Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
so what do you think has changed, so that the path that was open to S. Korea or China is no longer open? or even Spain, which was impoverished under Franco. Or East Germany, which was impoverished before unification? Or Ireland, which was impoverished under British rule? Although China does seem to be oddly turning to totalitarianism and patriarchy under Xi. I agree with the poster who said Deng is going to be one of the great names in history.
The South Koreans achieved democracy despite the Americans. The US for almost 50 years had no problem backing a series of brutal military dictators in that country. The Americans ignored (to the point of being complicit) the Korean military brutalizing and peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, the Korean CIA torturing and disappearing activists, or the whole sale murder of thousands in the city of Gwangju by the ROK Army.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
so what do you think has changed, so that the path that was open to S. Korea or China is no longer open? or even Spain, which was impoverished under Franco. Or East Germany, which was impoverished before unification? Or Ireland, which was impoverished under British rule? Although China does seem to be oddly turning to totalitarianism and patriarchy under Xi. I agree with the poster who said Deng is going to be one of the great names in history.
Honestly I don’t know enough, but it seems the window of opportunity closed right about after WW2, maybe in the 1950s.
Ireland is sort of lingering in the doorstep of the first world club (on the inside), and China isn’t first world.
I also know very little about S Korea - I would guess it earned its status in the club by being an important ally vs N Korea so it was allowed in.
But again, maybe the countries that tried but failed simply lacked something?
Democracy is not easy.
It takes work
We aren’t perfect, and our system is not easy, but it’s the best humankind has come up with.
END THREAD
For the US maybe. But the Americans sure don’t practice what they preach when it comes to foreign relations. The post World War Two era has seen Americans kill millions of innocents. I guess it’s okay when you are committing evil to make the world safe for democracy.
I have an idea!
How about Russia and China and Iran and North Korea give democracy a try. I would love to see them do it better. Truly.
Not happening in China at least. People fear chaos. The Chinese are perfectly happy trading a vote for stability and opportunity.
Iran, however, would like a vote. Different culture. Different circumstances. It would be a very a healthy democracy if given a chance.
North Korea is a little hopeless at this moment in time. There is no social culture that would support a democracy.
And Russians prefer tsars and dictators. They fear each other and outsiders. They like authoritarian rule. It makes them feel safe. And the "leader" gives them purpose. The educated elite have already left Russia. What remains would re-elect Putin in a heartbeat.
Persia is a 3500+ year history — a truly civilizational state
It has never had a democracy
You are colored by your perception of Persia due to a sliver of Persian emigres in the us (who even within this group are all not democracy proponents)
The last (only?) wave of Iranian immigrants to the US fled their homeland when the American backed shah fell and those coming here were allies of that illegitimate, oppressive, and murderous regime. Many of those have hands soaked in blood and torture.
💯
Persian Americans are not supportive of democracy in Persia.
They would like their advantaged status reinstated in a oligarchic model back in Persia
Not sure why pp felt that Iran would be more amenable to democracy than Russia. In fact I would say the opposite - Russia would have democracy before Persia
Anonymous wrote:Two of the up and coming countries while no friend of each other make no bone about oppressing minorities and disdain for democracy in their respective countries. With the Chinese it’s to be expected but the way the Indians have betrayed democratic values is pretty shocking.
India is poisoned by democracy.
Without its own Deng, it will never move to middle income status.
No country has attempted democracy at India’s relative per capita economic status and been able to develop into middle income status.
If China had Ghandi, Nehru and Jinnah instead of mao and deng, it would be crushingly poor to this day.
Deng especially is extremely underrated when it comes to sheer influence on the number of humans he moved up the HDI ladder. History will judge Deng extremely kindly
Think you have a warped view here.
Indian democracy is under threat as opposition leaders and supporters are harassed and jailed - even while their economy and standards of living have been steadily improving - Also I doubt the lowest rung of their caste system the Untouchables wants to return to life prior to democracy when they not only had no vote but were treated as subhuman.
Has the standard of living improved in India?
Even though the richest 20% of Indians were more positive about their standards of living than the poorest 20% in 2022 (72% versus 44%, respectively, said they were getting better), the perceptions of the poorest 20% have nevertheless been improving almost every year since 2016.Sep 5, 2023
https://news.gallup.com › poll › ind...
