Around here, Generation Greta has decided not to participate in this nonsense, as one can infer from the empty wodka bottles they are leaving in the park.
Hey, wasn't Tchaikovsky gay? Wikipedia at least thinks so. So, maybe this is in fact an expression of homophobia on the part of the fine people at the National Theatre. After all: Dostoevsky - fine. Prokofiev - fine. Tchaikovsky - canceled! Sounds suspicious (hehehe).
I don't know anything about this (or care enough to comment on it), this is excellent trolling, Irena.
While we're at it, I vaguely remember that Swan Lake's action is set in Germany, which means it must be cancelled, too.
I also think that our Spanish friends should be enraged by the Grand Inquisitor pages in Dostevsky's Brothers Karamazov, for it portrays 'Spain' in a bad light.
Once one starts looking for such offensive and insensitive matters, one can find them literally everywhere.
More and more when I read stories like this (and this is happening in the U.S. as well), I think, we are becoming afraid of complexity. Of complexity in all of life. Everything must be black and white, good or bad. In this case Russia =bad. But if we are aware and unafraid of complexity, it adds so much to our experiences. They could have done something interesting, like given a talk or symposium about Tchaikovsky's relationship to the broader Russia culture before the performance. Something to give people context...another thing we are losing and desperately need.
This is so true. Complexity, nuance, details won't matter, and they must not matter lest they make anyone 'feel' bad.
Here's an incomplete listing of similar quasi-totalitarian 'agit-prop':
Liberty Cabbage, because in WWI America 'the Huns' are bad.
Police Dogs, because apparents shephard dogs are presumed guilty by association (can we talk about 'zoonotic' spillover here?)
Same crap in WWII, but if one considers also the Japanese enemy, there's an additional racial element in 'the yellow peril' and the like.
I won't mention, for reasons of brevity, all the Cold War-era stereotypes associated with all things Soviet/Russian, in particular because we can now fast-forward to…
Freedom Fries, because the French (and the German) governments were opposed to the US-led 'special military operation' against Iraq.
The horrifying thing is that this seems qualitatively different insofar as at least in World Wars I and II the attempted cancellation of "music of the enemy" involved...you know...actual enemy combatant nations. Here we see many countries that aren't actively participants in the conflict acting as if they already were (this goes beyond the cancel culture aspect too, where the American state department/pentagon starts giving regularly briefings on the war - despite no American forces being involved - and I believe one spokesman at one of these briefings using the pronoun "we" when referring to the actions of the Ukrainians). This makes it far too easy I think to slip into ACTUALLY participating in the war since pretty much the only thing left to do is to start shooting and many of those involved in the performative aspects, won't be anywhere near the fighting (though if things get bad enough, the fighting will find THEM in the form of being "blessed" with megaton nuclear blasts and radiation).
I will not be surprised if in 8-16 years time, most of the West (perhaps the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, Poland, the Baltic States) find themselves in a coalition fighting against China over Taiwan with much of their populations being sanguine about entering such a war because they will mistakenly believe that the fighting will all be "over there"...at least that is until Chinese missiles (possibly nuclear armed) disabuse them of that notion.
That is such a valid point: does 'neutrality' still exist as a (viable) option in these days? I mean: I grew up in Austria in the 1980s and 1990s, and 'neutrality', however flawed, was still something that was part of the public consciousness. Nowadays, however, one gets statements such as 'we may be militarily neutral, but certainly not in moral terms' (Chancellor Nehammer).
As regards the sorry state of international law, well, that's another feature of the weirding of our lives and times: 'war' is a clearly defined legal subject, or state of affairs, and as such it brings certain considerations to the table. By calling every kind of military adventurism a 'war'--Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now the situation in Ukraine--the notion of 'war' itself is abused and changing.
Russia, by the way, had a treaty of good neighbourliness and friendship with Ukraine, signed in 1997, former president (who currently likes to pose with armed goons and Neo-Nazis) Poroshenko let the treaty lapse in 2017.
Why should anyone care?
Well, first of all, the treaty included provisions about mutually accepted borders, which, as I said, have not been confirmed in writing since 2017. This means that, under international law, there's no crossing of 'borders' by Russian troops (since there are no 'legal' borders right now).
