There are so many angles available to look at this catastrophe: you can see it from the point of view of ideology, geopolitics, economics, human rights/war crimes, history, ...
Generally, I hope we all agree that pluralism is better than an autocratic fascist totalitarian regime.
I view Putin and the various other strong-men wanna-be dictators (includes Trump) in the latter group. Some leftist comments seem to put US global hegemony in that group too. While understanding the underlying fear of corporate overreach and past mistakes of US foreign policy to prop up fascist regimes in the face of the "communist threat", I think it can also be demonstrated that the US has more often than not, been a force for open democracy in many other areas. The rabid opposition to anything American lacks nuance and just doesn't hold water in the grand scheme of things.
And as for the communist/capitalist ideological divide, can we just throw this antiquated 19C way of looking at things into the dustbin of history? There isn't a single country out there that is a clear example of either ideology. Even China is heavily reliant on its capitalist sector to fuel its growth. And those small island states that see themselves as proponents of free market economics generally owe their wealth more to their location as trading hubs next to giant economies than their free markets. Its economics that obviously dominates historical development (curiously, something that even Marx would agree with) and (this is something Marx didn't foresee), mixed market economics are more stable and perform better, as global post WWII development I think shows.
Likewise, this geopolitical angle, like the communist/capitalist divide, should also be assigned to the bin. It is only salient when you view the world through the lens of imperial power, another child of the 19C, just like Putin is doing now, ignoring the fact that his economic base is minuscule when compared to the economic clout of his neighbours. We live in a global village, national borders are becoming obsolete. We face global challenges that require cooperation to resolve. Nationalism? ugh. get rid of it.
Putin for me is an anachronism. But that doesn't mean we have to be. It's high time to move forward and start solving the real challenges facing us instead of battling these ghosts from the past.
That is what a lot of people around the world think about Americans.
I place some blame on world leaders for the damage Trump caused. Mexico and Canada should have negotiated their own free trade deal without the US. Trump yelled at Australia's Prime Minister on their first phone call, until Morrison groveled at Trump's feet. Europe could have strengthened their own economic alliances with the rest of the world, marginalizing Trump.
putin's madness is not only killing/murdering/sacrificing a lot of innocent and unnecessary human beings
it is bringing a lot of long term suffering to bear on the masses
i for one will be glad when he is no longer relevant
Despite repeated official denials, the democratic worldâs joint efforts are doing increasing damage to the Russian economy.
Russia is now the world leader in the number of sanctions imposed (more than 5,500 measures), overtaking even Iran. While the Kremlin insists that the only party affected by these measures is the West itself, economic experts and even its propagandists now struggle to deny the effects on key sectors of the economy, following the unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.
During a summit on economic issues on June 17, Vladimir Putin said that the âblitzkriegâ of measures aimed at his country had failed, that the Kremlin bore no responsibility for the global economic downturn, and that everything was under control. On the same day, the head of Sberbank said it may take Russia a decade to return to its pre-invasion performance. Half the countryâs imports and exports were sanctions-affected. Inflation is at 17% and rising, while in 2022 national output will slump by anything from 8%-30%.
Some Western experts do indeed acknowledge that the costs caused by sanctions will affect both the US and the EU and will eventually affect the rest of the world. Russian propaganda has cheerily cited such articles, but for a long time ignored any consequences of the restrictions at home.
Despite this, the cold reality has begun to emerge. For years, Russia has been dealing with lower-level sanctions and working to produce (or smuggle) what it needs. But that process seems to have been a failure â something now admitted by Andrey Klishas, head of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, who said âthe import substitution program has completely failedâ, and the only thing that industry heads can boast of is âbravura reports.â Economist and professor at Moscow State University, Natalya Zubarevich, agrees. It is basically impossible to replace anything at the moment.
She pointed to the car industry, among others, as being heavily import dependent. Foreign machinery had been bought but would now be hard to maintain. Even at her local hairdresserâs, she noted, there was an absence of hair coloring choices because imports were now banned. Meanwhile, workers will be put on part-time contracts and smaller service firms in areas like fitness and catering will simply collapse from lower demand.
âThe Russian economy is very tightly integrated into the global world,â she said.
Still not getting your drift. You seem to want to lump me in with the post-modernists in the cultural wars. Sorry, don't play that game. Way back in the day I had a really cool group of friends. Half of us were studying English lit and the other half philosophy. There was also a neat kind of symmetry as my best friend (also from the Philosophy department) flatted with the best friend from my flatmate and those two were full-on into Derrida and Foucault (I guess you would call it critical theory nowadays). We had some crazily heated debates over copious bottles of wine. One culminated in a lecturer from the English lit department shouting at me, "There is no truth! Just accept it is true!" hmm. QED I thought. (and yes, I have told this story here before if you think it sounds familiar). Our discussions in the philosophy department were much more into realism vs. idealism, determinism, the philosophy of science, existentialism, the limits of empiricism and yes, logic. I always thought you and I differed on the foundation of moral theory, not on the issue of realism or the predictive power of theory, so I am kind of surprised to see you lump me in with the post-modernists.
