Evil abstraction: the psychology of totalitarianism

[Jim Cross]

Now threats to Moldova.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoint ... to-moldova

It doesn't even border Russia but borders western Ukraine. The rationale is another oppressed Russian-speaking minority.

Maybe every country should be allowed to invade another country where some of their own are seemingly oppressed. Mexico would have full rights to invade most of the western United States.

[ScottRoberts]

What I wrote is Putin's own justification for the war. Do you believe his justification? What source can you cite about rampant Nazism in Ukraine which Russia controlled most of the twentieth century as a part of the Soviet Union and now has a Jewish President?

Here are a couple of Western sources:
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-c ... ows-269604
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohe ... SKBN1GV2TY

In any case, denazification was not Russia's sole, or even primary, reason for invasion.

Unless you are denying the invasion itself and the slaughter of innocent civilians, or actually support them, I don't need any Russian sources to know the invasion is evil no matter what the point of view is that justifies it.

In other words, you don't want to hear what the other side has to say. Which is all I really wanted to establish.

[Lou Gold]

What I wrote is Putin's own justification for the war. Do you believe his justification? What source can you cite about rampant Nazism in Ukraine which Russia controlled most of the twentieth century as a part of the Soviet Union and now has a Jewish President?

Here are a couple of Western sources:
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-c ... ows-269604
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohe ... SKBN1GV2TY

In any case, denazification was not Russia's sole, or even primary, reason for invasion.

Unless you are denying the invasion itself and the slaughter of innocent civilians, or actually support them, I don't need any Russian sources to know the invasion is evil no matter what the point of view is that justifies it.

In other words, you don't want to hear what the other side has to say. Which is all I really wanted to establish.

Here's a thought guys about the meme "Nazi." For those of us outside of Russia it mostly means the Holocaust slaughter of 6 million Jews and for many Russians it means the WWII loss of 27 million country men, women and children to an aggressive armed European force.

[Jim Cross]

What I wrote is Putin's own justification for the war. Do you believe his justification? What source can you cite about rampant Nazism in Ukraine which Russia controlled most of the twentieth century as a part of the Soviet Union and now has a Jewish President?

Here are a couple of Western sources:
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-c ... ows-269604
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohe ... SKBN1GV2TY

In any case, denazification was not Russia's sole, or even primary, reason for invasion.

Unless you are denying the invasion itself and the slaughter of innocent civilians, or actually support them, I don't need any Russian sources to know the invasion is evil no matter what the point of view is that justifies it.

In other words, you don't want to hear what the other side has to say. Which is all I really wanted to establish.

Scott,

You seem to be avoiding the question of whether you support the invasion and massacre of civilians.

If you do, be proud. Come out and tell us.

If you think it is evil, as I do, then stop telling me I need to understand the evil-doer's point of view.

[Jim Cross]

What I wrote is Putin's own justification for the war. Do you believe his justification? What source can you cite about rampant Nazism in Ukraine which Russia controlled most of the twentieth century as a part of the Soviet Union and now has a Jewish President?

Here are a couple of Western sources:
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-c ... ows-269604
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohe ... SKBN1GV2TY

In any case, denazification was not Russia's sole, or even primary, reason for invasion.

Unless you are denying the invasion itself and the slaughter of innocent civilians, or actually support them, I don't need any Russian sources to know the invasion is evil no matter what the point of view is that justifies it.

In other words, you don't want to hear what the other side has to say. Which is all I really wanted to establish.

Here's a thought guys about the meme "Nazi." For those of us outside of Russia it mostly means the Holocaust slaughter of 6 million Jews and for many Russians it means the WWII loss of 27 million country men, women and children to an aggressive armed European force.

BTW, an aggressive armed European force the Soviet Union was allied with before they were invaded.

[Soul_of_Shu]

What I wrote is Putin's own justification for the war. Do you believe his justification? What source can you cite about rampant Nazism in Ukraine which Russia controlled most of the twentieth century as a part of the Soviet Union and now has a Jewish President?

Here are a couple of Western sources:
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-c ... ows-269604
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohe ... SKBN1GV2TY

In any case, denazification was not Russia's sole, or even primary, reason for invasion.

Unless you are denying the invasion itself and the slaughter of innocent civilians, or actually support them, I don't need any Russian sources to know the invasion is evil no matter what the point of view is that justifies it.

In other words, you don't want to hear what the other side has to say. Which is all I really wanted to establish.

Here's a thought guys about the meme "Nazi." For those of us outside of Russia it mostly means the Holocaust slaughter of 6 million Jews and for many Russians it means the WWII loss of 27 million country men, women and children to an aggressive armed European force.

I'll also add here that I get that during times of such emotionally charged and tragic world events disturbing the zeitgeist, one feels compelled to say something/anything—silence seeming to be some sort of uncaring condoning of it all—to express one's opinion and sentiments, if only to get the pent-up distress out of one's system. And so I'm allowing some leeway here for that to run its course, knowing full well that it will likely resolve nothing else in the process. And as long as it remains respectful, and doesn't degenerate into derisive polemic, and makes at least some attempt to refocus onto what the forum is intended to be focused on, I'll let it play out to its predictable stalemate. However, be prepared in advance that there is a limit to how long I'll let it persist beyond the point of serving the above stated purpose. Of course, there's still then the option to take it into PM mode.

