It is 25 years since the end of history. Twenty five years since the Berlin Wall came down, since the Velvet Revolution in former Czechoslovakia, since Ceaușescu died serenading Romanians with communist rule disintegrated across the region.
As with the death of any good cinematic villain, there remains the question of whether the evil nemesis is really dead, and while in Romania perhaps this involves periodically checking the stake hammered through Ceausescu’s chest, elsewhere it is mainly about remembering the past. In Prague there have been rallies and educational events commemorating the protests and strikes that brought down the communist government and even the codes to some coffee shop toilets have been changed to “1989.”
One more permanent reminder of the defeated Goliath is a series of statues installed at the foot of Petrin Hill, not far from the castle. This “memorial to the victims of communism” depicts the way in which men were broken apart under totalitarianism. First the complete man, proud and whole, at the base. Then the gradual carving away of his body, through five further stages, each one a step up from the last, but strangely, always facing away from, rather than in the direction of the ascent of “progress.”
This man will never make it up the hill. Over seven torturous steps, he loses the parts of himself, until he is just a shattered torso, still standing, but absent his head, his arms, and significantly his chest. Completed by sculptor Olbram Zoubek in 2007, the installation is “dedicated to all victims, not only those who were jailed or executed but also those whose lives were ruined by totalitarian despotism.”
Death by a Thousand Cuts
Our lives today in the “free world” are no doubt better than those in communist Eastern Europe. We are not victims, and our freedoms, however threatened we may feel them to be, still have safeguards. At the same time though I find Zoubek’s representation of the backward progression of man, from living and whole to dismembered torso at the highest level of “progress” to be worryingly familiar.
If one thinks of the famous Bronowski sequence of the ascent of man this literal deconstruction of man seems like an almost complete reversal of the ascent up the ladder. Indeed, what I would like to argue here is that in a subtle but real way something similar is going on today: men are being taken apart; masculinity is being dismembered one limb at a time in a slow death by a thousand cuts.
Thymos: the third part of Plato’s soul
If that seems like an exaggeration, I’d like to invoke Francis Fukuyama, the man who announced the end of history, to help me make my case. Actually, the “end of history” was Fukuyama’s original 1989 essay. Soon after he published a book re-titled “the end of History and the Last Man.” In it he argued that capitalist liberal democracy had won history’s ideological war. There might continue to be socialist or other regimes in the future, but these would be aberrations, destined to fail for the reason that only liberal democracy could satisfy the human need not only for material well-being but for Thymos, the platonic need for recognition.
Fukuyama’s argument involves an idea of historical progress similar to but antagonistic to Marx’s, although both share an origin in the work of Hegel. But while Marx considered man to be alienated from himself under capitalism, Fukuyama argued that the struggle for recognition which drives history can only be met within liberal democracies that provide recognition for all.
By this reading, history begins with a primordial struggle of recognition: a fight of man against man which ends either in death for the loser or in his submission as slave. While he may be grateful for his life, it is the slave rather than the master who, embittered by his status, propels history forward through his work.
It is the slave who, dreaming of the possibility of freedom, invents tools, molds nature to his purpose, drives forward science, and of course ultimately produces the “progress” which promises to free him of his shackles. But why? Not for any material or physical need. But rather because the struggle for recognition remains the root of history and politics.
For Fukuyama, socialism identifies the problem but comes up with the wrong solution. Unlike liberal democracy the history of communism has shown it cannot meet our fundamental need for individual recognition whether we seek to be equal to or better than others. “Socialism foundered,” says Fukuyama, “because it ran into the brick wall of human nature….All the characteristics that were supposed to have disappeared under socialism, like ethnicity and national identity, reappeared after 1989 with a vengeance.”
The Last Man: Men without Chests
But what of the last man? The man scorned by Nietzsche for having given up the desire to be superior (megalothymia), who no longer “seeks out struggle, danger, risk, and daring” but seeks only comfortable self-preservation and equality (isothymia). For if the struggle for recognition is what drives history can we really be satisfied if in the process we become, in the words of CS Lewis, men without chests?
Fukuyama is convinced that liberal democracy can balance such tensions. But in a fascinating retrospective written years later he questions many of the conclusions in his book. It is less Nietzsche he worries about, but rather those who, taking Nietzsche seriously, seek to unpick that part of the Platonic soul (megalothymia) that delights in glory and competition. Those utopian engineers whose colossal projects came crashing down in the winter of ‘89 aren’t quite dead after all. They’re just working on a different project.
