The State of Affairs in Russia

[The Minsky Moment]

And I think Putin's perspective on Belarus or Kazakhstan or Ukraine isn't necessarily Soviet or Tsarist or anything like that - I think it's just the latest in a very long line of Russian leaders feeling vulnerable because of the size of their border, so the way to solve that vulnerability is to move the border forward in some way so it is further from Russia proper (or in Putin's case, through states that are tied to Moscow).

I find that hard to believe - we are long way from the Napoleonic Europe of 1812 or the militarized Europes of 1914 and 1940.  Russia simply doesn't face a realistic offensive conventional military threat of any kind in Europe.  And I find it interesting that on Russia's vast and even less defensible eastern borders - where they face acute conventional vulnerability - the approach has been placatory.

I would apply Occam's razor and conclude that it is what it looks like - old fashioned realpolitik and competition over geopolitical influence.  And there is nothing necessarily wrong about that so long as the game is played responsibly.  Historical experience suggests that crude ultimatums are a less than optimal way to proceed.

Of course, Russia is free to say that they perceive NATO expansion and the color revolutions as betrayals of implicit understandings and demand redress, just as others are free to point to the forceful annexation of Crimea in violation of treaty commitments and international law and the aggressive cyberwarfare attacks on other nations as betrayals by Russia and do the same.

[Sheilbh]

What I don't understand is why you say this, but then turn around and refuse to acknowledge that there is in fact a difference between how different groups and societies deal with this problem, and agree with the authoritarians that well, everyone has their own "truth" so we might as well accept that one is as good as another.

I don't think that's what I'm saying at all.

My view is that there are facts and actions and realities - those are true or not. There is then interpretation of what causes those. I don't think there is truth in that - though, obviously, there are clearly wrong interpretations which I think we can pretty comprehensively dismiss as untrue. But there's lots of edge cases and it absolutely depends on where you look at it from, what your priorities are, plus it's really difficult to assign or guess at motivations - and how much does any of it matter against material factors.

For example that's my take on social media and Facebook, I don't think it's that the people who run them are bad or even indifferent - in fact I don't think they matter, I think the system they have created forms that behaviour (and would do that even if you parachuted in an ethically unimpeachable person to run it) because that is what produces the best economic results.

Separately I think propaganda's success or not is basically a function of new technology. I think that's why we're susceptible or not. I don't think it's to do with the virtue of people or anything like that, it's again in my view primarily material and drive by how accustomed we are to messaging and attempts at manipulation in different forms of media.

I don't think "truth" is a helpful frame to look at politics through and I think it's a bit of a dead end. I think it is far better to make the moral, ethical and political argument for what you're pushing for than to try and litigate it.

If anything I think it's linked to my biggest worry about "the West" (in the broadest sense) which is that it is becoming so ossified in process and form. It is fetishing the formal aspects of liberal democracy and the West more than the actual core, which is being hollowed out (and not just by the bad guys). I'm not convinced at the minute that we can respond or adapt to facts like climate change, to new facts like the rise of China or to our own failures (of which there have been plenty) in the last 20 years.

I don't think it's cynical or fatalist because I think we can solve it - but I think it is probably a bit of a fight.

We don't have to sit here are nod sagely and say "Yeah, well, those Nazis! They had their truth, and Churchill had his! And the non-Nazi germans (many millions of whom would pay with their lives for Nazi ideology), why, they had their own "truth" and who can say which is really true?".

That is horseshit. And pretending that Putin and Russia Times today are somehow just another "truth" in a competing see of bullshit is playing right back into that same old, proven strategy on how to empower authoritarianism.

Where have I said any of that though? I've posted repeatedly what my take is on Putin and Ukraine and Russia. Where is that take saying this?

There is still opposition media in Russia, incidentally.

You need to build and maintain institutions (media, education, political processes on national and local levels, and so on) to believe that good governance and fair processes are desirable, possible, and necessary and to hold constituent parts accountable. It springs from all components, and it's necessary to continually do the work to keep the project viable.

Yeah - I think trust and trustworthiness is key and once insititutions lose it it's really difficult to win back, just look at the Catholic Church and child sexual abuse.

