FM Schallenberg compares the Anschluss of Austria 1938 with Russian 'aggression' against Ukraine today. History fact: there was betrayal in 1938, but it was Czechoslovakia who was 'left alone'
Thank you for this very thorough history lesson. Being from the U.S.A. I know almost nothing about Austrian history between the world wars, even though I went to good schools and liked history! The situation in Austrian reminds me of the saying “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
This sums up why the US and the EU flounders in the face of Russia:
"...in order to chip away at the Russian narrative…"
You cannot attack a narrative without also acknowledging it. That's rule #1 in memetic warfare. Instead, you attack the facts as stated by your opponent, and launch your counter-narrative that way. That may have been what Schallenberg meant but it doesn't look like it in english.
Russia has always ever dealt in realpolitik. If I'm allowed a sort-of metaphor, principles (or perhaps schools) of politics are layered on top of eachother much like how we envision the brain when looked at as a cut-out from the side.
At the center there is realpolitik, the reptile brain so to speak. Friend or foe, mate, food, play, fight, flee. Politics made from this will be dictated by strict material needs and wants. Unfortunately, perfectly legitimate political terms are forever tainte by you-know-who, terms such as 'Lebensraum'. Which is reality. We have one planet and only so much suitable land. Domination of said land will therefore always lead to conflict sums up realpolitik. Russia, China and the majority of what was called the third world deals with issues mainly in realpolitik terms.
On top of this we find the classic ideologies and schools of philosophy and religions, including economics from let's say Adam Smith onwards to set a starting point. Still a lot of realpolitik in the foundations but now tempered by more refined and nuanced processes of how to achieve goals, rather than meet needs and wants. This was most western nations from late eighteenth century to right before WW1 (with the usual fuzzy edges we always apply to time periods).
After the war, we get the to the main cerebellum so to speak: politics made from ideals, where every move is measured agaisnt how it follows specific dogma, naturally causing friction and conflict between semantics and pragmatics. Just look at how nazi-Germany gets to wear the dog head for eugenics, when what it did was copy those ideas and programmes from Britain, Sweden and the USA. Semantics those evil nazi bastards did it - in reality, or pragmatics Sweden retained eugenic laws until the mid-nineteenseventies.
Now, after the fall of the Wall we are in the frontal lobe. Cold corporatist neo-malthusian logic based on utilitarian ideals based on dogmatism based on (first and last and always) natural resources and demographics.
The above needs a lot of work to make better sense really, I excuse myself by saying that I am much better at arguing while speaking than I can get my meandering snakepits of thoughts down on paper. Or electrons as the case may be. I hope it offers an angel of approach often ignored in todays debate.
Thank you for this very thorough history lesson. Being from the U.S.A. I know almost nothing about Austrian history between the world wars, even though I went to good schools and liked history! The situation in Austrian reminds me of the saying “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
This sums up why the US and the EU flounders in the face of Russia:
"...in order to chip away at the Russian narrative…"
You cannot attack a narrative without also acknowledging it. That's rule #1 in memetic warfare. Instead, you attack the facts as stated by your opponent, and launch your counter-narrative that way. That may have been what Schallenberg meant but it doesn't look like it in english.
Russia has always ever dealt in realpolitik. If I'm allowed a sort-of metaphor, principles (or perhaps schools) of politics are layered on top of eachother much like how we envision the brain when looked at as a cut-out from the side.
At the center there is realpolitik, the reptile brain so to speak. Friend or foe, mate, food, play, fight, flee. Politics made from this will be dictated by strict material needs and wants. Unfortunately, perfectly legitimate political terms are forever tainte by you-know-who, terms such as 'Lebensraum'. Which is reality. We have one planet and only so much suitable land. Domination of said land will therefore always lead to conflict sums up realpolitik. Russia, China and the majority of what was called the third world deals with issues mainly in realpolitik terms.
On top of this we find the classic ideologies and schools of philosophy and religions, including economics from let's say Adam Smith onwards to set a starting point. Still a lot of realpolitik in the foundations but now tempered by more refined and nuanced processes of how to achieve goals, rather than meet needs and wants. This was most western nations from late eighteenth century to right before WW1 (with the usual fuzzy edges we always apply to time periods).
After the war, we get the to the main cerebellum so to speak: politics made from ideals, where every move is measured agaisnt how it follows specific dogma, naturally causing friction and conflict between semantics and pragmatics. Just look at how nazi-Germany gets to wear the dog head for eugenics, when what it did was copy those ideas and programmes from Britain, Sweden and the USA. Semantics those evil nazi bastards did it - in reality, or pragmatics Sweden retained eugenic laws until the mid-nineteenseventies.
Now, after the fall of the Wall we are in the frontal lobe. Cold corporatist neo-malthusian logic based on utilitarian ideals based on dogmatism based on (first and last and always) natural resources and demographics.
The above needs a lot of work to make better sense really, I excuse myself by saying that I am much better at arguing while speaking than I can get my meandering snakepits of thoughts down on paper. Or electrons as the case may be. I hope it offers an angel of approach often ignored in todays debate.
Seeings as Russia is now actively invading Ukraine, the EU has decided to act decisively:
Another round of meetings about harsher sanctions.
Somewhere, Hitler and Stalin are toasting each other in Hell and laughing their asses off.