Sure, this may be considered a technicality or the like, but the selective application of principles deemed to be universal is…well, what is it? A 'rules-based order' (which also begs the questions of who makes and who must abide by these rules) where one gets to select which rules to apply?
Apart from these issues, there's also the notion of agency in international affairs: for to be an actor, one has to be sovereign in foreign affairs. It's hard to see how any NATO/EU/EEC country (other than the US) fulfils this precondition.
Bottom line: we're all already at war with Eurasia, so to speak, and we've always been at war with them.
One of the crucial advantages of internet-based cyberwar is, of course, that most people can go on about their daily lives without noticing it (for now). With the coming of battlefield robots (drones), this will intensify: why should anyone really care about 'war', if the fighting and dying is done remotely and by robots?
I wasn't even aware of the 1997 treaty or that it was allowed to lapse. Looked into it and it seems it was allowed to lapse in 2018-2019 rather than 2017 (minor details), but this tearing up of the treaty seems very much in line with the selective 'rules-based order' that for some strange reason began to be practiced in the West after 2000 starting with the withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2001/2002 and continuing with the manoeuvres over Kosovo in 2006-2008. Indeed I well remember Russia warning in 2007-2008 that Kosovo would be used as a precedent (and many were trying to claim that Kosovo was somehow a special case).
Thus, it should not have come as a surprise that Russia used the precedent set by Kosovo with regards to South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Crimea over 2008-2014 and may not be set to do so with Donetsk and Lugansk and perhaps all of Ukraine.
It isn't hard to imagine that had Bush not withdrawn from the ABM Treaty and not promised Georgia and Ukraine NATO membership and not recognized Kosovan independence and instead pushed for continued territorial integrity of Serbia (in much the same manner as the US pushed for Bosnia to remain intact despite both the Serbs and Croats wanting to secede from that territory) even if it was basically nominal with as high a degree of separation between Serbia and Kosovo as exists between mainland China and Hong Kong, then Russia's relations with Georgia, Ukraine and the West might have been vastly different. For one, it might have been less flustered by NATO generally and even though a Russo-Georgian War might well have occurred in 2008, at the end of it Russia might not have recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia even if Georgian forces were completely expelled from those two territories. It might also have been less motivated to entice Ukraine towards further economic integration with it as opposed to trade integration with the EU via the Association Agreement provided it could continue free trade with Ukraine (which happened anyway via the CIS Free Trade Agreement). Yanukovych might not have been overthrown (though might have lost the next election) and Ukraine would have sputtered along as dysfunctional as ever.
I suspect that seeing Yanukovych pushed aside (2004) and then overthrown (2014) and seeing Medvedchuk's fortunes attacked in 2022 prior to the invasion (with I believe opposition supporting TV channels blocked as Medvedchuk's party was gaining plurality support even as Zelensky was losing a lot of support), Russia came to the conclusion that it made no sense to see to cultivate and support Ukrainian candidates that might want to improve relations with Russia via the ballot box as the game was being rigged. So now the whole table is being upended and Russia seems to be seeking to reshape things via the gun than the ballot box. The West seems to have miscalculated Russia's red lines and I fear this will be repeated with China in a decade or two but with worse consequences. As you note, neutrality doesn't seem to exist anymore as a viable option.
“The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied.
They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer - and they don't want explanations that fail to give them that.”
― Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America: and other controversial essays
"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire
to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp."
Yes. I enjoy Matt's writing. He's been following the role of the news media in fomenting fear, division and hatred for a long time now.
I think I mentioned it before, but it feels like the lies, the blatant hypocrisy, the propaganda have become so in our faces of late that such allusions to 1984 are really no longer exaggerated.
I suspect Ukrainian vodka is also better and more politically correct than Russian vodka.
Similarly, I call for the US to return Alaska to its previous Russian owners, lest the US shall stand accused of benefitting from friendly relations with Russia. Note, also, that this purchase, incidentally, occurred while Tchaikovsky was alive in 1867, hence it's fair game, I suppose.
Careful, some might think it isn't a half bad idea. Especially as Alaska votes almost solidly Republican since 2003. In their view, getting rid of a bit of Trumpistan might not be such a bad thing.