Indians See Brighter Economic Future but Feel the Pinch Now - Gallup News
Anonymous wrote:Two of the up and coming countries while no friend of each other make no bone about oppressing minorities and disdain for democracy in their respective countries. With the Chinese it’s to be expected but the way the Indians have betrayed democratic values is pretty shocking.
India is poisoned by democracy.
Without its own Deng, it will never move to middle income status.
No country has attempted democracy at India’s relative per capita economic status and been able to develop into middle income status.
If China had Ghandi, Nehru and Jinnah instead of mao and deng, it would be crushingly poor to this day.
Deng especially is extremely underrated when it comes to sheer influence on the number of humans he moved up the HDI ladder. History will judge Deng extremely kindly
Think you have a warped view here.
Indian democracy is under threat as opposition leaders and supporters are harassed and jailed - even while their economy and standards of living have been steadily improving - Also I doubt the lowest rung of their caste system the Untouchables wants to return to life prior to democracy when they not only had no vote but were treated as subhuman.
Has the standard of living improved in India?
Even though the richest 20% of Indians were more positive about their standards of living than the poorest 20% in 2022 (72% versus 44%, respectively, said they were getting better), the perceptions of the poorest 20% have nevertheless been improving almost every year since 2016.Sep 5, 2023
https://news.gallup.com › poll › ind...
Indians See Brighter Economic Future but Feel the Pinch Now - Gallup News
And yet the Americans celebrate giving the Indians a sweetheart economic deal when in the real world they should be sanctioned and held to account for their increasingly oppressive and immoral regime. The Americans lend credibility to Modi and his mob.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
so what do you think has changed, so that the path that was open to S. Korea or China is no longer open? or even Spain, which was impoverished under Franco. Or East Germany, which was impoverished before unification? Or Ireland, which was impoverished under British rule? Although China does seem to be oddly turning to totalitarianism and patriarchy under Xi. I agree with the poster who said Deng is going to be one of the great names in history.
The South Koreans achieved democracy despite the Americans. The US for almost 50 years had no problem backing a series of brutal military dictators in that country. The Americans ignored (to the point of being complicit) the Korean military brutalizing and peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, the Korean CIA torturing and disappearing activists, or the whole sale murder of thousands in the city of Gwangju by the ROK Army.
and yet despite all these obstacles, they became a prosperous democracy. Most nations would love to do this. Are their obstacles even greater?
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
Only two choices? Any examples to back this up?
Do you have an example to counter it?
A country post WW2 which followed all the best practices in building democracy (as per USAID et al) and has reached the “first world” status?
East Germany, the Baltics, etc are still lagging.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
so what do you think has changed, so that the path that was open to S. Korea or China is no longer open? or even Spain, which was impoverished under Franco. Or East Germany, which was impoverished before unification? Or Ireland, which was impoverished under British rule? Although China does seem to be oddly turning to totalitarianism and patriarchy under Xi. I agree with the poster who said Deng is going to be one of the great names in history.
The South Koreans achieved democracy despite the Americans. The US for almost 50 years had no problem backing a series of brutal military dictators in that country. The Americans ignored (to the point of being complicit) the Korean military brutalizing and peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, the Korean CIA torturing and disappearing activists, or the whole sale murder of thousands in the city of Gwangju by the ROK Army.
and yet despite all these obstacles, they became a prosperous democracy. Most nations would love to do this. Are their obstacles even greater?
Yes it would be interesting to compare them to East Germany, Poland, the Baltics etc - they aren’t doing so well at all AFAIK.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
Only two choices? Any examples to back this up?
Do you have an example to counter it?
A country post WW2 which followed all the best practices in building democracy (as per USAID et al) and has reached the “first world” status?
East Germany, the Baltics, etc are still lagging.
There are plenty of countries which the US barely knows exists and do not even have the option of subservience. Your best two option paradigm only works for some.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
so what do you think has changed, so that the path that was open to S. Korea or China is no longer open? or even Spain, which was impoverished under Franco. Or East Germany, which was impoverished before unification? Or Ireland, which was impoverished under British rule? Although China does seem to be oddly turning to totalitarianism and patriarchy under Xi. I agree with the poster who said Deng is going to be one of the great names in history.
The South Koreans achieved democracy despite the Americans. The US for almost 50 years had no problem backing a series of brutal military dictators in that country. The Americans ignored (to the point of being complicit) the Korean military brutalizing and peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, the Korean CIA torturing and disappearing activists, or the whole sale murder of thousands in the city of Gwangju by the ROK Army.
and yet despite all these obstacles, they became a prosperous democracy. Most nations would love to do this. Are their obstacles even greater?
