rise of nationalism all over Europe, Russia’s virulent imperialism—are attempts to disrupt not just the dominant political systems, but the zone of eternal repetition. In most cases, these attempts are ridiculous, ersatz, misguided imitations of ideologies borrowed from the past, exposing their own imaginative shortages—they aspire to move the hands of the clock, even if backwards—but it’s hard to deny they represent dissatisfaction and resentment with the way things are. There is, it seems to me, a subconscious craving to be taken out of the boredom of timelessness and be thrown back into the flux of time, even if that means violence or war—anything but the broth!
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58999261-time-shelter
So yeah, it's dangerous to think you will always win because your ideas are the only correct ones. But it's possible to rig the system so the "good guys" (you) always win, and then say it's because your ideas were correct. At which point you might find you have not a dictatorship per se, but merely an illiberal democracy that guarantees continuity of government.
the Senate being a strange beast is not surprising, it's by design. it's important to prevent tyranny of the majority. (after all usually populism quickly switches gears into that, then slowly but surely throws off the other restraints and it becomes a usual dictatorship.) of course, it bears asking how well the Senate is doing at this prevention.
Brought a lot of memories from the early 90s. The blackouts, the queues for bread and fruits, and the empty shelves... I was a kid back then and I didn't had any perspective. But I wander how my parents dealt with all that. I can't recall they complaining too much.
Government often also gave accommodation in those tolerable-at-the-time concrete flats. I meant allowed people to take a loan for state-built accommodation, you still had to pay it back. Same for cars, my parents waited few years since they were not apparatchiks (just university-educated folks which was already a bad place to be in eyes of regime, they had 1/2 salary of a guy digging ditches and struggled to get by financially), no way to choose color or anything else, take it or bye. Of course if you were known for causing troubles then you were eternally at the end of queue. Same for stupid things like... a couch. I wish I was joking.
People were often dangerously naive, that's why when it fell 90s were so brutal - wolves always making part of population stepped from the shadows and stole everything, killed anybody in their way, often in gruesome ways.
Sounds familiar? Every single post-soviet and eastern block (aka nuclear battlefield as planned by soviets for WWIII that never came) ended up like that. I still firmly blame soviet union for all this, and lets be honest current Russia is trying to bring back those 'good' old times desperately anyway it can. And for some reason those pesky satellites don't want to lose that stupid freedom so easily. No idea why
Today, we have become citizens of a global, Brezhnevian capitalist state, which, in its failure to provide an inspiring frontier—gone are the days of Kennedy’s “New Frontiers” or Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In”—has slowly ossified and wrapped back upon itself. My feeling is that all the troubles we’ve been witnessing over the last decade—Trumpism, Brexit, the rise of nationalism all over Europe, Russia’s virulent imperialism—are attempts to disrupt not just the dominant political systems, but the zone of eternal repetition.
(And when the author mentions a Brezhnevian state, bear in mind he actually grew up in one: he knows whereof he speaks.)
Nation-states came into existence following the increased reach of reliable, everyday movement of people, goods, and ideas. Such limits are now disappearing, and not even slowly. This will continue to generate friction, while people's desire for belonging morphs political structures into something that suits the new conditions.
A reality in which the citizens of New York and London share more values than they do with people from the surrounding townships, is already here; one cannot wish it away out of nostalgia, sooner or later reaction gives way to progress.
You put it like this is all inevitable and 'progress', which I think is both not true and dangerous by discarding the opinions of those unhappy with it (which leads to things like Brexit, IMHO)
This is a choice made on behalf of the people and Brexit, the recent election result in the Netherland, and the political situation in many other countries show that the people don't necessarily agree with it.
Forced by whom? Changes are agreed by people, often very smart people who believe in a future where we won't squabble on silly things because someone drew a line in 1840something as far as they could drag their cannons.
In a world where your goods and services are built and sold all over the world at any given time, where everyone talks across continents at every hour of the day, a lot of the old "national" dimensions simply don't matter - or keep us in a state of vassalage towards folks who have already embraced the future.
There is always someone resisting change; you can still travel by horse if you really want to, but people will zip by you in trains and cars. Most of the Brexit-supporting public, for example, have already realized that they voted themselves on a buggy whip, and are busy trying to retrofit a steam engine on it.
Immigration is a highly sensitive subject, and both in the UK and the EU governments have decided that 'more' is correct and anyone complaining is wrong and an extremist.
So I am not sure that changes are necessarily agreed by the people (not the same as "by people", which is the whole point).
> There is always someone resisting change
Again, you paint "change" as inevitable when most of what we're seeing is conscious decision by some people, not inevitable change (which is only mostly technology as in your examples).
"The EU" didn't repack anything - treaties are agreed or amended by national governments. If the Irish voted one way and then their government agreed something else, they can take it up with their own politicians.
> Immigration is a highly sensitive subject, and both in the UK and the EU governments have decided that 'more' is correct
Again, immigration is a topic managed almost exclusively by democratically-elected national governments. And it has always been - EU rules only apply to "traffic" between member states, and in fact give extra responsibilities to peripheral countries. Even between EU members, the only real EU rule covers right of employment; everything else (who can stay where for how long, which services they can access, etc) is for the local authority to decide.
The UK government, in particular, is currently schizophrenic on this subject. They spent inordinate amounts of time and money on grand public gestures (Rwanda policy, "hostile environment", Windrush fallout, or indeed Brexit) while, at the same time, completely failed to implement serious and sustainable policies on who is allowed to stay where and how - hence numbers skyrocketing.
You won't find a single UK cabinet minister not genuinely convinced that immigration should be curbed; it's just that nobody knows how to do it without looking like a buggy whip maker in a world of car drivers. To compete on the global stage of modern capitalism, a country needs talent and labor to go there, regardless of where they were born; a closed country inevitably declines, as it happened even to mighty Japan in the last 30 years. That doesn't have to mean that you relinquish entire towns to groups fresh off the boat. It's not a binary choice, and painting it as such is disingenuous at best.
> you paint "change" as inevitable
Because it is - change is driven by technological advancements. You can fight for the ancien règime as much as you want, sooner or later someone will show up at your port with a metaphorical warship and force you to join modernity.
Yes, but you got the point, I used "EU" as umbrella term to mean the institutions and national governments controlling them. They all came together and 'repacked' the initial Treaty because they had decided to move forward with it even if the people made the "wrong decision" when asked about it.
> everything else (who can stay where for how long, which services they can access, etc) is for the local authority to decide.
That is not correct. EU law extensively governs these aspects as well.
> You won't find a single UK cabinet minister not genuinely convinced that immigration should be curbed; it's just that nobody knows how to do it without looking like a buggy whip maker in a world of car drivers. To compete on the global stage of modern capitalism, a country needs talent and labor to go there, regardless of where they were born; a closed country inevitably declines
And here we have it. The usual blurb that we cannot do anything and that, anyway, this is required, both of which are not true. We could divide immigration by 10 (the government is free to decide how many visa are issued and to whom) and still get the real, actual "talent". That's exactly the point and issue of all my comments in this thread, and this applies across Europe.
