Astonishing colonial attitude

[blakeyboy 1,726]

From a pre-ww2 stamp album page header.  No wonder we lost everything! 

Children would have read this.

 

[Menger 88]

Certainly not the attitude we would condone today. That said, I suspect not too different from the attitude of any other modern empire  - whether Russian, Ottoman, Japanese or indeed (if we go a little back, or forward) Chinese.  Empires tend to have a relatively high opinion of the mother/fatherland and a condescending view of the barbarians outside.  Just look how the EU looks at us! 🤣 Not to mention how DEI considers those who dwell outside its walls. Empire (old or new) not a good model. 

Edited March 11, 2024 by Menger

[Paddy 1,720]

I was unfortunate enough to meet up with a group of Russians on holiday in Turkey ten or more years ago. Their attitude was very high-handed and patronising to everyone else. They were quite certain that they were the superior race and it was their destiny and right to rule the world - much as the British had 100 years ago.

Hence it was no surprise when they set about increasing their empire by invading Ukraine, and if they are allowed to win there, I fear they will be straight on to the next target - probably the Baltic States.

[Rob 3,152]

1 hour ago, Paddy said:

I was unfortunate enough to meet up with a group of Russians on holiday in Turkey ten or more years ago. Their attitude was very high-handed and patronising to everyone else. They were quite certain that they were the superior race and it was their destiny and right to rule the world - much as the British had 100 years ago.

Hence it was no surprise when they set about increasing their empire by invading Ukraine, and if they are allowed to win there, I fear they will be straight on to the next target - probably the Baltic States.

They've had the same mentality for hundreds of years. The problem is not that they believe themselves superior, also that they also believe in destroying the cultures they overrun and the Russification of everything. They've been killing Ukrainians for centuries for what they are. Or take the Circassian genocide where they reduced the population from 1.5m to 30-40K in a few years as a result of starvation and forced migration. Any neighbour not under their control is to be invaded and at the least, a puppet installed. Dudayev was precise in his 1995 analysis of how Russia would turn out post the collapse of the Soviet Union. Then they killed him...........

All this crap about denazification is complete bollocks. There are Nazis in every country on this planet - usually a small percentage. Problem with Russia is that they are in power in the Kremlin.

Hope springs eternal that one day they will make the connection between their actions and why only the likes of Trump and Orban think Putin is great. Then they can drag themselves into the 20th century.

Edited March 11, 2024 by Rob

[Menger 88]

2 hours ago, Rob said:

They've had the same mentality for hundreds of years. 

I wouldn’t single out the Russians. There is not an empire in the whole of human history that has not been expansionist. Human history is the ebb and flow between the two poles of tribalism and empire: the one gives way to the other, back and forth, the world over. The birth of the nation state in Western Europe (and the Westphalian system that it became) is an historical anomaly and alien to much of the world relative to endless tribalism and empire. 

[Rob 3,152]

5 minutes ago, Menger said:

I wouldn’t single out the Russians. There is not an empire in the whole of human history that has not been expansionist. Human history is the ebb and flow between the two poles of tribalism and empire: the one gives way to the other, back and forth, the world over. The birth of the nation state in Western Europe (and the Westphalian system that it became) is an historical anomaly and alien to much of the world relative to endless tribalism and empire. 

I didn't. I was quoting Paddy's post and expanding on their innate inability to take on board the right of alternative cultures to exist. Any neighbour is viewed as a threat to be conquered/pillaged/eliminated. Problem is, that requires them to claim the world, because up to that point they would always have a neighbour. Saving grace is their inability to breed fast enough to replace losses in continuous conflict.

[Menger 88]

10 minutes ago, Rob said:

Any neighbour is viewed as a threat to be conquered/pillaged/eliminated. 

That seems to me the default for all systems of empire and all systems of tribalism.  Nothing special about Russians there.  They are an empire - like the others. Like China. The mistake we make is thinking they are a nation state. Like the UK.  

It is the imperial nature of Russia that caused both Kissinger and Obama separately warned against the escalation in the Ukraine.  

Know your enemy. 

Edited March 11, 2024 by Menger

[Rob 3,152]

Too many people are anxious not to cause upset, but you need to call a spade a spade.

Russia may take a typical empirical stance in its treatment, and may be only one of several players operating in this manner, but there's nothing wrong in specifically calling them out for what they are doing because the reason for and scale of the operation demands it. They are the major aggressor on the world stage at the moment because the war is the only really significant conflict between two nations on any scale, and with Russia promising to go to the next place which wants to be free of Russian interference when they've finished in Ukraine it would be a moral abrogation to just shrug our collective shoulders and say Ah, but they are an empire, so excuse them.

Obviously there are other active areas of conflict such as Myanmar, various African states or Gaza to name but a few, but these are generally internal affairs despite attempts to draw in external parties.

The problem is that they all have the same modus operandi. Legitimate military targets are hit, but this is accompanied by a very healthy dose of indiscriminate shelling or bombing of civilian targets.

[Menger 88]

5 hours ago, Rob said:

Too many people are anxious not to cause upset, but you need to call a spade a spade.

Calling a spade a spade is good - and that applies to each of the bad actors (individuals or institutions) in current conflicts.  

Attributing aggression to “the Russians” as a people comes close to the same category error as the snippet at the beginning of this thread “but for her people being slow in thought and backward”.  In my view, the category error is between a people (the Chinese, the Russians) and the culture and historical system (imperial).  
 