He was wrong about the end of history he says because his argument depended on two conditions: that human nature must remain constant and that science would not change the game beyond recognition. Centrally planned state socialism is indeed incompatible with a post-industrial society, but technological progress now permits the pursuit of the utopian project in far more sophisticated ways, and masculinity is now a specific object of its concern.
This later essay entitled “the last man in the bottle” specifically references Big Pharma’s investment in pathologizing masculinity as something associated with aggression. The natural exuberance of young boys, pathologized as ADHD, is now routinely medicated away through the mass prescription of Ritalin, just as women’s self esteem is artificially boosted with SSRIs such as Prozac.
The net effect is an androgynous one. Boys’ brains are less exposed to dopamine, making them less boisterous and competitive while women’s brains now marinate in above normal levels of serotonin. He observes that in nature male chimps who’ve risen to alpha status enjoy a serotonin high. In our medicated society it seems so do women.
Eugenics?
The effects of drugs are not hereditary, but in the future gene therapy offers the possibility of hereditary changes. Science, that ultimate tool of Hegel’s nature-mastering slave, could easily be directed towards more radical, even permanent solutions. And if that happens, as now with drug interventions, it will be advanced as a health issue reflecting the values of the day.
Real and necessary advances may be difficult to distinguish from more questionable ones. Preventing dwarfism may be difficult to distinguish from selecting an ideal height, and more seriously if competitiveness is seen as aggression why not simply remove the biochemical cause of the disease?
Technology is not about to stand still. That’s a good thing, but it also means that the battle for the future will depend more than ever on a struggle for values. At present masculinity is being systematically pathologized and, like Zoubek’s statues, the bodies and minds of men are being broken apart one piece at a time. In both communist Eastern Europe and in the 21st century west, the ideal man is missing both head and chest. The only way to change that is to make the case for why masculinity is the way forward and not the way back.
Read More: The Abolition Of Man
“while in Romania perhaps this involves periodically checking the stake hammered through Ceausescu’s chest…”
Brilliant.
Excellent article.
All the characteristics that were supposed to have disappeared under socialism, like ethnicity and national identity, reappeared after 1989 with a vengeance.
Russian nationalism never disappeared under socialism. On the contrary, it was every other national identity that was crushed under the murderous red boot to the greater glory of Russian delusions of grandeur.
Socialism, like Feminism, was never about leveling any play field. It was just a gigantic scam to benefit the envious at the expense of the weak and gullible.
Andrei Amalrik wondered in the early 1970s Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? and brilliantly explained why it might very well not survive that long. He missed the mark by less than a decade and was quite right in his analysis of the causes. Of course, practically nobody knows of him.
The very worse legacy of Communism is that – as far as most of the West is concerned – the lesson has not been learnt at all.
The Soviets promoted their own weird marxist nationalism among the empire’s ethnic groups but Russian nationalism was central, since anyone who wanted to advance beyond their local region in the communist hierarchy had to become a Russian in everything but name. When the Soviet Union collapsed it broke apart into roughly continuous nation states rather than a bunch of Russias, testament to the cultural pluralism tolerated by the Soviet authorities.
When there is nothing left in life, cling to your identity. No wonder the Russians made the USSR into their nationalist engine
We should all learn the lesson of Spartacus. This man couldn’t have fallen any lower living on the bottom rung of an oppressive society. Regardless of the ultimate futility of his rebellion he fought hard and made an empire shake.
However, we may argue he did not fail. We still speak about him today, 2000 years later. His example continues to live.
This is the way we must think. Independent men will necessarily be the minority in any society. But we can motivate the many and push humanity forward. The concept of freedom will never die.
Communism is done… dead…. HOWEVER the Governments of the world, including the US are heavily socialist… add in national pride and what you have is National Socialism… better known as Nazism…..
Whilst not as unpleasant or negative as communism, as the socialist models go bankrupt and politicans are required to answer for their mistakes (and those of many predecessors), and not least default on the enormous outstanding debts that can never be paid back….