Certainly, in case of the UK, it is totally mad to claim that 700k extra immigrants in a single year were "needed talent". They are used to hide the decline of the UK economy that keeps declining per capita while the overall GDP holds on because of the ever increasing population (which is unsustainable so, actually, we need to learn to do without more people sooner or later), and too bad if that is going to create social and cultural issues in the future.
I agree with you that cabinet ministers do not want to curb immigration, that's the point: this is not "schizophrenia", it is a deliberate, deceitful strategy by the government. Again, the same seems to apply in many European countries and when the people show their dissatisfaction in the polls they are suppressed by the usual labels of "far right" and "xenophobia", which is also a deliberate strategy.
I.e. "the people", according to the various national constitutions. Unless you're actually stating that all EU governments have never represented their electorate for over 50 years, which is a bit of an extraordinary claim, your original point is fundamentally baseless.
> EU law extensively governs these aspects as well.
That's basically not true. The Dutch government can and does, for example, tax non-Dutch citizens extra amounts for healthcare, and/or remove them from the country. It can, and does, regulate how the non-Dutch can rent or buy property and where. The only thing it cannot do is stopping people from entering the country from another member country to look for a job, or stop them from getting such job. Everything else is fair game.
> And here we have it. The usual blurb
Please read what I wrote, not whatever strawman you wish I had written.
> We could divide immigration by 10 [...] and still get the real, actual "talent".
Note that I said talent and labor. You need basic labor to grow as much as you need advanced talent. Even Japan imported Iranian laborers during the stagflation years, effectively just to maintain the levels they already had. That's a simple function of increased wealth: the more people get wealthy, the less they want to break their backs doing hard jobs. So you either push up wages around the board, with massive inflationary pressures which will make everything even worse, or you import some basic labor. That doesn't mean 700k, obviously, but realistically it doesn't mean 1k either.
> They are used to hide the decline of the UK economy
I think you overestimate the strategic abilities of UK politicians. They are just incompetent buffoons propped up by propaganda based on obsoleted assumptions and lies, without any real ideological horizon.
No. EU/EEA citizens must be treated as local citizens, and there are very strict and limiting rules on deporting an EU citizen (so yes, they can deport you but only if you meet a pretty high threshold of creating problems and abusing the local benefits system). They have obviously more freedom over non-EU citizens but still that is limited since discrimination based on nationality is generally illegal. I don't think that renting or buying property is restricted, at least as long as the person is a legal resident when it comes to renting (same as here in the UK).
As an example, this is why when the UK was an EU member EU citizens from the EU could study in Scottish universities for free (equal treatment with local residents under EU law) while residents of England could not (Scottish law)!
I think this desire to belong to a group is a very strong instinct, and it will be the strongest during our teenager years, up until we are 25 or so.
It is a biological imperative, not just a cultural construct.
Now, the size of the groups we are capable to create depends on our technology and culture, of course, but not the desire to belong to one.
Therefore, we have sports fans, anime and sci-fi subcultures, and so on.
The instinct is there, but how that instinct manifests is absolutely a cultural construct determined by circumstances. There is no biological imperative that says I should belong to the group of people born less than 10km from me (or 100, or 1.000, or 100.000).
And that freedom carries the weight that now our decisions matter more, and help from our peers is less, and we can make shitty decisions that affect our lives. We can be stuck in dead-end jobs, and it will be our doing. We can be addicted to many things, like gambling, and it is our responsibility to breakout from that.
So, in a sense you are right, but in another, it's up to each person to change eternal repetition.
We are free, but only if we act on that freedom.
All representative democracy give us is the ability, collectively, to sack a government that has outlived its welcome for some reason. (What happens after that is a complete crap shoot.)
When opposition parties start to triangulate -- that is, to define their policies in terms of what the government and perceived extreme opposite are doing -- rather than by espousing a concrete ideology or policy platform, we end up with everything converging on one dominant faction's idea of how to do things: a one party state in all but name.
(Which seems to be where we are here in the UK right now, and to a lesser extent in the USA.)
It's not in the definition of autocracy that you should self censor if you live in one. In reality, it is just a given.
Same for theocracy, etc. And there are countless other freedoms taken away in these other government systems.
Also, I don't want you to have total, unrestricted freedom. I don't want you to have the freedom to harm me without consequences =)
So, limited ability to sack a government, and freedom of association, and freedom of commerce are good enough for me, from a practical point of view.
Forms of modern life may differ in quite a few respects – but what unites them all is precisely their fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change. To ‘be modern’ means to modernize – compulsively, obsessively; not so much just ‘to be’, let alone to keep its identity intact, but forever ‘becoming’, avoiding completion, staying underdefined. Each new structure which replaces the previous one as soon as it is declared old-fashioned and past its use-by date is only another momentary settlement – acknowledged as temporary and ‘until further notice’. Being always, at any stage and at all times, ‘post-something’ is also an undetachable feature of modernity. As time flows on, ‘modernity’ changes its forms in the manner of the legendary Proteus . . . What was some time ago dubbed (erroneously) 'post-modernity' and what I've chosen to call, more to the point, 'liquid modernity', is the growing conviction that change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty. A hundred years ago 'to be modern' meant to chase 'the final state of perfection' -- now it means an infinity of improvement, with no 'final state' in sight and none desired.
What immaturity, to assume that there exists anything like a 'final state of perfection'.
Be like water.
My parents spent 15 years of their life in Spain and hated every second of it. They hated it so much because I wasn't there with them. And they had a horrinle opinion of the culture and daily life there. While in opposite my 2 uncles that went with them and took their own kids with them, like it there and have never went back.
I with half the life span of my parents believe that personal issues and events completely eclipse any effect the political and cultural environment has. For me political and/or cultural events were just a new conversation topic in my social circles. Something to be part of because well everyone is part of it.
All my life I've been told that there is opportunity abroad, there is opportunity in the capital, in X large city. But opportunity isn't somewhere it just arises sometimes. I know for sure that opportunity doesn't come while sitting in one place you don't like.
But what I am trying to say is that: cities and countries aren't really colored in a specific way. They aren't dull, closed, eventful and such, they just are places. They have as much effect on an individual as does a single individual on them. Even so undoubtedly some places have a personal color to us - my parents will never again try to work in Spain and it would not end well if they did. I myself will never go back to the town of my high school, but others like it there.
Well, better future is here, but there is nothing more to aspire to anymore. No radical improvement to hope for. All changes are now marginal and usually translate to "more stuff in shops".
Also, I would say that countries and cities are plenty colored. There is a world apart between, say, cosmopolitan St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. If the mentality of the former held sway in Russia, there probably would be no war.
(And yeah, I know that Putin's rise to power happened in Petersburg first, but he didn't really fit into the spirit of the city and now dwells elsewhere.)
Please tell more? If there were/are any drastic differences, I wasn't seeing them emanating here onto Poland.
But Putin's mafia is still somewhat afraid to start mobilization in Petersburg and Moscow. Both cities are a potential mutiny threat, full of young people including students, and not easy to subdue if shit hits the fan.