The past twenty years - Iraq, the financial crisis, covid - have not been good for lots of institutions in the West. It is not enough to say "trust the institutions" when I'm not sure they've proven themselves worthy of trust in quite some time. Institutions need to earn trustworthiness and I think a lot of them could with starting from scratch.

I always think of the moment in the South Carolina debate with Trump which loads of commentators thought might be a disaster for him and enraged many never Trumpers, when there was a question on Iraq and he was the only one on the stage who said "Iraq was a disaster and Bush made us less safe". I don't think he won it then, but I kind of do - because actually in a way he was the only one telling the truth. The rest of them for deference to the party and the former president had to pretend that that was wrong and the Iraq war had been a success.

[crazy canuck]

I have no desire to build a society that goes against the will of the people.

I don't believe in the supremacy of free will, that seems like a religious dogma that ignores the reality of humans.  By that logic, we shouldn't combat drug or alcohol abuse in society: people who don't want to use drugs won't use them.

Bad example, the war on drugs was bad public policy.

[Berkut]

It's long lost the fascination for me.  I think it starts with a good thing that like all good things can go too far:  we're taught that intelligent people see shades of gray rather than black and white, and that intelligent people are skeptical rather than trusting.  Everyone wants to feel intelligent, very smart and very stupid alike.  Therefore, any propaganda campaign that aids people in feeling like they're intelligent and discerning is going to be very effective.

What would fascinate me is a solution to this.  I'm kind of getting burnt out emotionally watching this happen to people around me (and probably to myself, though I can't observe that), and feeling like I'm watching an unstoppable plague take over.

This could be an unpopular opinion, but I don't believe there could be a solution to this any time soon. The human mind itself is wired to develop biases by millennia of evolution.

That is an excuse, and it is an excuse for yourself. Humans are products of evolution, but that evolution also created a critical brain capable if discernment, self analysis, and objectivity. Some people are better at that then others, and it is a skill that can be trained as well, as long as their is the will to do so.

Evolution did not create humans who can by and large dunk a basketball in a 10 foot hoop, which is why very few humans can do that. That doesn't mean that nobody can, nor does it mean that we cannot use our brains to get better at it, or overcome our biological biases by recognizing them and actively working against them in a conscious, self critical manner.

You as an individual are not doomed to have to just accept Putin's bullshit at face value because you tell yourself that his bullshit is just as "true" as the "mainstream western media's" bullshit.

And I sure as hell am not obligated to pretend that your "truth" has value just because you value it.

It would take a truly advanced society to be resistant to propaganda. In the current realities, where the absolute majority of information sources are ideologically charged, I simply don't see this happening.

It would start with a society valuing actual truth and objective respect for facts, science, and reason.

And this is not binary - it i clear that there are in fact societies that are more resistant to propanganda then others. Again, just because no society is perfectly resistant is not reason to not value being more resistant.

And it is also clear that the societies that are more resistant are those that are more open, more transparent, and less constrained by authoritarians limiting and attacking the credibility of the free press.

I could be wrong.

But this is where my relativistic fatalism comes from.

I don't believe you. I think it comes from the need to see "your team" as reasonable, when objective reason tells you that that is just not so.

All societies are susceptible to disinformation and propaganda. That doesn't mean we have to throw our hands up and despair at wondering who to believe, Churchill or Hitler? Stalin or Roosevelt? Mussolini or Daladier? Putin or Obama? Trump or....anyone?

Look. If we take the case of Ukraine, then:

- I have family in both countries
- My mom is Russian, my dad Ukrainian; since my childhood I've been to many places both in Russia and Ukraine
- I visited both countries multiple times just before the events started unfolding in 2013
- I can easily read materials in Russian, Ukrainian, English, French, Spanish, and I've read and watched gigabytes of material on this conflict from all sides
- I talked to dozens of people from both sides of the conflict

As you can see, this particular conflict is very close to me. It has cut through my very family. I couldn't even talk about it for many years as it has drained me of all emotion.

And yet, I'm extremely cautious concluding what actually went on. If fact, my assumptions have changed several times over the last 8 years, sometimes dramatically. I still don't fully understand what happened to the two countries I love.

