Given whats going on in the World now, Orwell's "Notes on Nationalism" is a pertinent read. We must be careful that we don't get carried away by Propaganda and start demonizing "the other side" reflexively.
Just got finished watching The Great Hack* on Netflix. Demonizing "the other side", exactly as you've said, causes the polarisation that prevents even the consideration of compromise, resulting in political unproductivity that in turn erodes trust and forces us simple humans back into the basic pigeon holes that remain as the only effective politics, primarily: fear.
The rational centre, however, is unprofitable, and will remain un-catered-to until its profitability increases.
* The 5-minute mini-rundown of the Trinidad and Tobago election strategy in 2010, at about 1hr and 1-minute into the doco, is a phenomenal eye-opener.
Because I was too lazy to find the clip myself, I'll instead contribute by linking to the less user-hostile, but questionably legal (isn't that few words just indicative of the state of society we find ourselves in) Invidious clip:
My cynicism is running the other way. I have been burned too many times by “factual” documentaries that leave our context and information that run counter to what the documentary is selling. Especially all the Netflix garbage which is designed to just increase the number of hours of content they have.
The audio seems to be from a sales pitch, so Cambridge Analytica has incentive to lie that they did something.
The “Do So” movement seems to have started due to someone not allowing the incumbent, extremely unpopular prime minister onto their property:
I have not found any good evidence that Cambridge Analytica orchestrated anything. At best, I am guessing they acted as an advertising firm and used an organically growing movement against an already extremely unpopular leader.
But the Netflix documentary attempts to make it seem like Cambridge Analytica started the movement and succeeded in swaying an outcome that would not have gone the way it did without Cambridge Analytica. Maybe it did, maybe it did not, but a sales rep from Cambridge Analytica trying to sell their services is certainly no proof of anything.
Yup. There was an Otpor (resistance) movement in Serbia which helped overturn Milosevic at the end of 90-ties. It was later found out it was assisted by several US agencies.
Its goal was the oposite from the Trinidad and Tobago one, to motivate as many people to take a vote. At the time noone knew they got outside help, but in retrospect, such help was very needed to overthrow a dictator.
I feel the deeper thing that's going on is that you're objectifying the other side. By turning them into an object, you strip others of their humanity. You then setup a relationship in which you can rationalize doing all sorts of bad things. Not sure that "objectifying" is the right word here though.
> We must be careful that we don't get carried away by Propaganda and start demonizing "the other side" reflexively.
While that is inarguable truth, we also must be careful not to assume all sides are equally good or credible - that is, we should both not assume that and not demonize (or objectify). The answer is to think critically, using all our skills; no algorithm will save us.
Totally agree but it's too late, it already happened. It took only about 4 days of intense propaganda, for people to start asking for racial sanctions. People started demonizing Dostoevsky. Russians have lost their jobs all over the world for not publicly taking a stance against their own people. Next step is going to be the burning of russian books. Trust me, at this rate, it will come soon.
"It is almost superfluous to remark that a democratic Government always shows worst where other Governments generally show best, on its outside; that unreasonable people are much more noisy than the reasonable; that the froth and scum are the part of a violently fermenting liquid that meets the eyes, but are not its body and substance."
I've not seen any of this. But then I avoid Twitter and other social media. In a conflict with global attention like this one there will always be a minority of extreme views (propaganda and genuine). Western leaders are not blaming the Russian people, although obviously there is an affect on them. Same with the mainstream media.
The hatred of a very small minority amplified by social media is the source of opinion like this.
It's not the majority of the people luckily, although most have been in a state of propaganda shock for a few days and are recovering now. The ones proposing the worst things are politicians and the state affiliated media in concertation, which when is war time we just found out is 100% of the "independent" western media.
Which politicians are proposing the worst things, and which media are backing them up? This sounds like a too-broad generalisation. I think the most extreme calls have often come from citizens, and haven’t been taken up by those in authority.