Peterburg is the more global of those two, as contact with Sweden, Finland and Estonia was extensive prior to the war, while the location of the city with respect to the core of Russia is a bit peripheral. The ports of Helsinki and Tallinn used to have a thick schedule of ferries there.
Russia as a whole cannot become part of the EU, not in 30 years at least, possibly ever. But, in the improbable case of St. Petersburg seceding from the empire, we could integrate them a lot better than some Balkan states.
The last thing I desire is having a border with passport control and customs between them and me. No amount of kissing with your Swedish and Baltic friends would compensate for that.
Russians are no longer fools, they now understand how that particular meat grinder works.
I think the people walking across central America to escape violence only to risk more of the same at borders, or taking rickety boats across the sea knowing full well that many of them sink killing everyone aboard, would strongly disagree with you.
> I with half the life span of my parents believe that personal issues and events completely eclipse any effect the political and cultural environment has.
I see where this is coming from, but sometimes events beyond our control - whether it's a lahar coming down a mountain, tanks firing rounds through your house, or a revolution that means your family are suddenly pariahs - can eclipse absolutely anything else, because suddenly those people who you have personal issues with are no longer people, but just meat that's no longer breathing or thinking. And some countries tend to have significantly fewer volcanic eruptions, or violent uprisings, or transfers-of-power at the end of a gun.
"All illustrations featured in this essay are part of the Bulgarian Visual Archive, a digital project that curates thousands of found and donated photographs. BVA aims to narrate the history of 20th-century Bulgaria through the visual record of both private and public events that have usually been pushed to the margins of official narratives. As part of its mission, BVA offers all of its photographs for download free of charge, for both personal and commercial purposes."
(circa 2002-2005)
The premise is that humans are currently trapped in an endless cycle and we have no concept of how to break out of it, but I think this might at least provide some context as to why.
I highly recommend watching it (along with his other documentaries) if you found this article fascinating. It's like this in video form.
More Adam Curtis recs: the DDT episode and the Kwame Nkrumah episode of Pandora’s Box (the rest are good too), The Way of All Flesh, and The Power of Nightmares. Also, Cant Get You Out Of My Head might be his masterpiece but it’s also not very accessible.
I feel that's really only for hardcore Curtis fans, which I'm sure, he knows would be interested in.
I wonder if Europeans understand these wars around them are not fought for their amusement...
Bombing Serbia or ISIS affair is "dangerous, but not too dangerous" for you but it means hundreds to hundreds thousands of dead and hundred thousands to millions losing their homes.
The author accurately captures the overall picture during the 1990's, yet he is talking about a frontier. He perfectly realizes that the political power was just consolidated into another form, so we never had a real frontier after the fall of the communist regime.
I am little bit younger than him, and grew up after the fall of communist regime, after 34 years of transition into "democracy", and westernization, nothing really changed now the grandkids of the communist regime,are lecturing us about "democracy" again, because their fathers are getting old.
There is also this common comparison during this time era about the west(western culture and capitalism), and soviet union(communism), with the slight little nuance which is actually the elephant in the room that communism comes from the west... So the cycle continues.
What exactly is this western culture and values that we are constantly talking about, and being sold on, and advertised 24/7?
The Brezhnevian capitalist state global citizen, just wants to offer me a slightly less different totalitarian regime, throw us in a violent war because of his boredom with the flux of time, and call it a day. No thank you.
The closing of the Bulgarian frontier was during the April Uprising of 1876, which was the last time Bulgarians decided that are going to unite as a nation and will stood for something, their freedom, they will live free under their own sovereign country. You cannot exclude 500 years under Ottoman Empire rule, which rewired our survival instincts, if you are painting a picture of what and how happened next.
Like a fellow commenter said I prefer the kaba gaida to continue to echoes in the Rhodope mountains.
Despite growing with predominantly western influence after 1990, it is really hard to explain what happens with my body when I hear Valya Balkanska - Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin, a song that is flying in the space with the Voyager probes.
The next frontier is currently happening, but this time information travels differently.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Uprising_of_1876 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnxUYsf6GuU
I suspect that the middle aged in every society feel some closing of the frontier as possibilities seem to collapse and family commitments multiply.
So our politics (in both countries) becomes reactive and unanchored, solving whatever problem seems most pressing today, and ultimately devoid of meaning. What do individuals do in such an environment? They look after themselves, they partake in consumerism, they try to protect themselves against things the state can no longer be bothered to. It's all very nihilistic, and thus the deep anomie that seems to have infected most Western societies, and the younger generations most of all.
It is not the job of the nation-state to give people a deep sense of purpose. That is a job for a church, temple, or other spiritual community. Governments which try to do that job tend to do badly, sometimes with monstrous results. They ought be separate.
It has also done that job spectacularly badly at times.
And fully agree with "care for the people I can as I learn to love and be loved", but at the same time people do need some sense of "community", "togetherness", and "we're all in it together"-ness, especially in times when things are perhaps not going so well, and I do feel that's rather been lost.
Still, the people who say they are trying to uphold a responsibility are more likely to do so with care than those who are trying to do something else.
If a father needs someone to watch his 4-year-old daughter, is it wiser to drop her off at a daycare or at a post office logistics warehouse?
And besides, I don't think churches can be a general solution to sense of purpose or community, because it would exclude the growing majority of secular people who don't really have any religious affiliation, or are explicitly agnostic/atheist. You need ... something else for that, something more secular. I don't really know what that would be.
And let's not view the past with too much rose-coloured glasses either, as religion could be ugly business just as much as nationalism can. A famous example is Tolkien's mother, who converted from Anglicism to Catholicism and was pretty much ostracized and consigned to poverty by her family (her husband died of illness when Tolkien was about two). A Catholic priest took Tolkien in and that's how he got his education so the church/religion isn't all bad in this story, but there was a lot of needless misery, and he was "saved" by a stroke of good fortune.
I remember this type of stuff from my grandfather as well (in the Netherlands). Their house burned down during the war and after the war they relocated to the next village, which was protestant instead of catholic (or the reverse? I forgot) and were ostracized because of that. Especially in the context of post-occupation Netherlands this was double ridiculous because you'd think that these kind of small differences would fade away, but there you have it. One of the reasons they ended up moving to the city.
I’m with you in your opinion that government shouldn’t try to give people purpose but I think the last part of your argument is an overreach.
You’re conflating purpose with making money. They’re not the same. Counterexample: Vincent van Gogh. His purpose was clearly art but he did not see professional success while alive. If you don’t consider Van Gogh’s purpose to be something like painting or art then I’d suggest you’re not using the word as it is commonly defined.
Also I’d suggest that it’s unfair to paint the poor broadly as not seeking purpose and instead searching for temporary pleasures. I have simultaneously known both an economically struggling person who refrains from drugs and alcohol and a well-to-do person who is a functional alcoholic.
Certainly alcoholism can make people lose money, relationships, etc. But it does not follow that simply abstaining from these things will make one wealthy.
Point being Vincent van Gogh who was "Born into an upper-middle-class family" according to Wiki.
> Also I’d suggest that it’s unfair to paint the poor broadly as not seeking purpose and instead searching for temporary pleasures.