And we have you, with all respect, who seems to be perfectly clear on which side to put the blame. At least, this is what I assume from what your comments.

No, I have never said anyting at all that suggests I know where to put the blame.

My argument has nothing to do with "blame", only to do with rejecting the claim that we cannot possibly look at current, here and now actions of Putin and call it what it is - a bunch of authoritarian horseshit. People are having very specific conversations with you, and it seems to me like the moment you start getting into detail discussion on just how ridiculous these (and yours) claims are around pretty basic concepts like sovereignity and use of military force in other countries, you retreat into vague conversations about the nature of "truth".

*You* said this was about respecting the UN Charter. You then hand waved off how Russia massing troops on the border of Ukraine and threatening to invade is somehow perfectly ok, we should just understand Russia's global need for influence because who can say what truth is? I don't have to "blame" anyone for the mess in the Ukraine to notice that Russia sending troops in the Crimea is most definitely NOT kosher under the terms of the UN Charter! I don't have to take a side, or "know" how to explain and assign blame over all to notice that Russia gicing a bunch of dumbshits a SAM that they then use to blow away a few hundred civilians in an airliner is probably not a great outcome.

Maybe you are actually too close to it - maybe you cannot see the forest for the trees.

[Berkut]

As a rough sketch I think it's: 1) about institutions; 2) about public sentiment; and 3) self-reinforcing.

You need to build and maintain institutions (media, education, political processes on national and local levels, and so on) to believe that good governance and fair processes are desirable, possible, and necessary and to hold constituent parts accountable. It springs from all components, and it's necessary to continually do the work to keep the project viable.

I believe fatalism and cynicism past a certain point is actively corrosive to freedom and good governance as it saps the ability to keep the projects viable.

But it is possible, as seen at various times in various places. And it's also possible to completely undermine and destroy it, as seen elsewhere.

I think the key elements are 1) some levels of media standards (both mass media and social media) - this is of course delicate, because the other side is corrosive media control; 2) controlling capital's influence on and access to politics; and 3) broad public education that includes strong civics.

On an indivdual level, I believe the best contributions we can make (other than those who are committed to be activists, of course), is to insist on good standards, support constructive practices, and reject cynicism where possible. This is exhausting and on the level of individual ants moving grains of sand.

Agreed on all of this.

I freaking *hate* these kind of broad based, cynical "observations" around impossible to quantify or prove generalities like "the mainstream media is biased against <insert martyr here>". They have no utility other then to engender cynicism for the furtherance of the war against objectivity and reason. Their terms are not even defined in any meaningful way, and there is nothing to be done by anyone to change the perception once it has taken hold.

[Berkut]

What I don't understand is why you say this, but then turn around and refuse to acknowledge that there is in fact a difference between how different groups and societies deal with this problem, and agree with the authoritarians that well, everyone has their own "truth" so we might as well accept that one is as good as another.

I don't think that's what I'm saying at all.

You say that, but time and time again, someone like Gaijan shows up, and starts saying things like "All truth is relative, so my truth is as good as any" when his truth is regurgitating RT talking points, and *your* response is to agree with him - at least he thinks you are agreeing with him, and it sure looks that way to me as well.

My view is that there are facts and actions and realities - those are true or not. There is then interpretation of what causes those. I don't think there is truth in that - though, obviously, there are clearly wrong interpretations which I think we can pretty comprehensively dismiss as untrue. But there's lots of edge cases and it absolutely depends on where you look at it from, what your priorities are, plus it's really difficult to assign or guess at motivations - and how much does any of it matter against material factors.

All that is correct, I think. But that, again, doesn't mean that just because everyone has their own interpretation, that any interpretation is as valid as any other.

Objective fact is great, but that doesn't mean that all non-objective opinion is equally valid., There are good arguments in support of a position, and bad ones, and honest one and dishonest ones.

<snip good stuff I agree with>

I don't think it's cynical or fatalist because I think we can solve it - but I think it is probably a bit of a fight.