Well, I don't know exactly, but isn't the right to self-determination a cornerstone of the US constitution?
Trumpistan…nice. I wonder what Alaskan secession might do to gas prices in California, though. I, for one, would suspect certain limits on part of the woke (fake) liberals' principles.
Well yes and no. The Civil War and the Supreme Court afterwards decided that secession wasn't allowed in the US and that the only way for states to leave would be for all the states to agree (or for a new Revolution to occur).
But even if it was allowed, I too suspect that the woke (fake) liberals would have a limit on agreeing to it since it would affect their pockets too much.
You know, you might want to be careful with that, since some people may take you seriously. Remember, neither Latin nor Greek is required anymore for the classics major at Princeton (yes, Princeton). So, "return to alchemy to fight Russia!" might not be so far off, especially among the lazier parts of the student population (who might, nevertheless, like a degree in chemistry, since a degree in chemistry sounds impressive). And once lazy but status-conscious students yell loudly enough, the administration tends to follow. And once the administration has been convinced, what's a chemistry department to do?
I'm similarly unsurprised, esp. after the Munich Philharmonic fire its renowned conductor Gergiev and Ms. Netrebko was similarly cancelled due to her refusal to comment on politics.
Around here, Generation Greta has decided not to participate in this nonsense, as one can infer from the empty wodka bottles they are leaving in the park.
Well, apart from the littering, that's a good sign, isn't it?
I think we'd better all listen Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture now…
Hey, wasn't Tchaikovsky gay? Wikipedia at least thinks so. So, maybe this is in fact an expression of homophobia on the part of the fine people at the National Theatre. After all: Dostoevsky - fine. Prokofiev - fine. Tchaikovsky - canceled! Sounds suspicious (hehehe).
I don't know anything about this (or care enough to comment on it), this is excellent trolling, Irena.
While we're at it, I vaguely remember that Swan Lake's action is set in Germany, which means it must be cancelled, too.
I also think that our Spanish friends should be enraged by the Grand Inquisitor pages in Dostevsky's Brothers Karamazov, for it portrays 'Spain' in a bad light.
Once one starts looking for such offensive and insensitive matters, one can find them literally everywhere.
yes, he was gay. I guess that could be turned around at them, lol
More and more when I read stories like this (and this is happening in the U.S. as well), I think, we are becoming afraid of complexity. Of complexity in all of life. Everything must be black and white, good or bad. In this case Russia =bad. But if we are aware and unafraid of complexity, it adds so much to our experiences. They could have done something interesting, like given a talk or symposium about Tchaikovsky's relationship to the broader Russia culture before the performance. Something to give people context...another thing we are losing and desperately need.
This is so true. Complexity, nuance, details won't matter, and they must not matter lest they make anyone 'feel' bad.
Here's an incomplete listing of similar quasi-totalitarian 'agit-prop':
Liberty Cabbage, because in WWI America 'the Huns' are bad.
Police Dogs, because apparents shephard dogs are presumed guilty by association (can we talk about 'zoonotic' spillover here?)
Same crap in WWII, but if one considers also the Japanese enemy, there's an additional racial element in 'the yellow peril' and the like.
I won't mention, for reasons of brevity, all the Cold War-era stereotypes associated with all things Soviet/Russian, in particular because we can now fast-forward to…
Freedom Fries, because the French (and the German) governments were opposed to the US-led 'special military operation' against Iraq.
Please feel free to add to this listing.
The horrifying thing is that this seems qualitatively different insofar as at least in World Wars I and II the attempted cancellation of "music of the enemy" involved...you know...actual enemy combatant nations. Here we see many countries that aren't actively participants in the conflict acting as if they already were (this goes beyond the cancel culture aspect too, where the American state department/pentagon starts giving regularly briefings on the war - despite no American forces being involved - and I believe one spokesman at one of these briefings using the pronoun "we" when referring to the actions of the Ukrainians). This makes it far too easy I think to slip into ACTUALLY participating in the war since pretty much the only thing left to do is to start shooting and many of those involved in the performative aspects, won't be anywhere near the fighting (though if things get bad enough, the fighting will find THEM in the form of being "blessed" with megaton nuclear blasts and radiation).