Of course, but I was talking about those poor people who live their lives by becoming dependent on the social states without trying to further their lives. I'm not talking about poor people in general.
No thank you. For those who want such wider purpose, by all means, aspire away while leaving others alone to live their peaceful private ends, but it's absurd to think that a country "needs" it, or some crisis to be a good place to live. A country only needs stable, law-abiding, transparent government for decency. Considering how many places lack even that, it should be purpose enough in a basic sense, with a firm onus on the bureaucrats to provide it.
If anything, bullshit about purpose and so-called national projects has been used to justify centuries of horrific repression and destructiveness while a select few leaders impose thier specific idea of what's needed on those they can dictate to.
It does seem, however, that there are many concerning trends in social measures in western countries these days, particularly among things that have traditionally given people a sense of purpose on an individual level. So it may behoove us to discuss and think about why that may be, and what we can do collectively to inspire the kind of societal outlook that is likely to promote a different trend in those measures.
Citation? Haven't we seen a rise in despair and loneliness (and ultimately in people dying of these things), even as people's material condition got better?
Have we really? or are you citing poorly quantified media narratives of this? I'd love to see a solid analysis of human happiness today, overall, across several specific metrics, vs. the same metrics say 100 years ago. Without both, anyone who says people are generally less happy now (because random social media or formal media dramatic clickbait garbage source said so) might just as well be full of shit.
In other words, you're claiming a sort of counterfactual I argue and I'd like to see your citation for it.
I mean - why is there always someone who is eager to prove you wrong? What has western society become? So many people feel the same, yet they can't get together to agree ... why?
And a honest talk with people who even percieve themselves as happy, also reveals their concerns and worries and feelings of discomfort.
But my point was more of this kind: why do western societies struggle so much with unhappyness and discomfort? The compulsive therapeutic approach only came with the advent of psychoanalysis and happiness guide literature at the beginning of the 20th century. Today everything has to be translated into positive psychology. For me, this is one of the greatest deceptions against yourself. Because the political enemy is evidently unbearable to the other party - so facts you can't translate into something positive exist.
Real happyness is above such contradictions. Real decadence is ignoring them. The west has become very decadent and I can't see any real happyness in decadence.
The problem is if you don't align with the politics of the person you're conversing with when you say that, they'll get pissed and claim you hate their country and should leave. But they'll readily turn around and also say the country is shit, just for different reasons and claim the biggest problem is people like you who are standing up for the shitty system that's in place.
(For context, I was born there, but left almost 20 years ago. I recently spent 18 months exploring the whole country, and sadly I now agree with the above quote)
Psychologically speaking on a group level it is much easier to say what we are not and define ourselves based on that than it is to develop an internal definition of ourselves.
You can see this in the history of national identities coalescing around external threats such as the American identity being sidelined for state identity until the revolution.
This is a well-studied phenomenon and contributes to the post-colonial failed states with arbitrary borders. Remove the colonial power and you’ve removed the national identity and cause massive fragmentation and dysfunction.
I’m not sure there is a solution to this in a nuclear world as it is in our biology and has served us well up until the point where we developed genocidal tools and processes which justifiable scare the developed world into relenting from defining external groups as major antagonists.
As much as a strong national identity can give great cohesion and confidence it can now also teeter the world or parts of it into apocalypse which it has basically done twice now and loomed over us a third time with the Cold War. I sense we have a new Cold War now and it has been looming for almost decade. To me this is our great filter and I am forcefully optimistic we can figure something out because the alternative is utter destruction.
Quoting: > My feeling is that all the troubles we’ve been witnessing over the last decade—Trumpism, Brexit, the rise of nationalism all over Europe, Russia’s virulent imperialism—are attempts to disrupt not just the dominant political systems, but the zone of eternal repetition.
Compare that to some other states like Bulgaria or Ex-Yugoslavia, which have a more complicated memory of the communist era, and which also had a lot of conflict during the transition period. There is less of a pre-packaged “social imaginary” of what the country could be/used to be prior to the communist era - unlike Poland, which was occupied and spent a couple centuries building an oppositional identity during the Partitions/occupations.
We see that even in Western countries, where a sizable set of boomers want to restore the order of the good old 50 or 60ies and vote conservative or right wing populist parties..
The question is what do the younger generations think and what portion of the population they are.
For the rank and file it might very well be economic, but the up and coming politicians seem to be more about money and power than any actual plan of governance.
The irony about the economic issues is that tax rates and wealth redistribution were so much higher after WW2, and economic inequality was quite a bit less than today. The domination of right wing politics has been increasing inequality for decades, so why would anyone think that moving further to the right would help?
Bulgaria, on the other hand, was a close ally of the Soviet Union and more historically, of Russia (at least, more of an ally than Poland.) Yugoslavia wasn't in the Soviet sphere at all and was more "indigenous" and not as repressive as the Soviet states. So in Bulgaria and Ex-Yugoslavia, the memory of the communist era is not as clearly negative as it is in Poland. (Even if it's not positive, either – it's just more murky.)
I think communism or not is besides the point. Poland has a strong imperial tradition where the state spanned from Baltic almost to the Black Sea. They’ve been occupying and ruling for much longer than they’ve been in a socialist camp, and that had a much bigger impact on their national identity. And, as some others noted, being close to Germany gives Poland a big advantage.
On the point of “communism”, take Romania as an example. I took a tour of the Presidential palace when I was in Bucharest. The guide was extremely negative about the communist era(when the palace itself was built), as many Romanians are. She went on and on how the dictator forced the palace construction and how terrible it was. Ironically, the palace is one of the few attraction in Bucharest. Walk just 200m away and it’s going to be rubble and desolation. In summary, I don’t think being anti-communist helps them all that much.
> Bulgaria, on the other hand, was a close ally of the Soviet Union and more historically, of Russia
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Bulgaria never was an economic powerhouse or major European power, unlike Poland. Between the Ottomans and other empires, they probably don’t have a history of building a strong economy. Being between rock and a hard place, not having resources, etc. probably contributed much more than what you say.
You got it wrong here.
1)Bucharest doesn't have many eye-catching tourist attractions like a quaint historical old town because of the 1977 earthquake that destroyed a large part of the old historical buildings, and Ceausescu in his infinite wisdom, decided "fuck it, we'll just build concrete commie blocks instead for the communist party members", a highly unpopular decision even back then in those days, that even the lead architect in charge fled the country for speaking up against this idea because he didn't want to desecrate history to build commie blocks.
The only somewhat silver lining of this today, is that due to the over construction of commie blocks back then, Bucharest housing remains somewhat affordable for the average person today despite gentrification, when you look at housing affordability in other EU capitals.
2) People in Romania are rightfully anti-communist due to the atrocities of the regime, and a giant building as a big tourist attraction doesn't change that. Being anti communist does actually help with the imense progress the country made becoming business friendly and attracting foreign investors.
As such, you could say that choosing neo-liberal governments over communist governments doesn't make utilitarian sense for normal people, they should choose the governments that provide them with the basic necessities of life (i.e. housing and the guaranteed opportunity to earn one's living).