For a number of countries I would say yes. Western imperialism is a big reason. Many of the countries that were created following decolonization were not organic but rather simply lines on a map created for the convenience of the ill-informed and mostly evil Western imperialists who were simply interested in oppression and exploitation.
American and European overseas business practices further exacerbate the problem to this day as well.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
How would you divide the following countries between these groups? Subservient or autocratic? Kiribati, Malaysia, Guyana, Zambia.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
Only two choices? Any examples to back this up?
Do you have an example to counter it?
A country post WW2 which followed all the best practices in building democracy (as per USAID et al) and has reached the “first world” status?
East Germany, the Baltics, etc are still lagging.
There are plenty of countries which the US barely knows exists and do not even have the option of subservience. Your best two option paradigm only works for some.
They are already subservient,
They just serve in the kitchen not in the rooms
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
How would you divide the following countries between these groups? Subservient or autocratic? Kiribati, Malaysia, Guyana, Zambia.
I don’t know but it doesn’t matter in their case. They are either subservient or so insignificant that their autocracy doesn’t threaten the US so no one cares.
Anonymous wrote:Apologies for the long musings here but it's something I've been thinking about.
I traveled a lot throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia in my early 20s and in my naive open mind I accepted that Western-style liberal democracy simply wasn't the be-all end-all, I was such a cultural relativist that one could even call me a dictator-apologist, "tankie", or conspiracy theorist a la The Grayzone if anyone is familiar with that podcast.
Then upon becoming a more educated, professional adult, I appreciated the freedom and opportunities that came with the US and the West. I definitely consider myself a political liberal and an economic social-democrat. I despise Trump and his authoritarian tendencies and Putin, Orban, Edrogan, and the like.
Here's the thing, though. Revisiting in my mind the places that I've visited and the people I've known that coastal urban liberals of the US take so much for granted that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's not just conservatives, right wingers, and Trump supporters in the US. It's everywhere else. We assume that everyone should agree that Ukraine are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys, that Israel are the good guys and Palestine are the bad guys, that everyone favors capitalism (whether American-style with less regulations or Northern European-style with more regulations), social welfare, social freedoms and gender equality and LGBTQ rights and separation of church and state. The fact is that day to day, people are looking out for themselves and their families and this is human nature, and that many populations around the world believe that regimes that we consider authoritarian deliver better on bread-and-butter issues. And that the church/mosque/whatever is essential to maintain a moral fabric of society. There are certain ways in which the rural conservatives in Alabama and West Virginia have more in common with many other parts in the world than people in Bethesda, Maryland.
If you look at Alexander Dugin and Eurasianism, I have read his texts many times, and have often thought it is the most abhorrent philosophy in the world, akin to Nazism. I still abhor Duginism, but I realize how it makes sense from a non-Western, socially conservative perspective.
There's a reason why BRICS exist. There's a reason why China is ascendant and the Belt and Road Initiative is working in other parts of Asia - they don't care about China's authoriarian policies or lack of freedom of speech or human rights violations reported... China is building things, America is bombing things - that's what they see. Likewise, Russia has done outreach in Africa and Latin America over thigns like cybersecurity and infrastructure policy. Even countries in Europe, many people are burned out over supporting Ukraine and feel that the EU hasn't done much of them, and don't feel like continuing to feel the pain over oil and gas sanctions against Russia.
You look at other cosmopolitan places in the world and assume that the US is so much better because of our freedoms, but places like Dubai (terribly misogynist!) and Singapore (they execute people who do drugs!) still attract people. Russia and China are not universal villains. The Arab world's wealth and energy sector trump their policies on women and LGBTQ rights. The world is just not woke. The world is multipolar, and we don't have to like it. The more the US fights against multipolarity, the more people will hate us.
Americans assume that the arc of history always bends towards justice, and more social freedoms, but this is simply not true. Culture needs to be left alone to evolve, not imposed by war or corporations.
They are favored in wealthy western countries but Russia and China spend billions to spread misinformation that undermines confidence in them.
The alternative to messy democracies is clinical dictatorships, no free press, no freedom of speech to criticize elected officials and jail worse for any promising opposition.
Umm, no thanks!
Okay. Now, imagine you have your messy democracy. Also, your money is worth nothing, your social safety benefit net has crumbled, you can’t find a job and everything is out of reach financially. Imagine how much you’d care about your freedom if speech then.