We might well find branches of the Gestapo and SS begin operating ….. in fact we already have The Secret Service, Homeland (seig heil) Security, FBI, MI5, TSA, NSA, to mention but a few……
Crimp the government financially, add in public unrest, riots and police beatings, and you will find that political prisoners and a spy on your neighbor fear regime is not far away… we already have then, it’s just they are in ‘sleep’ mode for the time being.
The US and teh west would be a much more kickass place if it indeed was turning toward National-Socialism.
Helas, it is turning into the exact opposite.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/bb301d185e016a35d3e74f68e3a17b35/tumblr_mkzunnkG0U1qkxtkko1_500.gif
http://i.imgur.com/on1Dgku.jpg
Bullshit.
Russia was a federal SSR and the other SSRs where not.
I studied abroad in Prague about 10 years ago and I remember going to the Zoubec memorial. I never really gave it a second thought at the time as I was exclusively concerned about getting wasted and partying during my “study” abroad.
I became a bit swelled up with tears when I read this article and finally saw the meaning behind this, especially since my awakening with the help of the manosphere. Its meaning is as applicable today as it was then if not more so.
It fills me with rage and anger but also hope to see what is happening. I had to go through a lot of pain and anguish to finally become willing to see the truth and accept it.
I saw this quote and feel its very apt regardless of the source.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off – Gloria Steinham
What an ironic source of a great quote. Unfortunately her “truth” is that the Patriarchy is holding her and her sisters down
There was a great speech Theodore Roosevelt gave to a group of Chicago industrialists about masculinity and society. The full text is likely online. Very relevant roadmap to how we could get civilization back on track, even if it is a hundred years old.
This? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strenuous_Life
“Because of its own fundamental error regarding the moral status of government, liberalism actually contributed to the destruction of everything it had originally set out to preserve and protect: liberty and property. Once the principle of government had been incorrectly accepted, it was only a matter of time until the ultimate triumph of socialism over liberalism. The present neoconservative “End of History” of global U.S. enforced social democracy is the result of two centuries of liberal confusion. Thus, liberalism in its present form has no future. Rather, its future is social democracy, and the future has already arrived (and we know that it does not work).” – Hans Hermann Hoppe, Democracy The God That Failed
Whenever someone is asked what is the purpose of history, the answer invariably is to “learn from past mistakes so as not to repeat them”. Yet it is clear we as humans do not learn from our mistakes. This is why I read the manosphere, to get a different point of view than the typical leftist rhetoric, where a “victory” is defined limiting free speech or causing a person to lose their livelihood because they did not agree with this generally accepted garbage.
Fantastic article Michael. Where else can one read an article that draws from comparisons between philosophic ideas, historical events and C.S. Lewis to result in a scarily possible (and at this point likely) outcome for society.
What an awful time to be without my computer. Peter Hitchens is quoted to have said this, paraphrasing ofc, “I decided that my job could best be described as an orbituarist, chronicling how a once happy and prosperous society could descend into ruin, for the benefit of history. Although I realize that the great lesson of history is that nobody learns anything from history.”
The entire premise that human history is a “struggle for recognition” is a based on a faulty reading of Chapter 4 of Hegel’s Phenomenology, “Lordship and Bondage.” Faulty readings from that book should be expected. The difficulty of that book should be legendary, and the words of some jackass who claims to have understood are taken to be what is said in the book (and therefore the truth) instead of what is actually said in the book.
It’s hard even to talk about this book, because it claims to be the book that sets its reader on the path of possessing true wisdom, i.e. God’s knowledge. That is, he who understands the book is God, according to the book. The book is an exhaustive exploration on ‘Being’ and how it is experienced by ‘Consciousness’. Nothing is left out. This makes the book extremely dense. Consciousness goes through progressive stages of growth, where each stage is more complex than the previous one. It begins at the stage of naturality. In this state consciousness is estranged from ‘Being’ because it does not know it, or in other words, it does not ‘recognize’ being for what it really is: consciousness itself. In other words, natural consciousness, immersed in biological life, does not know that ‘Being’, existence, is a product of consciousness, and that consciousness itself is a product of existence. ‘Being’ is ‘consciousness’, and vice versa. Since consciousness is not aware of Being in this manner, it is not aware of itself. It lacks self-certainty. This lack of self-certainty manifests externally in a struggle for recognition, which is really a struggle for certainty. I am certain of myself as being one with Being insofar as others, who other than me are constituents of being, recognize me to be one with Being.