I will not be surprised if in 8-16 years time, most of the West (perhaps the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, Poland, the Baltic States) find themselves in a coalition fighting against China over Taiwan with much of their populations being sanguine about entering such a war because they will mistakenly believe that the fighting will all be "over there"...at least that is until Chinese missiles (possibly nuclear armed) disabuse them of that notion.
That is such a valid point: does 'neutrality' still exist as a (viable) option in these days? I mean: I grew up in Austria in the 1980s and 1990s, and 'neutrality', however flawed, was still something that was part of the public consciousness. Nowadays, however, one gets statements such as 'we may be militarily neutral, but certainly not in moral terms' (Chancellor Nehammer).
As regards the sorry state of international law, well, that's another feature of the weirding of our lives and times: 'war' is a clearly defined legal subject, or state of affairs, and as such it brings certain considerations to the table. By calling every kind of military adventurism a 'war'--Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now the situation in Ukraine--the notion of 'war' itself is abused and changing.
Russia, by the way, had a treaty of good neighbourliness and friendship with Ukraine, signed in 1997, former president (who currently likes to pose with armed goons and Neo-Nazis) Poroshenko let the treaty lapse in 2017.
Why should anyone care?
Well, first of all, the treaty included provisions about mutually accepted borders, which, as I said, have not been confirmed in writing since 2017. This means that, under international law, there's no crossing of 'borders' by Russian troops (since there are no 'legal' borders right now).
Sure, this may be considered a technicality or the like, but the selective application of principles deemed to be universal is…well, what is it? A 'rules-based order' (which also begs the questions of who makes and who must abide by these rules) where one gets to select which rules to apply?
Apart from these issues, there's also the notion of agency in international affairs: for to be an actor, one has to be sovereign in foreign affairs. It's hard to see how any NATO/EU/EEC country (other than the US) fulfils this precondition.
Bottom line: we're all already at war with Eurasia, so to speak, and we've always been at war with them.
One of the crucial advantages of internet-based cyberwar is, of course, that most people can go on about their daily lives without noticing it (for now). With the coming of battlefield robots (drones), this will intensify: why should anyone really care about 'war', if the fighting and dying is done remotely and by robots?
That is, until the chicken come home to roost.
I wasn't even aware of the 1997 treaty or that it was allowed to lapse. Looked into it and it seems it was allowed to lapse in 2018-2019 rather than 2017 (minor details), but this tearing up of the treaty seems very much in line with the selective 'rules-based order' that for some strange reason began to be practiced in the West after 2000 starting with the withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2001/2002 and continuing with the manoeuvres over Kosovo in 2006-2008. Indeed I well remember Russia warning in 2007-2008 that Kosovo would be used as a precedent (and many were trying to claim that Kosovo was somehow a special case).
Thus, it should not have come as a surprise that Russia used the precedent set by Kosovo with regards to South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Crimea over 2008-2014 and may not be set to do so with Donetsk and Lugansk and perhaps all of Ukraine.
It isn't hard to imagine that had Bush not withdrawn from the ABM Treaty and not promised Georgia and Ukraine NATO membership and not recognized Kosovan independence and instead pushed for continued territorial integrity of Serbia (in much the same manner as the US pushed for Bosnia to remain intact despite both the Serbs and Croats wanting to secede from that territory) even if it was basically nominal with as high a degree of separation between Serbia and Kosovo as exists between mainland China and Hong Kong, then Russia's relations with Georgia, Ukraine and the West might have been vastly different. For one, it might have been less flustered by NATO generally and even though a Russo-Georgian War might well have occurred in 2008, at the end of it Russia might not have recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia even if Georgian forces were completely expelled from those two territories. It might also have been less motivated to entice Ukraine towards further economic integration with it as opposed to trade integration with the EU via the Association Agreement provided it could continue free trade with Ukraine (which happened anyway via the CIS Free Trade Agreement). Yanukovych might not have been overthrown (though might have lost the next election) and Ukraine would have sputtered along as dysfunctional as ever.
