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Cold war 2.0

Red Herring

Red Herring

middle-class woman of a certain age
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Virtual ghost said:
Is Germany’s rising superstar so far left she’s far right?
Click to expand...
When we spoke in Berlin, Wagenknecht had another explanation for why she’s doing so well in eastern Germany, saying it had to do with the legacy of resistance to authoritarianism. People in the east, she told me, just don’t like being told how to think. They were, in other words, less susceptible to the indoctrination that lifestyle leftists impose through their grip on mainstream politics and the media.


“East Germans are particularly sensitive today when they realize that you want to educate them, that you want to lecture them, that you want to restrict their freedom,” she said. “That’s also a bit of the legacy of East Germany, the legacy in the sense of a certain resistance and renitence that people acquired back then.”
Click to expand...

That is a widespread sentiment in the East and pretty much verbatim what the AfD says as well. I also happen to think it is self-flattering bullshit.

A more likely explanation (that the article doesn't mention even though it is relatively widely discussed in Germany among sociologists, political scientists and historians) is that the people in East Germany went from living under an emperor to living in a fragile democracy for a few years to living under the nazis to living under Soviet overlords and their own Socialist party. When the wall fell it wasn't "the people" that had fought for freedom and democracy (another self-flattering lie) but only a minority. That is normal, all revolutions are pushed forward by a small actuive minority while the majority cautiously watches them and only joins when it has become safe. The majority of the population in the East only ever eperienced different forms of illiberalism juntil recently. People in the East of Germany to this day expect the state to provide for them, other people to take care of them. Civil society (in the sense of non-governmental organisations and social institutions, volunteering, etc) are far less developed there. The same thing seems to apply to Russia. In that regard they are closer to other Eastern European countries than to the West of the country.

They wanted democracy and capitalism because they were told that that brings prosperity. They thought democracy brings prosperity. When there were drastic social challenges and prosperity wasn't what they had hoped for many drew the conclusion that liberal democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be. They want to be left alone and be provided for, not live in a challenging dynamic social process of balancing differnt interest groups constantly struggling for compromises where you have to become active if you want to get something done. Liberal democracy can be hard work. It means coexisting with people who think and live differently and not always getting what you want. That is not very popular anywhere these days, I'm afraid.
 
Virtual ghost

Virtual ghost

Complex paradigm
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
22,145
Red Herring said:
That is a widespread sentiment in the East and pretty much verbatim what the AfD says as well. I also happen to think it is self-flattering bullshit.

A more likely explanation (that the article doesn't mention even though it is relatively widely discussed in Germany among sociologists, political scientists and historians) is that the people in East Germany went from living under an emperor to living in a fragile democracy for a few years to living under the nazis to living under Soviet overlords and their own Socialist party. When the wall fell it wasn't "the people" that had fought for freedom and democracy (another self-flattering lie) but only a minority. That is normal, all revolutions are pushed forward by a small actuive minority while the majority cautiously watches them and only joins when it has become safe. The majority of the population in the East only ever eperienced different forms of illiberalism juntil recently. People in the East of Germany to this day expect the state to provide for them, other people to take care of them. Civil society (in the sense of non-governmental organisations and social institutions, volunteering, etc) are far less developed there. The same thing seems to apply to Russia. In that regard they are closer to other Eastern European countries than to the West of the country.

They wanted democracy and capitalism because they were told that that brings prosperity. They thought democracy brings prosperity. When there were drastic social challenges and prosperity wasn't what they had hoped for many drew the conclusion that liberal democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be. They want to be left alone and be provided for, not live in a challenging dynamic social process of balancing differnt interest groups constantly struggling for compromises where you have to become active if you want to get something done. Liberal democracy can be hard work. It means coexisting with people who think and live differently and not always getting what you want. That is not very popular anywhere these days, I'm afraid.
Click to expand...


As I told you before a couple of times: I am almost willing to bet that EU will snap on the eastern and western part just as the Roman empire did. In the other words as the time is going this is becoming safer and safer bet. Western mindset is basically coming from centuries of colonialism and where you have to find your own path through the jungle. While the history of the eastern part of the continent is much more monolitic and it was build on war much more than trade. Once you go into details it is quickly becoming obvious that these are two different histories that simply happened on the same continent. In a sense this story has indeed started with Roman empire cracking into two parts.


Plus if you really want genuine eastern answer on all of this I don't have a problem with giving it to you. Liberal democracy can achieve certain things that are good, but this works if you have a few groups which are in some sort of balance. However if it comes that every man is story for itself than all of this can become too complicated. In other words when it becomes too complicated the odds are that you will rarely get what you want. For this you don't have to look further than political fragmentation in Germany. What means that the argument for such system can become weak. (especially if you have tried something different) The typical west European will almost always continue to hope that they will always be able to pull rabbit out of the hat since that is how most of them are educated (everything is possible). While a person from the east is much more likely to throw away the paradigms. What is because in the east you constantly have to be prepared for war and serious problems. Therefore you have focus on the bottom line. Imagine that you put Western Germany in the position where Ukraine ended up. I am pretty sure you would be overrun in a matter of days just as the Ukraine should have been (even with the help of the rest of the west). However why the Ukraine still holds the line ? Because that is in their blood/culture and the country is orgainzed so that it can take it.


You say that the east doesn't like NGOs and that is evidently more true than false. Since in the mind of average person at the east they don't seem to solve major problems. They just talk (not to say nag) about everything but that is useless. Since sooner or later the tanks will roll over the border and none of that will really matter. I mean I have been to western Europe so I am not talking out of imaginary inner world. To me that is kinda foreign world, that isn't fundamentally a bad thing but it foreign. The whole societies worth of people that never even experienced dictatorship or war (ww2 was long time ago). I mean this is all nice but the question is what happens when shit fully hits again. What is kinda what happened in February of 2022. This was still far from the full blow but the whole western Europe got shaken to the core.. What is exactly because you placed too many chips on individualism and social gestures. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with individualism but the key is in the dosage. Which is why typical person from the east doesn't believe you, since the premise is that your formula has way too many flaws. Not to mention that we wanted to prepare better for what happened in February of 2022. While all we got is brain drain that was evidently planned in detail and all kinds of moralistic salads. For years France was blocking all kinds of things we considered to be important for our security, since Russia is still strong in the Balkans. I am sorry but the east came to collective conclusions that we west of the continent isn't really our friends. I mean here I am talking about people, not the politicians (that is different pair of shoes). In the current situation Poland spends about 4% of GDP on defense, while rich Germany can't even get to 2%. Therefore to shorten the story the most people in the east have concluded that most of west of the continent is useless and basically a paper tiger of transactional people, NGOs, migrants, consumerism etc. So why bother with the whole thing when you don't like most or even all components?


I know this is kinda rude to say by western standards but you can't get at the bottom of things if you picture rosy picture. The level of disappointment in Western Europe is pretty strong right now and that is the story you wouldn't watch in the western media. Especially in the countries to the west of Germany, which at least somewhat understands what is going at the east. Since it is much closer in the terms of geography and history.
 
Virtual ghost

Virtual ghost

Complex paradigm
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
22,145


So one of the top economic thinkers in the country is of opinion that the anti-system parties will have a majority in regional elections ?
 

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