[Lou Gold]

Here are a couple of Western sources:
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-c ... ows-269604
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohe ... SKBN1GV2TY

In any case, denazification was not Russia's sole, or even primary, reason for invasion.



In other words, you don't want to hear what the other side has to say. Which is all I really wanted to establish.

Here's a thought guys about the meme "Nazi." For those of us outside of Russia it mostly means the Holocaust slaughter of 6 million Jews and for many Russians it means the WWII loss of 27 million country men, women and children to an aggressive armed European force.

BTW, an aggressive armed European force the Soviet Union was allied with before they were invaded.

Jim, I was not justifying a side but rather pointing out that Putin is working a domestic audience that hears the meme Nazi differently than we do.

I have no crystal ball here. I don't know what's going on at the deep intelligence and/or back channel levels. There's some quite serious speculation that the Zbigniew Brzezinski Trick of trapping Russia in no retreat from a costly, depleting, weakening war after it foolishly invaded under faulty intelligence -- as it did in Afghanistan, which contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union -- may be playing out again. Indeed, it would make sense of the recent highest level US/NATO policy statements that the goal now is to weaken Russia militarily. But please don't get me wrong. Russia invaded and has conducted brutal warfare in the Ukraine. This is horrific. And now, as the mess escalates, the collateral damage of war and sanctions and more on food insecurity and extreme poverty and climate inaction on ordinary largely innocent people globally threatens to be immense.

[ScottRoberts]

Scott,

You seem to be avoiding the question of whether you support the invasion and massacre of civilians.

If you do, be proud. Come out and tell us.

If you think it is evil, as I do, then stop telling me I need to understand the evil-doer's point of view.

Are you familiar with Robert Pirsig's four levels of morality (physical, biological, social, intellectual)? (It's covered in his book Lila.) Its thesis is that what may be good on one level may not be good on a higher level. Debating who is good or bad on a social level will differ from what is good or bad on the intellectual or biological level. So to answer your question, on a social level (where one considers how societies will prosper or not), I think the Russian invasion is justified, and that the Ukrainians are the more likely culprits in the various events that the Western media call massacres (e.g. the Kramatorsk missile was probably Ukrainian). Why do I think these things? Because I have exposed myself to the pro-Russian POV, and consider it more socially defensible than the anti-Russian POV.

But that's the social level debate. On an intellectual level, there are other aspects to consider. For example, is violence ever justified? Of course, if it is, then one must consider Russian instigated violence versus US/NATO/Ukraine instigated violence, and I would still support on an intellectual level Russia's invasion. But on an intellectual level I reject all socially organized violence, which is to say, war. Better to let one's country be invaded than to resist it with counter-violence. But most people don't think that, which is why realistically, any argument between your POV and mine is going to be had at the social level. Which is to say, it is a political argument, which is why I am not arguing for my political POV on this forum, only trying to point out that there is an argument to be had.

[Soul_of_Shu]

... only trying to point out that there is an argument to be had.

I can now certainly see that there is a different spin to be put on this tragedy, one of them being that player Z and his cohorts knew exactly what player P and his cohorts could be capable of, if player P's buttons were pushed in just a certain way, and how that was quite likely to play out, and what the costly consequences would be. And sure enough player P walked right into the trap, giving the opposing war mongers just the rationale they needed to justify installing their state-of-the-art weaponry in the region, while coming across as the good guys jumping to the rescue in fighting the evil-doers, rather than the provocateurs—all seeming like a dangerous high-stakes poker game being played by the respective players, with human lives as the chips. One still finds it very difficult to parse out where precisely the more or lesser evil lies, given that a case can be made that none of the players can be fully absolved of culpability. If one is looking for wise choices, it seems pretty much like a choice between coke zero and orange crush ... choose your poison.

[Jim Cross]

Scott,

You seem to be avoiding the question of whether you support the invasion and massacre of civilians.

If you do, be proud. Come out and tell us.

If you think it is evil, as I do, then stop telling me I need to understand the evil-doer's point of view.

Are you familiar with Robert Pirsig's four levels of morality (physical, biological, social, intellectual)? (It's covered in his book Lila.) Its thesis is that what may be good on one level may not be good on a higher level. Debating who is good or bad on a social level will differ from what is good or bad on the intellectual or biological level. So to answer your question, on a social level (where one considers how societies will prosper or not), I think the Russian invasion is justified, and that the Ukrainians are the more likely culprits in the various events that the Western media call massacres (e.g. the Kramatorsk missile was probably Ukrainian). Why do I think these things? Because I have exposed myself to the pro-Russian POV, and consider it more socially defensible than the anti-Russian POV.

But that's the social level debate. On an intellectual level, there are other aspects to consider. For example, is violence ever justified? Of course, if it is, then one must consider Russian instigated violence versus US/NATO/Ukraine instigated violence, and I would still support on an intellectual level Russia's invasion. But on an intellectual level I reject all socially organized violence, which is to say, war. Better to let one's country be invaded than to resist it with counter-violence. But most people don't think that, which is why realistically, any argument between your POV and mine is going to be had at the social level. Which is to say, it is a political argument, which is why I am not arguing for my political POV on this forum, only trying to point out that there is an argument to be had.

Russian media took credit for Kramatorsk missile before it was realized it hadn't struck a military transport, then blamed it on the Ukrainians.

Good for you to step up and acknowledge you support the invasion.

Following your advice, the next time I see a man attacking a woman and child I'll be sure to get the attacker's point of view before making any judgment.