You have to be really honest about what you like about your democracies. If it’s economic prosperity, then remind yourself that you can clearly have that without democracy or at least a full range of it. Life in China, UAE, or Russia can be quite comfortable if you have the right skillset.
A good friend of mine is married to a VP of a major Russian bank. They are both UK citizens and have lived there for decades. But right now they have no intention of leaving bc life is just too dang comfortable.
So life is great as long as you’re visiting and the citizen of another country. You can travel around but with the protection of a foreign power.
I'm just saying that people care primarily about meeting their economic needs, and lots and lots of people are perfectly willing to accept reduced freedom and democratic rights in exchange for economic prosperity and solid safety net. Let's be honest, most people aren't that interested in politics. Conversely, if a democracy isn't meeting economic needs, freedom of speech isn't going to keep you warm when you have no job and your money can't buy anything. People assume economic prosperity goes along with liberal democracy but that's not always the case, and a look around the planet shows that many are comfortable without democracy as long as prosperity is there.
I think you have a weird definition for liberal democracy. I cannot think of a nation where the people are happy without it except China. And as I said before, China is still in a honeymoon due to the previous leaders. As Xi takes them further from prosperity, that will change.
As for economics, the vast majority of nations are less well off than the US, and that is why we have a very high immigration rate.
The problem with oligarchies is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once the nation falls into the hands of an agressive idiot (say Trump), there is no way out. The nation then falls.
Democracy is messy. Liberal democracy is about repect for truth and the rule of law. No other form of government has those values. (we don't always live up to those values, but at least those are our asperational values in Japan, S. Korea, Europe, the US and other liberal democracies). No other form of government can say that.
The Gulf nations seem to enjoy prosperity without any democracy. Of course not everyone is happy but life is generally comfortable.
Remove economic prosperity from the democracy package and see what happens.
women, who are more than 50% of the population, are not happy
You don't actually know that. You are superimposing your value system onto theirs and assuming you'd feel a certain way about things. Being an actual Penninsula nation citizen is pretty luxurious because of the oil wealth and the use of third country nationals who work for slave wages. If you more or less buy into the culture that you grew up in (as most people do), and you want an easy life, you can have that in these nations. Also, they look at our conditions in the US with absolute horror-- women culturally expected to show skin, to date around before getting an offer of engagement, rarely have prenuptial agreements (which have existed in Islamic cultures for over a thousand years), having to work, etc. You think they think like you, but they don't.
what country are you from? In the US, if you want to show skin, you show skin. If you are Amish, and don't want to do that, you don't. And everybody has to work, even women in the gulf. They just do different kinds of work.
Look at Iran. The women there are making it very very clear they don't want the life you describe. And very very few women in the US chose that life. The Amish. A few mormons. A few orthodox Jews. But given a choice, most women chose freedom.
The irony is that the U.S. is to blame for the fact women in Iran live the life they live…
The history of human beings is full of irony. What's your point? Because the US has done bad things, has some bad people, you want to live in Iran, without the basic protections of rule of law and without some basic freedoms? Because if you cannot have perfection, you want hell?
No, I am saying that maybe it’s time to either stop meddling in other countries’ affairs, or at least stop pretending that this is done for the sake of democracy…
Democracy is great, I love it. But let’s pretend it can happen everywhere,
Where there is a will, there is a way, etc
NP
This is a good point. The list is long of countries that have become decidedly undemocratic after US meddling and scheming. Or what’s even worse is when US gets played (like how Aung San Suu Kyi who took advantage of the good will of the US for decades and then betrayed the democratic world and proved to be just as brutal as the military junta).
Because as I said before, there are only two choices for the countries that aren’t part of the “first world” today - either become essentially subservient to the U.S. (under the guise of building democracy) which doesn’t bring much prosperity, OR start standing their ground and at some point being cornered into becoming autocracies, totalitarian regimes etc.
How would you divide the following countries between these groups? Subservient or autocratic? Kiribati, Malaysia, Guyana, Zambia.
I don’t know but it doesn’t matter in their case. They are either subservient or so insignificant that their autocracy doesn’t threaten the US so no one cares.
Sorry but you said there were only two choices for countries which aren’t part of the first world today. I gave you four examples that apparently don’t fit your model so you say they are irrelevant. I could give you a list of a lot more which I’m sure you would also dismiss. Exactly which non-first world countries does your model apply to? A list would help.
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