A simpler explanation is that you swapped cause and effect: it's the countries where the economy struggled, where their people regret leaving their previous socialist economy.
Why some economies struggled less than other is something that probably requires a lot more of country-by-country investigation, rather than generalisations... But I think that a common trend might be:
How accessible (and geographically close) is the country to potential investors? Poland is close to Germany (and German investors could already find a German speaking minority, which could help bootstrap), likewise the Baltic republic are close to Finland and Sweden (Sweden is the first country to open an embassy in Estonia for example, which is arguably a prerequisite for a lot of investment in Estonia)
That's a simpler explanation, indeed. It's also wrong.
Take the 2 examples of GP. In Bulgaria, the first elections after the first president after the fall of the dictatorship was Petar Mladenov, a former politburo member. The first parliamentary elections were similarly won by the communist party.
In Yugoslavia, Milosevic remained leader for decades.
In both cases the "nostalgia" had already set in before anyone had the chance to experience any I'll effects caused by democracy.
Orthodox countries are statistically more corrupt due to relation to God and it's translation to relation to authority. This is well researched.
> Religion plays a significant role in influencing corruption levels [26,[29], [30], [31], [32], [33]]. While all religions encourage good moral conduct and ethical behavior, studies show that different religions are associated with varying levels of corruption. Notably, countries whose primary religions are hierarchical religions such as Catholic Christianity (Catholicism), Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Islam, tend to have higher corruption levels, particularly in comparison to Protestant Christian countries [21,30,[34], [35], [36], [37]]. Supporting this claim, [30] found that corruption levels are lowest in countries with a Protestant majority and highest in countries with an Orthodox Christian majority.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10360949/
To disentagle communism you can look at 1800. But there you have other confounders (colonialism, industrialization, feudalism...)
Ukraine is more complicated, a nation sewn together from very different regions; Greek Catholics are an important minority, mostly present in the formerly Austro-Hungarian western part of the country, which also seems to be the most nationalist one.
In the world of Islam, the Shi'a system of ayatollahs is structurally fairly close to Christian Orthodox Churches, and the Iranian theocracy which builds on it is corrupt beyond belief.
That said, it probably makes sense to study why some countries are somewhat less corrupt or how they managed to keep corruption in check. Corruption seems to be fairly widespread across space and time, one of the universal blights of mankind.
COWEN: Let’s say Poland, Slovenia, Czechia, which have a lot of Catholicism in their backgrounds — they seem to be converging on Western norms, living standards much more than, say, the EU members to the East: Bulgaria, Romania.
HART: Well, they had certain advantages to begin with, too, but better relations. Again, I don’t think it has any particular... To be honest, Polish Catholicism is basically culturally very much like Slavic Orthodoxy. There, you’re going to find that culturally, Catholicism and Orthodoxy are closer to one another in many ways than Catholicism in the East is with Catholicism in the West.
Trying to draw causal ties between what are very complex social histories, I just think is a mistake. There’s no way of saying one way or the other. Greek democracy flourished in the modern age for a while after Greek independence in the early 19th century, and Greece remains Orthodox, too. Even more than Poland, it is committed to a set of real democratic norms. In Poland, there are stronger reactionary forces at present than there are in Greece.
MIKANOWSKI: [...] I think that idea of an Orthodox disease is maybe a figment of geography more than a deeply cultural matrix that we think. I’m not — I think we could be optimistic about Croatia and Romania simultaneously. Bulgaria maybe too. I’m not sure that I believe in a kind of Orthodox curse. I think it has more to do with how things shook up internally in former Yugoslavia and where those countries are in relationship to that industrial core of Germany, Austria, Switzerland.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Czech_Republic
Orthodox communities, with the exception of ambassadors or foreign businesspeople, weren't a thing in Early Modern Kingdom of Bohemia.
At the same time they're also selling the country to the highest bidder, which for now are various Arab states like the UAE and the Saudis (lookup the Belgrade waterfront as an example), though there's also lots of Chinese money flowing into the pockets of the politicians as well.
It's a horrifically corrupt country with legitimate war criminals and their leashed dogs (like current PM Vucic) still holding the reigns, trying to scam and bruteforce their way to as much money as they can muster before the inevitable happens. Meanwhile it experiences insane levels of brain drain as anyone sensible and with the means to (my parents in the 80s and myself and pretty much everyone else in my family now included) gets the fuck out and never looks back twice.
Mind you, myself and most Serb diaspora I know don't want anything to do with the place. I was born and grew up in Indonesia and have visited Serbia a handful of times at most, so it's not a country I'd call home in any sense of the word. Even then, it still depresses me how hopeless the situation seems for anyone living there, as relayed to me by the few friends and family that are still stuck there with no way out.
Despite oppression, people felt more safe, because there were clear guidelines to life in general. If you adhered to them, you had a boring and regulated life. Everyone had a job (it was mandatory to work), and most people could afford to own a holiday home in the countryside.
The "state" provided a life where you played along the rules and with minimum input you reaped maximum rewards. That's difficult to duplicate in a capitalistic scenario.
The older members of her family look back with fondness on that period in time which sounds strange to someone from a western country but I can sort of understand it - some of it is just the nostalgia of youth but some of it is I think caused because the freedom to make choices comes with the requirement to live with your choices.
When the state keeps the safety rail up in where you live, where you work and how you spend your leisure time you have a clear path towards how to live your life - which is a comfortable if stifled existence.
That said, the younger diaspora have a different way of looking at the world - many left to move to other EU countries because they wanted to avoid that nostalgia.
That said I truly love visiting Hungary, the history, art and food is amazing, the people are warm and friendly and the countryside is staggeringly beautiful (as is the Balaton).
It's certainly on my list of places to suggest people visit.
So, for the remaining thirty years of socialism, Hungarians found it easier to travel abroad, publish literature or present art and music that was previously forbidden, and there was even some limited private enterprise. In rankings of which countries had it best in the Eastern Bloc, Hungary is usually at or near the top.
First of all, Poland, your example, has major human rights issues.
Even ignoring the LGBT issues (the so-called "lgbt free zones" in Poland), Poland has practically abolished abortion rights. Abortion has been denied to Ukrainian women refugees that were rape victims.
Amnesty International: Access to abortion was further limited. Criminal charges were used to curtail freedom of expression. The authorities continued to erode the independence of the judiciary. Freedom of peaceful assembly was restricted. Violations of LGBTI rights persisted.
Ironically under the Soviet Union Poland was one of the first Countries in the whole Europe (and probably the World) to have legal abortion, because communist countries did not have to please the Catholic Church (or any church).
Under Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union became the first modern state in legalizing abortions on request — the law was first introduced in the Russian SFSR in 1920
So there's that.
The second issue is nationalism, mainly far right nationalism, that spread throughout Europe from the former eastern block, that was once put under control by the Soviets.
AfD in Germany, Sweden Democrats in Sweden (despite the name they have roots in white nationalist and neo-Nazi parties), Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, Giorgia Meloni and FdI in Italy, Vox in Spain etc. etc.
Look at Milošević for an example gone really bad, former leftist, he joined ranks with far-right nationalists extremists and things went south.