I don't think that is at all how you come across. I think you come across as empowering those who in fact don't think it can be won, and in fact the climate deniers have just as valid a claim to truth as the climate alarmists, because, hey, it's all "true", so what's the difference?

If there is a problem in the West with dealing with this, I think it is because there are a lot of people in the West who approach it in the same fashion that you do, and give too much weight to arguments that are clearly bullshit.

We don't have to sit here are nod sagely and say "Yeah, well, those Nazis! They had their truth, and Churchill had his! And the non-Nazi germans (many millions of whom would pay with their lives for Nazi ideology), why, they had their own "truth" and who can say which is really true?".

That is horseshit. And pretending that Putin and Russia Times today are somehow just another "truth" in a competing see of bullshit is playing right back into that same old, proven strategy on how to empower authoritarianism.

Where have I said any of that though? I've posted repeatedly what my take is on Putin and Ukraine and Russia. Where is that take saying this?

I thought you just said exactly that. GdM said that all truth is relative, and hence its fine to accept Putin's take on what is happening, because the western media is all biased, blah blah blah, and you agreed with him that his views were in fact just more "truth".

There is still opposition media in Russia, incidentally.

Sure there is, that can be kind of useful to authoritarian regimes.

There is no free press in Russia though. Keeping a few "opposition" voices around so you can pretend like there is an actual free press is not a free press.

You need to build and maintain institutions (media, education, political processes on national and local levels, and so on) to believe that good governance and fair processes are desirable, possible, and necessary and to hold constituent parts accountable. It springs from all components, and it's necessary to continually do the work to keep the project viable.

Yeah - I think trust and trustworthiness is key and once insititutions lose it it's really difficult to win back, just look at the Catholic Church and child sexual abuse.

The past twenty years - Iraq, the financial crisis, covid - have not been good for lots of institutions in the West. It is not enough to say "trust the institutions" when I'm not sure they've proven themselves worthy of trust in quite some time. Institutions need to earn trustworthiness and I think a lot of them could with starting from scratch.

No argument from me, and note that I've never actually said "trust the institutions". I think the press has done a terrible job (not so much their fault as the fault of society to recognize and manage the incentives that drive the press economy), and has fairly lost a lot of credibility.

But...that doesn't somehow make other, even less trustworthy institutions somehow MORE trustworthy. The NYT fucking up some story doesn't make RT credible. CNN blowing the coverage on some story doesn't make Fox somehow a better alternative.

I always think of the moment in the South Carolina debate with Trump which loads of commentators thought might be a disaster for him and enraged many never Trumpers, when there was a question on Iraq and he was the only one on the stage who said "Iraq was a disaster and Bush made us less safe". I don't think he won it then, but I kind of do - because actually in a way he was the only one telling the truth. The rest of them for deference to the party and the former president had to pretend that that was wrong and the Iraq war had been a success.

And a bunch of people being full of shit about Iraq doesn't make Trump somehow something other then a lying sack of shit.

This is *exactly* what I mean. Trump says one thing "true" amongst a sea of lies and bullshit. And it is obvious the only reason he is saying it is not because he values its truth, but because he recognizes that it is something he can use to stick it to his opponents. He would have said the opposite if that would have worked better.

His followers then ignore the sea of lies, and say "See, Trump is the only one being honest!!!!!" when any objective analysis makes it clear he is radically less worthy of trust then any of the alternatives.

That is bad enough, but then those who are NOT his followers (like yourself) turn around and parrot the same thing! "See, look how Trump told the truth and all those others lied!". Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees!

[Gaijin de Moscu]

No, I have never said anyting at all that suggests I know where to put the blame.

My argument has nothing to do with "blame", only to do with rejecting the claim that we cannot possibly look at current, here and now actions of Putin and call it what it is - a bunch of authoritarian horseshit. People are having very specific conversations with you, and it seems to me like the moment you start getting into detail discussion on just how ridiculous these (and yours) claims are around pretty basic concepts like sovereignity and use of military force in other countries, you retreat into vague conversations about the nature of "truth".