There's nothing concrete whatsoever in your comment. It just reads like generic anti-Western rant. Can you perhaps turn it into a specific anti-Western rant and give examples?
If you think it’s upsetting that people are being called cowards or complicit for not protesting, which I agree is unfair, wait until you find out what the propaganda being used to justify the war is saying about Ukrainians.
I've seen a lot of russian propaganda and none of it takes the racial angle on Ukrainians. Russian consider Ukrainians part of their culture so it wouldn't make much sense. Any source?
Russia saying Ukrainian culture is the same as Russian culture could be considered racist. It's similar to claims that African Americans don't have a unique culture. The result is people justifying suppression of that culture because it "doesn't exist" independently.
I don't know about modern claims, I was more talking about historical claims, where "culture" was associated with whiteness and things that were considered black were lesser and therefore not worth preserving. Black culture wasn't "American" even thought it was in America. If you claim Ukrainian culture is Russian culture even thought Ukrainians don't agree, and then use that to justify an invasion, it sure seems racist to me.
This is why, when PewDiePie infuriated his attackers by saying "I'm not White, I'm Swedish", he was actually going deeper into their "Theory" than they were.
No one's taking a "racial angle" against Russians. There's are plenty of Russian speakers and ethnic Russians outside of Russia, and nothing whatsoever is directed at them. This is about the country of Russia and its citizens (regardless if ethnicity), so whatever beef you might have with how they're treated, there's no "racial" or "ethnic" angle.
I'm currently spending some time and money helping friends that happen to be Russian citizens despite not having been in Russia for years (I'm also going to spend time and money trying to help unknown Ukrainians).
Let's not spread the same hatred in Europe than was done in the Middle East.
> You know one does not choose citizenship, right?
But one does choose whether to condemn the war of aggression their country is waging. 99% of all the supposed "racial sanctions" "Russians losing their jobs all over the world" and so on are about pressing well-known Russian citizens in the public sphere to either condemn the war of aggression waged in their name or fuck off. It's harsh but I fail to see how it's unfair.
Please be honest and recognize that discrimination on the basis of Citizenship is exactly the same as racial discrimination. The same way as nobody chooses their "race", nobody chooses the country they are born into.
> There's are plenty of Russian speakers and ethnic Russians outside of Russia
Yes and across the west there have been several movements to censor the voices of Russians in every field, from sport to art. In Italy we even attempted to censor an academic course on Dostoyevsky. Luckily after many complaints from all over the country the decision was reverted. But this is the current political sentiment, you can't just ignore it.
>Please be honest and recognize that discrimination on the basis of Citizenship is exactly the same as racial discrimination.
It's nothing of the kind, and furthermore those Russian citizens who condemn this criminal war of aggression in no uncertain terms are going to be just fine.
>censor the voices of Russians in every field, from sport to art.
If your country is currently murdering civilians and committing genocide in an unprovoked war of aggression, you don't get to participate in sporting events under your country's flag. This is not about censoring you, it's about condemning your country. (Which, by the way, if you don't condemn yourself, then you yourself are complicit, particularly if you live outside of Russia).
Tell me of a single country in the world where a part of it does not consider the other lazy and primitive. We have the same exact phenomenon in Italy, the north thinks the south is lazy and primitive. That's ugly indeed and I don't support it, but if you say Russians are racist for this reason than pretty much every country on the planet is culpable of some form of racism.
Getting carried away is an open and public action. Not getting carried away must be done privately. It's tough to know how many people around are not getting carried away because they are afraid of being lashed out at for not being extreme enough.
This slowly shifts the window. It seems inevitable.
Two people close to me think that a hot war between the US and Russia is inevitable and that we may as well go ahead and get it over with. One is a Republican; the other is a Democrat. To me, that anecdote indicates the window has already shifted a whole lot.
Getting into a hot war with Russia over Ukraine seems like an obviously bad idea to me. Funding and supplying the Ukrainians? Sure. War? No.
Summary on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_Nationalism