Some Links
Amuse on X reviews Ken Burns’ latest PBS series on the American Revolution. It’s the usual Ken Burns production: nice photography and art, voice of God narration, basically a good survey but ladled on top with a whopping load of Identity Group pandering to Injuns, blacks, and womanists.
Anthony Esolen, in The American Spectator, laments how an education based on “Studies” has largely successfully replaced real learning and substantive scholarship in the Liberal Arts.
Russians possess a striking capacity to blur the line between truth and falsehood. In essence, Russian psyche is radical egalitarian in the truest sense of this word. For Russians different, even opposing, states of being are equivalent: truth and falsehood, life and death, beautiful and ugly. This can be captured very well by the prime symbol of the Russian realm as posited by Oswald Spengler: that prime symbol is endless plain. The plain is undifferentiated, everything along the plain looks the same. And so is the Russian psyche – for it, different, even opposing, states of the matter feel the same.
This unique feature of Russians makes them unusually able to step away from daily reality and into an imagined world. What they imagine does feel very real for them, even though it might starkly contradict the facts on the ground. For radical egalitarians like Russians, the separating line between physical reality and inner fantasy grows thin. They can easily substitute their imagination for the physical reality in a way Europeans cannot.
So, although many Russians live without indoor plumbing, don’t have proper roads, and face conditions that would feel intolerable to others, they sincerely believe their country is envied, respected and feared. They sincerely believe the West longs to destroy Russia and seize its resources, though the historical record points in the opposite direction. The West has repeatedly helped prevent Russia’s collapse and even today prefers stability over chaos in the Russian state. Russians inhabit what feels almost like a metaverse. If the metaverse ever became widespread, Russians would adopt it with ease – in fact, they would be the first to adopt it and would be its most reliable customers.
This capacity to live in imagined success explains why many Russians embrace the war effort even as their own lives become ever more miserable. They can experience victory and success vicariously and feel uplifted by it. The closest analogy is the psychology of sports fans. I say this as a sports fan myself. When your team wins, the feeling is intoxicating. It feels like your own triumph, even if your personal life is full of setbacks. The team’s success becomes a substitute for private disappointment. As a result, one can feel oneself accomplished in life more than his personal achievements warrant.
A similar process unfolds in the Russian psyche, only far more intense. For a people who do not sharply distinguish between reality and imagination, the imagined greatness of their country is powerful enough to cover the hardships of daily life. The belief that Russia is mighty and feared, a nuclear power standing against a hostile world, supplies a sense of personal pride that compensates for personal misery and destituteness. As long as the war appears to move forward for Russia, even by a single captured village, many Russians feel their team is winning. The victory feels like their own – like their own personal achievement. Russia’s military gains, no matter how small, provide a sense of accomplishment that their personal circumstances cannot offer.
This psychological mechanism reduces the misery that would otherwise rise from daily life. Vicarious glory becomes an emotional substitute for personal success. In this way, millions can accept hardship while feeling uplifted, even fulfilled. The refrigerator does not defeat the television because the television does not merely feed propaganda. It supplies an alternate reality that many Russians find more livable than the one in their real physical lives.
Cemil seems to be a vehemently anti-Russian bigot. I looked at some of his postings. Wow, what a detachment from reality. The PhD in neuroscience is a tell. His clip above really speaks volumes about the Leftist world view, and is a prime example of projection. I sincerely doubt he has ever actually been to Russia.
"Ukraine is really the jewel of Europe. Ukrainians are currently the finest Europeans - in fact, the finest people in the world."
"Sending kidnapped Ukrainian children not even to somewhere in Russia (which is evil enough) but to North Korean concentration camps??? "