I think one of the connecting links of Ukrainian (and Eastern European) liberal ideology's cyclical and teleological inconsistency is a paradox of gratification. They seem to be both content in constantly being away from the West and trying to reach it (since eternal war gives them endless funds and attention from their beloved 'intellectuals'). Yet they also still want that release (since they can claim victory over the non-elites they so despise). It's a bizarre mixture of Buddhist dukkha (also dependent on ignoring causes and conditions) and Tantalos/Sisyphos's punishments in Hades (based on eternal delays in gratification).
I think this may also link to their 'spacelessness'; they are both part of the elite club of the west, and colonized others that are 'ignored'; both different from the 'thoughtless vatniks' of their homes, and the truest 'Ukrainian voices'; a fitting role for colonial officers fearing the 'eternal insurgency' as well as defending 'civilization'. If the invasion freezes, they will rejoice on the state of exception as a class continuing and will try to Ukrainianize both Ukraine and the West. A post-modern version of North/South Korean or Greek/Turkish Cypriot post-partition projects; though those two cases saw both sides try to build an economically coherent state.
I've felt the same way living in the west around constant rejection of reality by my peers. The casual denial of cause and effect towards events that occur was a passage that resonated deeply.
Recently there was a fascist march in my city of Glasgow and our anti-fascists outnumbered them 10 to 1. This was seen as a great victory and there is hostility, and also just confusion, when I say it was a failure on our part. We failed to get a group ten times smaller than us off the board and couldn't even organise against a police kettle of friendly football ultras. I'm told to stop being pessimistic or a shrug of what can we do which reads quite comfortably onto your ideas about cause and effect being a heresy
I used to nore this very strange allergy to cause and effect among Russian liberals (back when there was such a thing in the wild and not just in museums of paleontology). I speculate that it is because they are adhering to an ideology that has no basis in their own lived experience, or in their history as a people (so that it would have some relation to material reality), but is purely an import. ?
Replying to myself, I think that part of this is that in the Russian Empire, since the Petrine period, identifying with the West, adhering to some Western idea, has been a class marker, separating the elite from the masses. You did not/do not espouse some European idea because you followed the logic of it, or because it made sense in your life, or for any other rational reason, but purely because it was a marker that you are a member of the aristocracy, not a serf. (The reason that liberals go on and on about the "slavishness" of the people is that it literally is an ideology of slave owners.) And you would cling to that idea very stongly because it was entirely about social status.
That's a great comment. Anti-western, conservative ideas are also often tied with the protection of social rights against encroaching capitalism/economic exploitation - for instance, the various peasant uprisings (no more serfdom, which itself was largely motivated by the need for a strong military), the raskolnik movement and its populist messages and poor social base
This is in fact a major theme in Alexander Dugin, who I have been reading a lot of which is why this subject is firmly centered in my mind at present, but since he is a Heideggerian he interprets it primarily as an imposition of one worldview upon another, with which it comes into conflict.
I think the weird lack of concern of liberals with the well-being of the masses is connected with this being an elite ideology -- they're just slaves! It's a kind of inward-directed racism directed at the lower social orders.
Very thought-provoking piece.
I think one of the connecting links of Ukrainian (and Eastern European) liberal ideology's cyclical and teleological inconsistency is a paradox of gratification. They seem to be both content in constantly being away from the West and trying to reach it (since eternal war gives them endless funds and attention from their beloved 'intellectuals'). Yet they also still want that release (since they can claim victory over the non-elites they so despise). It's a bizarre mixture of Buddhist dukkha (also dependent on ignoring causes and conditions) and Tantalos/Sisyphos's punishments in Hades (based on eternal delays in gratification).
I think this may also link to their 'spacelessness'; they are both part of the elite club of the west, and colonized others that are 'ignored'; both different from the 'thoughtless vatniks' of their homes, and the truest 'Ukrainian voices'; a fitting role for colonial officers fearing the 'eternal insurgency' as well as defending 'civilization'. If the invasion freezes, they will rejoice on the state of exception as a class continuing and will try to Ukrainianize both Ukraine and the West. A post-modern version of North/South Korean or Greek/Turkish Cypriot post-partition projects; though those two cases saw both sides try to build an economically coherent state.
I've felt the same way living in the west around constant rejection of reality by my peers. The casual denial of cause and effect towards events that occur was a passage that resonated deeply.
Recently there was a fascist march in my city of Glasgow and our anti-fascists outnumbered them 10 to 1. This was seen as a great victory and there is hostility, and also just confusion, when I say it was a failure on our part. We failed to get a group ten times smaller than us off the board and couldn't even organise against a police kettle of friendly football ultras. I'm told to stop being pessimistic or a shrug of what can we do which reads quite comfortably onto your ideas about cause and effect being a heresy
I used to nore this very strange allergy to cause and effect among Russian liberals (back when there was such a thing in the wild and not just in museums of paleontology). I speculate that it is because they are adhering to an ideology that has no basis in their own lived experience, or in their history as a people (so that it would have some relation to material reality), but is purely an import. ?
Replying to myself, I think that part of this is that in the Russian Empire, since the Petrine period, identifying with the West, adhering to some Western idea, has been a class marker, separating the elite from the masses. You did not/do not espouse some European idea because you followed the logic of it, or because it made sense in your life, or for any other rational reason, but purely because it was a marker that you are a member of the aristocracy, not a serf. (The reason that liberals go on and on about the "slavishness" of the people is that it literally is an ideology of slave owners.) And you would cling to that idea very stongly because it was entirely about social status.
That's a great comment. Anti-western, conservative ideas are also often tied with the protection of social rights against encroaching capitalism/economic exploitation - for instance, the various peasant uprisings (no more serfdom, which itself was largely motivated by the need for a strong military), the raskolnik movement and its populist messages and poor social base
This is in fact a major theme in Alexander Dugin, who I have been reading a lot of which is why this subject is firmly centered in my mind at present, but since he is a Heideggerian he interprets it primarily as an imposition of one worldview upon another, with which it comes into conflict.
I think the weird lack of concern of liberals with the well-being of the masses is connected with this being an elite ideology -- they're just slaves! It's a kind of inward-directed racism directed at the lower social orders.