*You* said this was about respecting the UN Charter. You then hand waved off how Russia massing troops on the border of Ukraine and threatening to invade is somehow perfectly ok, we should just because who can say what truth is? I don't have to "blame" anyone for the mess in the Ukraine to notice that Russia sending troops in the Crimea is most definitely NOT kosher under the terms of the UN Charter! I don't have to take a side, or "know" how to explain and assign blame over all to notice that Russia gicing a bunch of dumbshits a SAM that they then use to blow away a few hundred civilians in an airliner is probably not a great outcome.

Maybe you are actually too close to it - maybe you cannot see the forest for the trees.

I think the problem with our conversation is that you seem to assume I'm driving a certain agenda or opinion.

I'm not. I'm making an observation that Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter and global security, while the West seems to be focused on Ukraine alone. It's a neutral observation. I'm not asking you to "understand" Russia, or accept its agenda, or anything of the kind. I haven't even mentioned Putin once, I think.

What appears to you as hand-waving off Russia's perceived invasion threat to Ukraine, is simply my lack of desire to engage on this subject. I can't address it in a few brief posts, I'll have to expand to explain my complicated opinion on this, and I don't believe it's relevant to the discussion or interesting to anyone here.

I have no idea what Russia's end game is on this. As it's my own country, I'm puzzled and concerned.

[Berkut]

I think you have a "complicated" opinion on this because there is no way to reconcile the claim that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter" with the actual reality that they invaded another sovereign country with their military.

There isn't anything at all complicated about that.

You don't seem to have a coherent position. You just said, in the same post, that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter" and "I have no idea what Russia's end game is on this".

If you have no idea what their end game is, then how can you state so definitely that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter and global security"?

And no, that is NOT at all a neutral observation. Anymore then sagely noting that Hitler really is just concerned about living room for his people is a neutral observation. Saying something is neutral in the face of blatant posturing and naked aggression doesn't make it neutral.

[Gaijin de Moscu]

I think you have a "complicated" opinion on this because there is no way to reconcile the claim that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter" with the actual reality that they invaded another sovereign country with their military.

There isn't anything at all complicated about that.

You don't seem to have a coherent position. You just said, in the same post, that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter" and "I have no idea what Russia's end game is on this".

If you have no idea what their end game is, then how can you state so definitely that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter and global security"?

And no, that is NOT at all a neutral observation. Anymore then sagely noting that Hitler really is just concerned about living room for his people is a neutral observation. Saying something is neutral in the face of blatant posturing and naked aggression doesn't make it neutral.

In my country, we say that whoever brings up Hitler first, loses the argument

Anyway. I am observing what Russia is doing now, and at the same time I don't understand its end game. This isn't an incoherent position. It's open-ended.

It was 100% clear from the start that the US and NATO will reject the Russian list of demands. Still, Russia went about it with maximum publicity. This puzzles me.

Unlike you, I don't have the world figured out, Berkut (joke).

[DGuller]

In my country, we say that whoever brings up Hitler first, loses the argument

Seems like a problematic criteria if you view arguments as a tool to get to the truth rather than as a game with rules to be won.  Maybe truth wouldn't be so hard to get at if you didn't view arguments as a game?  Just throwing this out there.

[Berkut]

I think you have a "complicated" opinion on this because there is no way to reconcile the claim that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter" with the actual reality that they invaded another sovereign country with their military.

There isn't anything at all complicated about that.

You don't seem to have a coherent position. You just said, in the same post, that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter" and "I have no idea what Russia's end game is on this".

If you have no idea what their end game is, then how can you state so definitely that "Russia is driving a global agenda related to the UN Charter and global security"?

And no, that is NOT at all a neutral observation. Anymore then sagely noting that Hitler really is just concerned about living room for his people is a neutral observation. Saying something is neutral in the face of blatant posturing and naked aggression doesn't make it neutral.

In my country, we say that whoever brings up Hitler first, loses the argument

Anyway. I am observing what Russia is doing now, and at the same time I don't understand its end game. This isn't an incoherent position. It's open-ended.

It was 100% clear from the start that the US and NATO will reject the Russian list of demands. Still, Russia went about it with maximum publicity. This puzzles me.

Unlike you, I don't have the world figured out, Berkut (joke).