A very popular representative right now in Europe is Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who took a more moderate approach but is still a far-right conservative dictator-wannabe who's causing lots of troubles to the EU.
All of the aforementioned far-right parties in Europe are allied to, or close friends with, Orban.
Third: the so called Visegrád Group formed by Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, has strong ties to Germany, which in turn means they sustain German economy by importing their goods (combined, they are the second largest export market for Germany) and vice versa.
Last, but not least, the EU has invested a lot of money in those Countries and sustained their economy to keep them in, even though their politics have raised more than an eyebrow.
So it's like the end of WW2, by looking at the numbers one could think that the war produced the economic growth in Europe, but it actually was the Marshall Plan.
p.s. Poland is far from being one of the 3 major economies in Europe
>> the law was first introduced in the Russian SFSR in 1920
Poland was never part of the Soviet Union. It became socialist and part of the eastern block only after WW2, so I doubt the legal abortion date.
Also I mean, yeah the eastern block was quite progressive in some ways, but human rights were not one of them. Some of the gain were hugely offset by the millions of people who were tortured and killed by the system. Also much more blood thirsty in the Soviet Union than in Communist Poland.
In 1932 the new Penal Code legalised abortion only when there were medical reasons and, for the first time in Europe, when the pregnancy resulted from a criminal act. This made Poland the first country in Europe outside the Soviet Union to legalize abortion in cases of rape and threat to maternal health.
In 1920 Lenin legalized abortion in the Russian Federation, not in Poland.
> but human rights were not one of them
Poland has major human rights issues right now, in 2023, as a member of the EU.
Stricter laws about the abortion rights have started popping up in 2011 and the latest reform is from 2021. They are quite bad, they basically abolished abortion for 98% of the cases it was performed and for the rest of the cases the waits are so long that it becomes virtually impossible.
Integrate Ukraine to EU and after that... What? "Hurtling toward a black hole..." again, but this time with Ukraine? ;-)
I always felt that the States was "tatty", more "run down" than old. Public places were considered to 'belong to nobody', so were often dirty or defaced because nobody took pride in them. Subway trains were covered in graffiti.
In many countries overseas, public places are always well looked-after because they 'belonged to all of us' rather than 'belonged to nobody'.
It's just a difference in national cultures.
Or mostly the local govs have the will and means to look after them. I don't really think people's attitudes regarding public places is that different in Europe compared to the US
Driving in and around the freeways in New York a foreign friend exclaimed "It's like everything is half finished".
I've never been able to get that out of my head.
Capitalism is economic freedom and a government to enforce it. It isn't teleological.
The apparent telos of capitalism comes from people. It turns out that people, in the presence of freedom, have certain goals which they choose to pursue. Prominent among those goals is the accumulation of wealth. When it becomes excessive, that goal may be worth criticizing but people will choose to pursue it whenever they are free.
> Today, we have become citizens of a global, Brezhnevian capitalist state, which, in its failure to provide an inspiring frontier—gone are the days of Kennedy’s “New Frontiers” or Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In”—has slowly ossified and wrapped back upon itself.
Do we need politicians to pick our frontiers? Actually there's plenty of frontiers. Some examples are: eradicating human disease, extending human lifespan, replacing fossil field, exploring the solar system, changing how humans interact on the internet, inventing AGI, etc. It's beyond me that someone can claim with a straight face that there's no inspiring frontier.
The problem here is people who find these frontiers too boring. They secretly want a do-over of the 20th century. No thanks.
When I think about it, I think that's probably why I've been struggling so much, is that I've just felt bored with life. In-spite of all that society is, I think like a lot of people, I just don't really see what the point is. More money? More goals? More experiences? But then what?
Maybe the type of frontier is important, because everything you give an example of is really just the one frontier: Figuring out how to continually scale human population. Although rational, how is it inspiring? Or rather, how can you be inspired if you are bored?
No, I know and admire people for whom such complaints are distant, even annoying. People who don't have time for it. And you can just as freely and willingly decide to lead a calm and regulated life. This life is not a danger to humanity, as the postmodernists and cosmopolitans have always wanted to tell us, and I do not want Bulgaria to be 'Americanized' that way. I would rather listen to a Kaba Gaida in the mountains than have to read through a capitalist-cosmopolitan lament. The former gives me power and strength, a connection to the world, the latter just makes me sick and weak.
I know Bulgaria has its issues, but losing its uniqueness to solve them, is for me the bigger issue.
For example, how do I know if I'm postmodern or not?
And someone knows, very well, how to define himself and where he stands. The question is not how to objectively categorize or define you, but rather how and what you have to say about yourself.
edit: in Bulgaria, there is a common truth: life in Bulgaria is shit. But it is impossible to agree on the same truth in western societies, because that's the strong myth they rely on - that they are better, than the rest of the world. Do you get what I mean? Anyone who is dissatisfied with the west must be out of their minds.
There are things that have now become impossible in the West. Simply expressing unsatisfaction has become a danger for the status quo or the state.
Most of my childhood Bulgarian friends were in the UK for many years, and some have returned. Well, I don't know yet... but it sounds nice.
What? Expressing unsatisfaction is one the primary genres of social media post.
On the other hand, raising items of concern about some other things get enormous pushback (and quick down votes.) Things like-
Does the military really need 777 billion dollars? Why are health-care outcomes so disparate? Why is the US so far behind socially (workers rights, maternity leave, et al)? Why is the answer to another school shooting more guns? Why is building housing in my neighbourhood so hard? How is our life and lifestyle contributing to climate change? Why does climate change even matter?
In the US (and Europe etc) the comfortable middle class is so scared of change, any change at all, that they'll do anything to keep the status quo. And where there has been change there's a desire to rewind the political clock, to return to "happier times" (where, incidentally , wages were $10 a week, a detail lost in inflation discussions.)
Change is scary. Suggesting things could change for the better scares a lot of people who are confortable-enough. So yes, Expressing dissatisfaction with certain things which seem to strike at the heart of that comfortableness is thus not OK.
But clearly, since life is not perfect, we should create narratives explaining our current shortcomings. We need to blame -something- so better that we are presented with the issue (immigration! Gay people!) lest we start thinking for ourselves.
So yes, social media is all about dissatisfaction, but it all seems terribly shallow, self-serving, and, dare I say it, manufactured.
Imagining that your personal politics are something that everyone would agree with if only the veil could be lifted and a mysterious "they" would stop suppressing the truth is the lowest form of political thought.
Rather I was trying to convey a sense that people are generally more angry about things that don't matter, while not discussing things that do matter
I make no judgements on "what is right" here, rather on the concept of some topics being "off limits".
Yes, I do find it hard to engage with issues as important as to what some actor tweeted (to get attention) when, for example, kids are scared to go to school because of school shootings. I went to school at a time and place where actual bombs were a thing, but I never felt the way kids feel today.
I wouldn't say I feel angry about this. I'm not being shot at etc. And I don't feel like the truth is bring suppressed- it's not like the actual ills of our society are a secret. I guess it's more a sense that we're fighting about the wrong things. And perhaps it suits some that we continue to do so.