Sorry for the slow response, been dealing with...stuff. Yes, I had conflated your rejection of moral universals with rejection of objective reality. My apologies if I mischaracterized your views.
one day I am going to write a really long and boring post about my philosophical views.
Still not getting your drift. You seem to want to lump me in with the post-modernists in the cultural wars. Sorry, don't play that game. Way back in the day I had a really cool group of friends. Half of us were studying English lit and the other half philosophy. There was also a neat kind of symmetry as my best friend (also from the Philosophy department) flatted with the best friend from my flatmate and those two were full-on into Derrida and Foucault (I guess you would call it critical theory nowadays). We had some crazily heated debates over copious bottles of wine. One culminated in a lecturer from the English lit department shouting at me, "There is no truth! Just accept it is true!"
hmm. QED I thought. (and yes, I have told this story here before if you think it sounds familiar).
Our discussions in the philosophy department were much more into realism vs. idealism, determinism, the philosophy of science, existentialism, the limits of empiricism and yes, logic.
<snip>
I always thought you and I differed on the foundation of moral theory, not on the issue of realism or the predictive power of theory, so I am kind of surprised to see you lump me in with the post-modernists.
Sorry for the slow response, been dealing with...stuff.
Yes, I had conflated your rejection of moral universals with rejection of objective reality. My apologies if I mischaracterized your views.
Of course there is! What part of I am at heart a realist do you find hard to understand? (which is basically what I was saying by pursuing logical consistency which would be kind of vacuous were it to have no reference to an objective reality) I think your beef might be with Westlope or RP. Not quite getting your drift here.
Not finding it difficult to understand, just difficult to reconcile with earlier posts.
Still not getting your drift. You seem to want to lump me in with the post-modernists in the cultural wars. Sorry, don't play that game. Way back in the day I had a really cool group of friends. Half of us were studying English lit and the other half philosophy. There was also a neat kind of symmetry as my best friend (also from the Philosophy department) flatted with the best friend from my flatmate and those two were full-on into Derrida and Foucault (I guess you would call it critical theory nowadays). We had some crazily heated debates over copious bottles of wine. One culminated in a lecturer from the English lit department shouting at me, "There is no truth! Just accept it is true!"
hmm. QED I thought. (and yes, I have told this story here before if you think it sounds familiar).
Our discussions in the philosophy department were much more into realism vs. idealism, determinism, the philosophy of science, existentialism, the limits of empiricism and yes, logic.
<snip>
I always thought you and I differed on the foundation of moral theory, not on the issue of realism or the predictive power of theory, so I am kind of surprised to see you lump me in with the post-modernists.
Of course there is! What part of I am at heart a realist do you find hard to understand?
(which is basically what I was saying by pursuing logical consistency which would be kind of vacuous were it to have no reference to an objective reality)
I think your beef might be with Westlope or RP. Not quite getting your drift here.
Not finding it difficult to understand, just difficult to reconcile with earlier posts.
ha, if you think I am a proponent of post-modernism, you read me wrong. PS Never was. Ultimately, and Dugistan is a good example, all such appeals to construed reality and narrative as being ultimately precedent to a logical system are vacuous as they presuppose an agenda that itself needs explaining. You end up with a snake eating its tail pretty quickly or nothing at all matters anymore. That said, there is some (limited) value to the leftist, moral relativist critique of logical systems being based on some kind of inherited value system (narrative) which peoples from other cultures/perspectives might not share. However, contrary to them, I never said that this nullifies any pursuit of logical consistency and the urgent need to reconcile differences in a language that hopefully becomes more universal with age. I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I thought otherwise. If anything I take the cultural diversity angle to merely mean humility is in order, which I sometimes find lacking among the more vocal advocates of purely rational world views. But that doesn't mean I eschew rationality per se. Quite the opposite.
So I'm going to press a little further and try to put you on record: Is there such a thing as an objective reality against which we can gauge the truth/falsity of a statement, such as "Those weren't Russian bombs falling on Aleppo"? That is is there such a thing as a true statement, or a false one?
Of course there is! What part of I am at heart a realist do you find hard to understand?
(which is basically what I was saying by pursuing logical consistency which would be kind of vacuous were it to have no reference to an objective reality)
I think your beef might be with Westlope or RP. Not quite getting your drift here.