I suspect that seeing Yanukovych pushed aside (2004) and then overthrown (2014) and seeing Medvedchuk's fortunes attacked in 2022 prior to the invasion (with I believe opposition supporting TV channels blocked as Medvedchuk's party was gaining plurality support even as Zelensky was losing a lot of support), Russia came to the conclusion that it made no sense to see to cultivate and support Ukrainian candidates that might want to improve relations with Russia via the ballot box as the game was being rigged. So now the whole table is being upended and Russia seems to be seeking to reshape things via the gun than the ballot box. The West seems to have miscalculated Russia's red lines and I fear this will be repeated with China in a decade or two but with worse consequences. As you note, neutrality doesn't seem to exist anymore as a viable option.
“The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied.
They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer - and they don't want explanations that fail to give them that.”
― Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America: and other controversial essays
From Orwell's 1984:
"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire
to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp."
Also, do note that you must not mention Orwell's 1984, for it might cause the reader distress.
Ah. Yes. El Gato Malo had a good piece on the new 'agitariat', as he calls them. It is a very good read. https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-rising-role-of-the-agitariat?s=r
Sad, but true.
I wish it wasn't.
Did you see Matt Taibbi's piece on this topic over at his substack?
Yes. I enjoy Matt's writing. He's been following the role of the news media in fomenting fear, division and hatred for a long time now.
I think I mentioned it before, but it feels like the lies, the blatant hypocrisy, the propaganda have become so in our faces of late that such allusions to 1984 are really no longer exaggerated.
How are they still not after the Mendeleyev Periodic table? Cancel chemistry because that evil Russian was involved.
Excellent trolling.
I suspect Ukrainian vodka is also better and more politically correct than Russian vodka.
Similarly, I call for the US to return Alaska to its previous Russian owners, lest the US shall stand accused of benefitting from friendly relations with Russia. Note, also, that this purchase, incidentally, occurred while Tchaikovsky was alive in 1867, hence it's fair game, I suppose.
Careful, some might think it isn't a half bad idea. Especially as Alaska votes almost solidly Republican since 2003. In their view, getting rid of a bit of Trumpistan might not be such a bad thing.
Well, I don't know exactly, but isn't the right to self-determination a cornerstone of the US constitution?
Trumpistan…nice. I wonder what Alaskan secession might do to gas prices in California, though. I, for one, would suspect certain limits on part of the woke (fake) liberals' principles.
Well yes and no. The Civil War and the Supreme Court afterwards decided that secession wasn't allowed in the US and that the only way for states to leave would be for all the states to agree (or for a new Revolution to occur).
But even if it was allowed, I too suspect that the woke (fake) liberals would have a limit on agreeing to it since it would affect their pockets too much.
You know, you might want to be careful with that, since some people may take you seriously. Remember, neither Latin nor Greek is required anymore for the classics major at Princeton (yes, Princeton). So, "return to alchemy to fight Russia!" might not be so far off, especially among the lazier parts of the student population (who might, nevertheless, like a degree in chemistry, since a degree in chemistry sounds impressive). And once lazy but status-conscious students yell loudly enough, the administration tends to follow. And once the administration has been convinced, what's a chemistry department to do?
A degree in alchemistry, perhaps?
Sic transit gloria mundi.
I suppose we should turn of the windturbines if it blows from the East?
This iconoclasm is horrible - shall we also burn all of german history and culture due to -you-know-who?
What about all of arabic and islamic culture? No shortage of atrocities there. Not very LGBT-friendly either.
Timur Lenk, does his deeds mean any all things from Transoxania has to go?
Goodbye greek culture - your ancestors exterminated Ugarit som you got to go now.
Sickening.
Lol, I suppose we must.
Also, for the past couple of years a (jokingly) said that all cold weather was Putin's wrath. Little did I know.
Eh. After this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWmmWIkIzLI
nothing from these people surprises me anymore.
I'm similarly unsurprised, esp. after the Munich Philharmonic fire its renowned conductor Gergiev and Ms. Netrebko was similarly cancelled due to her refusal to comment on politics.
This is mental, I suspect.
Well, since aparently neither the students nor the faculty may have known Dostoevksy or Solshenitsin, I'm hardly surprised.
Remember: truth is like a lion, i.e., it doesn't need help to defend itself. Lies, though, need all the help they can get.