Perhaps I am splitting hairs in this instance, but the mantra I often resort to is “culture matters, race not at all”.  There is an unfortunate reversion in our current culture of identity politics to invert that - to assume that one culture is no better or worse than any other; and that somehow race is important.  The reversion is back to the imperial mindset of the snippet. Woke mindset is an intellectual and moral cultural regression.  We as a people can do better than that. 

[Diaconis 707]

18 hours ago, Menger said:

 Just look how the EU looks at us! 🤣

[oldcopper 286]

On 3/9/2024 at 10:38 AM, blakeyboy said:

From a pre-ww2 stamp album page header.  No wonder we lost everything! 

Children would have read this.

 

The only part of China we ever colonised was Hong Kong. So we didn't lose anything because of the above attitude. But it was a fair enough comment at the time - they were a very backward society compared to Britain, and the comment was made back in the days when people were honest and judged what they saw, not turning themselves inside out with political correctness. And most Chinese would have seemed ultra-compliant and subservient showing little free agency of thought,. to a large extent because their culture made them like that. And that type of ultra compliant culture continues to today. Look at Tianamen Square for instance where people tried to show freedom of thought and action. And let's face it, do you think British soldiers would run their tanks over protesters if they were told to? 

But coming back to the point, it is apparent that the Han Chinese, the main ethnic group, feel they are superior, and it can be said that China is turning itself into an ethnostate. This can be seen in their mistreatment of other ethnicities/cultures eg the colonisation of Tibet, the enslavement and attempted breeding out of the Uighurs, and the replacement of Cantonese with Mandarin-speaking Han in positions of power in Hong Kong. 

 

 

[Menger 88]

1 hour ago, oldcopper said:

But coming back to the point, it is apparent that the Han Chinese, the main ethnic group, feel they are superior, and it can be said that China is turning itself into an ethnostate.

Yup. China is an empire. Russia too. We mistake many empires for nation states, just as the nation builders we mistook different tribal configurations for nation states. Britain is lucky that it (or England) was a nation state before it became an empire and it never lost that ancient character. We must realise that much of the world is made up of empires or tribes, always has been, and these institutions have a character different to nation state. Much of Europe used to be an empire (Roman, Habsburg, Holy Roman, Napoleonic) and the EU still reflects that aspect which bubbles away deep in its character.  Thank God we got out of that one. 🤣

Edited March 12, 2024 by Menger

[blakeyboy 1,726]

8 hours ago, Menger said:

Calling a spade a spade is good - and that applies to each of the bad actors (individuals or institutions) in current conflicts.  

Attributing aggression to “the Russians” as a people comes close to the same category error as the snippet at the beginning of this thread “but for her people being slow in thought and backward”.  In my view, the category error is between a people (the Chinese, the Russians) and the culture and historical system (imperial).  
 

Perhaps I am splitting hairs in this instance, but the mantra I often resort to is “culture matters, race not at all”.  There is an unfortunate reversion in our current culture of identity politics to invert that - to assume that one culture is no better or worse than any other; and that somehow race is important.  The reversion is back to the imperial mindset of the snippet. Woke mindset is an intellectual and moral cultural regression.  We as a people can do better than that. 

Zionism versus Judaism.....

[Menger 88]

32 minutes ago, blakeyboy said:

Zionism versus Judaism.....

Don’t think so. Faulty analogy. One is a political doctrine and the other a religion - but both are cultural. I was making a distinction between a cultural phenomenon and a natural one; nature and nurture; a people and a history; hardware and software; race and culture. 

Edited March 12, 2024 by Menger

[blakeyboy 1,726]

I wasn't doing any more than pointing out that right now, more than ever,

this confusion exists, and is rarely clarified in televised arguments etc....

[blakeyboy 1,726]

6 hours ago, Diaconis said:

I'm working in a better area of Paris right now and everyone is fantastic,

but only because, I firmly believe, because of how I treat them in the first place, and keep standards up from then on.

If I did the bigmouthed opinionated GB News idiot type of thing, my trip would not be pleasant.....

 

 

[Menger 88]

1 hour ago, blakeyboy said:

I'm working in a better area of Paris right now and everyone is fantastic,

I love Paris. I lived there over 20 years ago and went back for the first time since last week. It has not changed.  I ate in the same Jewish delicatessen on rue des rosiers (4eme) as I used to 30 years ago as a student. The fashion is identical as it was then; and I suspect then as it was in the 60s. It is a marvel to me how somewhere can be connected by the Eurostar, yet be so categorically different from London.  Vive la difference! I love both. 

[copper123 1,485]

By backward the wrighter might have  meant rural and not exposed to modern manufacturing processes.

They did invent paper, money and porcelain and many many other things though , too many to list .

Edited March 12, 2024 by copper123

[Peckris 2 2,127]

5 hours ago, Menger said:

Don’t think so. Faulty analogy. One is a political doctrine and the other a religion - but both are cultural. I was making a distinction between a cultural phenomenon and a natural one; nature and nurture; a people and a history; hardware and software; race and culture. 

Yes. And no. Judaism embraces all Jews, including those who are atheists. The defining of what exactly Jews are is one of the trickiest things, and probably unique in world history.

[ozjohn 647]

Probably correct for the time, but times change. The Chinese are now the quick witted and the Brits and the West  in general are backward and slow in thought.  Time to wake up to our selves.  The truth always hurts.