> The west has become tame and sick, and I got exhausted of it. I don't fit in this society anymore, and I can't be productive under its conditions.
I can't help but notice the connection here though, your complaints certainly sound like attempts to conjure up and condemn the entire collective to explain your dissatisfaction. It might be worth reflecting on that.
You sound a lot like Holden Caulfield - a quintessential part of Western Culture.
> I claim that the West has forgotten what "home" means.
This I mostly agree with. The America I'm familiar with is quite rootless. In fact rootlessness was encouraged even ("you should be willing to move to a new/better job"). It goes all the way back to manifest destiny - always be on the move. There's a temporary feeling about everything. Most of our buildings aren't intended to last centuries - they're intended to be knocked down when something more profitable comes along and that might happen just be in a few years.
> Western culture has become empty and fake
I agree with this as well. Style over substance. Confidence is valued over competence.
> They really believe, they are part of something bigger, are very important and are going to be famous or something.
But this part I don't agree with. I think if anything Americans in 2023 would like to feel like they're part of something bigger but that feeling has been lost for quite a while now. There's no shared vision of what America should be at this point like there mostly was 40 or 50 years ago. That common vision has shattered into a million pieces especially over the last 10 years or so. We're the most isolated people on earth.
> There are things that have now become impossible in the West. Simply expressing unsatisfaction has become a danger for the status quo or the state.
I don't think you've been listening. There's plenty of expressed dissatisfaction - I just did above. Social media is rife with dissatisfaction.
> But you can't even say that out loud anymore, because that means "questioning the whole western ideology" and suddenly someone feels threatened, and myself becomes a criminal.
What reality are you living in? The consensus in the west, online at least, seems to be that everything sucks and is getting worse. Personally I think that’s overwrought, but it’s certainly a sentiment that’s everywhere. It sounds like you are the one who’s struggling with the fact that some people disagree with you, which sounds like something you should be able to handle if you want to live a “wild, natural, and rough” life.
> Western culture has become empty and fake - and I'm tired to explain the most obvious thing to so many people - and in the end, they don't believe you anyway. They really believe, they are part of something bigger, are very important and are going to be famous or something. Intellectual vanity and luxury and bragging.
This is the embodiment of the meme of the guy in the corner at the party (“they don’t know…”) while everyone else is dancing happily. The fact that you feel that life in Austria is empty and fake actually does not mean that everyone else must be feeling the exact same thing and are just deluding themselves! The ability to understand that other people have different internal experiences than yourself is a really basic emotional skill.
I’m sorry that you haven’t been happy in the west. I’m sure you’re far from the only one. But your unhappiness doesn’t mean that western culture is against “life itself”, whatever that even means.
So where does the feeling of people not feeling heard or understood come from? Well, firstly, because they like to be told first and foremost that this isn't true at all. You could say anything. But you overlook the simple fact that you didn't listen to the other person when you gave your reply. People neither listened to his reasons nor asked about them, nor were interested in them. Second, people who like to feel entitled or special have learned to simply ignore other people's problems. As Taylor Swift aptly said - 'shake it off'. This 'shacking off' occurs all the more, the deeper and more complex, i.e. more incomprehensible, your problems are to outsiders, so that an enormous effort is necessary to make them understandable. And also very compressed, because the time span of attention is also no more. On the one hand, it is often difficult to communicate, but on the other hand, interest in listening has also decreased. Thirdly, many people probably have similar problems and therefore intuitively avoid each other. Suddenly the company of others feels exhausting, perhaps demanding an imagined care that you cannot give because your own strength is not enough, or creating a fear of rejection because you need the care of others, but they also have the right to refuse this.
I could go on with many other reasons...
I don't know if this of any interest to you. And it is in German too, so maybe even not understandable to you. But the findings are shocking. The majority of German people are afraid to express their opinion as it strikes them. So if you are interested in it or just want to look up how the "trend" feels in Germany, here a very actual analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOvG35T8NEw
It might be so in words, but it's not so in meaning. I understand what the GP means, the west has a mindset of "things are terrible and getting worse, the elite rule us, but this is still the best country in the world". The eastern mindset is more of a "this country is shit, but there are some nice things, and we try to focus on those".
It's hard to communicate a whole culture in a few comments, but the sentiment is very different.
I think the only reason people can't read between the lines anymore is because they're too quick to get hung up on words that can be used as criticism. This destroys mutual understanding immensely.
Unfortunately yes, this has become much more common now. "I'm offended by your words, therefore you have no right to say them" is a thing that is very widespread. Yes, free speech does mean that you allow poisonous ideologies to spread, but a lack of free speech means that you allow them to ossify and persist because nothing can be challenged any more.
That seems paranoid and irrational. I can say anything and criticize anyone from a Western country without issues (as long as the criticism is valid, not libel). I can't do that in China or Russia, which are the least Westernized countries.
> edit: in Bulgaria, there is a common truth: life in Bulgaria is shit
Life here is awesome. I welcome you to visit some places in Latin America for a real taste of shit life. You are really not aware of how good you have it. There is a whole different world outside of Europe. :)
For example, I didn't even think of it until you pointed it out. I disagree with a lot of the sentiment in Vektorceraptor's comments, but I immediately grasped their meaning behind "rootless cosmopolitan".
Maybe it's because I hail from the same region. I was born in what was Yugoslavia back then and is now Serbia, and I left when I was 20. I spent 14 years in South America, and another 10 here in the US, and I guess that makes me one of Vektorceraptor's "rootless cosmopolitans": someone who has been exposed to different cultures and can live in them, but doesn't really feel at home in any of them.
So no, "rootless cosmopolitan" might sound to you like a dog whistle for "Jew", but it doesn't have to mean that on a culturally diverse site like this one.
EDIT: It might be worth reflecting on the fact that English is not a native language for everyone here. When picking words, some of us might make a suboptimal choice. Ask yourself whether you would have had the same reaction if Vektorceraptor had picked "uprooted" instead of "rootless".
Thomas was asserting that "rootless cosmopolitan" was an antisemitic slur that Vektorceraptor deliberately applied to Kenarov. I asserted that the knowledge and usage of that expression is not nearly as universal as Thomas claimed. Thomas clarified that it's a Russian dog whistle.
I've just finished reading the essay you linked there. How does it fit in this discussion?
Edit: Also, I don't really know whether Kenarov is in any way Jewish but it's not hard for me to imagine someone using the term satirically but not intending to (at least, not strongly) evoke its antisemitic aspect. I don't think that really works in English and aimed at a Western audience but people do irony-recycle the old slogan tropes quite a bit and it's a linguistic theme throughout the piece.
The ideological terms where picked fairly carefully with an eye towards 'ideological soundness' and had multiple purposes. 'Rootless cosmopolitan' was an antisemitic dogwhistle, it was also part of a deliberate effort to shift to a more Russia-centric Soviet ideology. In a way it was also a Russian dogwhistle so tptacek was kind of right after all, completing the pedanticircle.
I regret (and did even at the time) using the words "dancing around" --- I was just waking up (let's not discuss the unhealthiness of "commenting on HN" being one of the first things I did after regaining consciousness) and even as I wrote it was thinking "this conveys more intentionality than I mean to".