Unlike you, I don't presume to know what other people have figured out.

I just try to define process and objective standards for how to argue and think in a way to get closer to something like useful truth as having great value, as opposed to just coming up with ways to confirm my cherished assumptions.

[Gaijin de Moscu]

Seems like a problematic criteria if you view arguments as a tool to get to the truth rather than as a game with rules to be won.  Maybe truth wouldn't be so hard to get at if you didn't view arguments as a game?  Just throwing this out there.

Maybe

[Gaijin de Moscu]

Unlike you, I don't presume to know what other people have figured out.

I just try to define process and objective standards for how to argue and think in a way to get closer to something like useful truth as having great value, as opposed to just coming up with ways to confirm my cherished assumptions.

Fair.

I'm very uncertain about my assumptions right now, to be honest. I really don't know what to expect next, as there's no "handrail" from the past similar experiences for me to hold as a reference point...

[Sheilbh]

You say that, but time and time again, someone like Gaijan shows up, and starts saying things like "All truth is relative, so my truth is as good as any" when his truth is regurgitating RT talking points, and *your* response is to agree with him - at least he thinks you are agreeing with him, and it sure looks that way to me as well.

That's not how I've been reading Gaijin - I've put my view on Ukraine repeatedly. His is different. I don't think mine is necessarily true but it's how I read the facts.

And in terms of what is going on - I have no idea. I think it's probably coercive diplomacy and not the build up to an invasion,  I think it's probably about NATO and Russia's perceived grievances (which I think are not entirely unfair and mainly driven by weakness and fear - and a sense of time running out) but I think it could also be a build-up to an invasion and have tried to sketch (leaning heavily on a Russian expert's take) why I think that might be the case. But I don't know - and I think the truth is that it may be all of them and even Putin doesn't know, yet and that he may have forced this but is going to be pretty reactive.

In terms of what the West should do - I think we should support Ukraine through training, arms supplies etc because Ukraine shows no sign of wanting to compromise (if it is about them and not NATO/the West)

On the truth it's not that all truth is relative, but that it's plural.

All that is correct, I think. But that, again, doesn't mean that just because everyone has their own interpretation, that any interpretation is as valid as any other.

Objective fact is great, but that doesn't mean that all non-objective opinion is equally valid., There are good arguments in support of a position, and bad ones, and honest one and dishonest ones.

I don't disagree with any of that but I don't think that's what I've been saying - I don't think those follow at all.

I thought you just said exactly that. GdM said that all truth is relative, and hence its fine to accept Putin's take on what is happening, because the western media is all biased, blah blah blah, and you agreed with him that his views were in fact just more "truth".

I think all media is biased. There's obviously different biases for different publications and you just adjust for them when you read. I know what I'm getting from the Guardian or the Telegraph, which both have pretty clear editorial lines, and I read accordingly. That doesn't mean they're making stuff up or not telling the truth about facts - it's just what stories they're choosing to tell and how they tell them.

I think there are also universal biases - I think journalists, because it's their job, will look for the story: what is the better story and what is interesting. That may be different than what is important. I also think a lot of the media has a bias towards status quo-ism - I think this came up a lot with "normalising" Trump - and struggle to report on some circumstances.

And once I notice it I can't get away from this but I really struggle with foreign correspondents where you get the sense that they don't just have an issue with Putin's government, or Xi's government but with Russia or China (I think the NYT is pretty bad on this front). That their cynicism or contempt for the regimes they're reporting on bleeds through into how they're viewing the country. My favourite Russia reporter is the BBC Steve Rozenberg and, in part, it's because you can tell that he really loves Russia despite reporting on Putin - and I think he's a very good reporter too, see the interview with Lukashenko.

Sure there is, that can be kind of useful to authoritarian regimes.

There is no free press in Russia though. Keeping a few "opposition" voices around so you can pretend like there is an actual free press is not a free press.

Yeah but that is a distinction with the Hitler comparison. Similarly, from everything I have read, Putin and his people are concerned about the 2024 election and that they will have to very obviously falsify results (which might prompt a "colour revolution" movement). The public polls for Putin are not great so I can only imagine what the private ones say - again a concern the great totalitarians did not face.

No argument from me, and note that I've never actually said "trust the institutions". I think the press has done a terrible job (not so much their fault as the fault of society to recognize and manage the incentives that drive the press economy), and has fairly lost a lot of credibility.

But...that doesn't somehow make other, even less trustworthy institutions somehow MORE trustworthy. The NYT fucking up some story doesn't make RT credible. CNN blowing the coverage on some story doesn't make Fox somehow a better alternative.

No but that's not what I was saying - I think my point is more that the NYT, say, needs to act as if it needs earn trust through its reporting rather than continuing with a magisterial, voice from nowhere, paper of record attitude. Again it's like the Catholic Church - too many institutions are running the Benedict XVI style and not Francis.

You know it reminds me of Michael Gove's line during the Brexit referendum that "I think the people in this country have had enough of experts", which became a tag line of everything that was wrong about Brexit - but even in that is part of the problem. People only repeat the first half of his sentence - because he then said "enough of experts with organisations with acronyms saying 'they know what is best' and getting things consistently wrong."

I think that's the way you see that defensiveness and "trust the institutions" in an example. The driver for this and people have lost trust is the "know what's best and getting things consistently wrong" bit, what too many people hear is just the "people have had enough of experts bit".

And a bunch of people being full of shit about Iraq doesn't make Trump somehow something other then a lying sack of shit.

This is *exactly* what I mean. Trump says one thing "true" amongst a sea of lies and bullshit. And it is obvious the only reason he is saying it is not because he values its truth, but because he recognizes that it is something he can use to stick it to his opponents. He would have said the opposite if that would have worked better.

His followers then ignore the sea of lies, and say "See, Trump is the only one being honest!!!!!" when any objective analysis makes it clear he is radically less worthy of trust then any of the alternatives.

That is bad enough, but then those who are NOT his followers (like yourself) turn around and parrot the same thing! "See, look how Trump told the truth and all those others lied!". Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees!

No - my point isn't more truthful.

This is my wider point on the worry for the West in general. You had a bunch of people who want to protect the institutions they're part of (and benefit from), you've got shibboleths of what you can and can't say in that world. And that might be fine if those institutions are working really well - but generally it leads to a corruption and just utter lack of accountability.

Away from the US we can see this in the UK really clearly - Iraq, where we lost militarily then politically; the crash, that overwhelmingly our core industry because of our regulatory failings; Brexit which right or wrong has been handled disastrously and is a huge diplomatic failure; covid, where the actual plan developed by scientific experts for dealing with a pandemic assumed about 200,000 deaths because a core assumption was that we couldn't do a lockdown or any other NPI to stop the spread of a disease. Those are huge consistent failures across multiple governments of different parties led by different Prime Ministers and I don't think they're just because of bad politicians. I think there's no accountability. I don't think politicians or generals or bankers or civil servants have suffered any consequences for repeated failures - normally, at worst, they're moved sideways. I think it goes for the UK, but I think it goes for the West in general as well. We'll all have different combinations of failures - Iraq, crash, covid, Eurozone crisis etc. And too often the people who failed in the past will be working on our response to climate change or the rise of China and we'll be surprised when they fail again.

And if you have that situation and you're a democracy, then people will notice and when some guy comes up and says "they fucked up - why would you trust them again" that's likely to be a pretty successful message because he'll be the only one in the room saying the really obviously true thing.

Edit: And just to be clear - with the failure - I don't think it's the personnel issue. It's same with my Zuckerberg and Facebook point - I think it is the systems that will produce bad outcomes because in my view we've allowed them to become ossified and stuck with process and forms basically from the moment of post-Cold War success despite the world changing. So you could parachute the best people in the world into them and you'd get the same bad results and the same failures.

[Gaijin de Moscu]

A very interesting perspective, Sheilbh. Just wanted to mention I enjoyed reading it — many things to think about...

Edit: if I said that ALL truth is relative, then I've expressed myself poorly. Of course many truths are universal. The Earth isn't flat, after all (regardless of what Terry Pratchett's books may suggest).