So for that bit, I apologize! People still should aggressively avoid the term. I only saw this thread because I've been on a sort of comment bigotry scavenger hunt with "rootless cosmopolitan" as one of the items.
I wouldn't casually use it in English, though, precisely for the reasons you outline.
It was also quite informative to learn about this phrase and its nuances.
I'm still trying to figure out what you're trying to say, though.
If your point is that there was plenty of bigotry in old Yugoslavia, then yeah, I know that. It's still alive and well in the remnants of it. The casual bigotry and rampant nationalism are part of the reason why I'm still "rootless", because I wouldn't fit in with my compatriots anymore.
But none of that was really the point here. The point is that a phrase might be very well recognized by some people here and totally unknown to others who might stumble into using it by accident.
I mean, I don't actually know if Vektorceraptor was being deliberately antisemitic or not. Maybe Vektorceraptor did know it and its antisemitic connotations and used it like that on purpose. Or maybe not, maybe it meant what I read from it and described in my reply.
Yeah, it's fascinating to read the history of that expression, and to find out it's not a "Western", but a Soviet expression. But I'd like to offer a gentle reminder that the countries that comprised the Soviet Union are one set, and the countries that used to be in the Soviet sphere of influence is another set, and they're not the same set.
The simpler, calmer point to make is: just don't non-ironically use the term "rootless cosmopolitan" on HN.
You live in a too simplified model for whatever reasons imo
As Tolstoy said: 'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way'
So did I missed your point?
This organised performance probably goes against the sprit of your post but it’s really beautiful.
I don't see what are these postmodern, cosmopolitan and American ideas. Can you explain yourself better?
What I read was something different: The eternal search for a meaningful existence. It applies to everyone, in every continent of the globe, through their entire lives.
So if for example: I am working for an IT company, and my work deals only with improving ad technology, at some point I will feel that meaningless apprehension, because ad technology is ultimately worthless for humanity in general. (This is only an example, I don't work with ads)
Working for example in bioinformatics o biotechnology, helping people heal, would be much better. It would be meaningful. (Another example, I don't work with biotechnology)
Both technologies, both paths, are available in western countries and in other countries. It is our personal choice, and no one is forcing us to choose one over the other.
It's all a series of personal decisions, aggregated in the millions, what makes nations what they are.
Even during communism, ideology in Bulgaria was something few people cared about or believed in. It was about empty slogans in schools and public places, empty-speech by public officials and nothing much more. Private life was a different affair. It was always centered around the family and providing safety for the kids. It is a deeply-embedded instinct for self-preservation since Ottoman times. New forms of social organisation emerged under the official iron fist of the ruling party. People were doing mutual favours within a close relationship.
Even now, this is the primary form of organisation in Bulgarian society. Knowing the right people, nurturing close relationships with them, calling them for favours in difficult times, expecting to be called by them at any time.
And this is something I can't understand. Years ago, a newspaper advocated, essentially shortened, 'dissolving family structures because corruption is higher in countries with strong family relationships.' The journalist concluded his article with more or less the words 'Mom, Dad, I'm sorry, but I have to serve the greater good'.
And I don't believe that neighborly assistance is the basis for corruption. And I also believe that neighborly assistance is much closer to human nature and offers many more human benefits than a transparent state that is free of corruption. I don't think you should balance the two against each other in such a way, or even indulge in the latter at the expense of the former.
wow - this ignore below is my first bad experience on this page. For me it came out of nowhere and I can't even explain it nor take a stance on it. Such a shame :(
> Even now, this is the primary form of organisation in Bulgarian society. Knowing the right people, nurturing close relationships with them, calling them for favours in difficult times, expecting to be called by them at any time.
This is more of a general statement than of a "neigbourly assistance". In a sense this applies both to small scale (familes and neighbours), but also it applies to what I call clientelism and a form of corruption. The impact of the latter cannot be overstated as East European countries are drowning in it.
My theory is that this usually happens when you have a large goverment apparatus (be it state or local, or usually both) and that implies a big bureacracy. So if you need a permit to say build a house or even say install PV panels, you may have to wait even a year just for that permit alone. But if you know someone who is a friend/colleague of a guy issuing any permits, you might get it in couple of days. Also, good luck if you need a surgery and don't have money for private clinics. But its all good if you know a doctor, you can get taken care of pretty immediately.
There doesn't have to be any money or goods involved. Just favors for (maybe even potential) favors. I'll give another example. My dad was a director of a local government owned company in charge for traffic/parking etc. I remember one evening his phone rang and he had a nice chat with some person on the other side. I've asked who she was, and was told that she was a director of a hotel and she wanted to arrange 2 reserved spots near it. And my dad was happy to oblige even though no goods were exchanged. I hope you see where I'm going.
I've learned a valuable lesson that day. If you're just a private citizen minding your own business thinking that "the system works", you'll never get in touch with people actually making decisions in these kind of societies. While people nurturing those connections will get what they want and usually you'll be worse for it. So nevermind parking spots or "easy" things like that. What if you need a kidney and you don't really know a doctor? So to put a bit more extremely. How beneficial is for an average Canadian to know a doctor? I would guess not that much. But for a Bulgarian to know a doctor might mean a difference between being alive or dead in some circumstances.
While I observe the neibourly assistance with postivity and nobody is arguing that's bad, especially in the time of need, there should be a clear cut that this doesn't take root in public/government organizations as this is a recipe for a society where the tumor of corruption is bigger than the body itself.
I think its sometimes hard for someone coming from a country with low levels of corruption to put in a perspective how some of those high level corruption societies work in reality.
I am trying to understand that set of cultural values through the lens of my own eyes. I don't think the influence of US think-tanks is something that matters to me much.
Family values are something I understand, as we are not too different in South America.
But why are the two things mutually exclusive? America is not manhattan either, I'd reckon non-cosmopolitan america is larger than all of europe.
In the end, shouldn't the quality of life for the people who live there be a priority?
But TFA's points can traverse the cheapness easily, just a small push:
> The States felt like an old place, weirdly older than Europe, a place where, for all its breathless movement, time seemed to have stopped. There was too much of everything: rules, work, wealth, poverty, guns, art.
Many HN readers are probably familiar with how does it feel to start a greenfield project. The magic that happens on a greenfield project is not so much about your beliefs or your open mind, it's more about all the other people mentally unblocking you and not putting spokes in your wheel.
So, yeah, if the whole hierarchy crumbles and entire lifetimes of curated opinions, thoughts, social norms become garbage, people let others be. For a time.
I'm just pointing out that there is a specific recipe offered here for unblocking "the time", and that recipe has a huge cost.
> Perhaps that was why the Communist regimes all across Eastern and Central Europe collapsed in the final run. Not so much because of their beleaguered economies, although that was an important factor, but because no one believed anymore.
Hah, that alone? Roman Empire was falling for hundreds of years (thousand, actually, if you count Byzantium).
Actually two factors were needed for Communist downfall.
1. Lack of belief.
2. A better model how to prosper, proven and readily available just across the border (or two borders).