The Last Man, as Nietzsche described him, simply gives up this struggle for self-certainty. The Last Man (blue-pill) is content with living in perpetual ignorance of himself and reality, as long as he’s comfortable.
Liberal democracies satiate the last man’s ignorance no better than autocratic regimes. They do not provide the recognition required for consciousness to reach true self-certainty (red-pill), which in its final stages is an aggregation of individuals seeking self-certainty.
In short: Fukuyama was a political hack.
—
A careful analysis, but I don’t really see why your description is at odds with the idea of recognition as a motor of history. As far as I can tell both Charles Taylor and Kojeve amongst others see the master-slave dialectic in such terms, and Fukuyama himself is specifically adapting the ideas of the latter for his (more liberal) purpose. The purpose of the article though isn’t to endorse Fukuyama (let alone Kojeve of EU notoriety) but to consider whether his analysis can tell us anything about where we’re going as a society and the
dangers that may lie therein. One of the main issues at stake is the tension between seeking recognition as equality and seeking it as superiority (e.g. egalitarianism vs competition). The end of history is supposed to resolve
that in mutual recognition of self / other within the universalist (post-human?) ‘state’, but as Fukuyama’s ‘last man’ article points out there are very real worries about where this might take us
Men who do less housework get more sex…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/11284963/Men-who-do-less-housework-have-more-sex.html
I could have told you this without reading it in the Telegraph. I don’t do shit around the house when it comes to domestic chores and despite this she still loves giving me what I want. It makes me laugh when I hear these pathetic chumps around me whine about never getting what they want sexually in their marriage. Thank heavens I discovered the Red Pill
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2647448/Proof-men-perform-boardroom-AND-bedroom-Men-earn-wives-better-sex-happier-marriages.html
??
Morbidly interesting (and horrifying) how science has been used not just to tame and in parts sterilise nature, through such things as vaccines and antibiotics, but also man himself. The comparison between the statues and masculinity is spot on.
Great article.
I read an article a couple years ago saying that from studying blood samples over the years that natural testosterone levels have dropped over the last three generations and I believe it. They didn’t post any ideas to the cause but I think soy could have something to do with it considering ever since the dust bowl they’ve relied heavily on it for protein and food substitute along with it being a preservative in almost everything and soy can raise estrogen levels in men so everyone should avoid it
interesting that the chinese eat a ton of soya AND had the most brutal communist state…. they also tend to be unimaginative and ‘followers’ …. hence all the good products are designed by meat eating westerners and built by soy eating laborers… !
I too have heard bad things about soy, and how prevalent it is in our diet.
If there is one thing the Western World loves doing, it’s repeating the cycle of totalitarianism. The last bout of it during WW2 was particularly brutal, not to mention humiliating for humanity as much of it was recorded on film. I guess all the films and photos of Nazis goose-stepping their way to mass murder is not enough to convince humanity not to repeat it’s mistakes so openly.
The West is clearly headed back to an authoritarian system, no matter how it’s disguised. The circumstances are certainly different due to the current state of the world; technology, comfortable living standards, etc. However, the outcome will be the same; mass death of men and women alike. Then the cycle will predictably repeat 80-100 years later. It ALWAYS does, give or take a few decades.
Fuck the human race. It truly deserves this, particularly the current crop of scum inhabiting the planet.
The trend toward authoritarianism is dangerous because governments in a supposedly liberal democracy, despite their best efforts, are destabilizing their own legitimacy while normalizing the very tactics that revolutionary governments tend to use.
Jon Socrates
All democracy trends towards tyranny:
http://mises.org/library/democracy-god-failed-0
A revolution is exactly what is needed.
Big Man Government is the ultimate goal of all SJW’s. They want the rule of men, not the rule of law.
Does aliens or cthulu make the rule of law?
“Rule of law” does not mean that men have no hand in making the law. “Rule of law” means that men make laws that everyone follows equally, are laid out before hand, and are enforced even-handedly. This is contrast to “rule of men” or “rule of kings”, wherein leaders arbitrarily enforce their will as law as they see fit: outlawing actions on a whim, punishing who they want to punish, letting go of their favorites. Basically there you rely on the wisdom and goodness of your leaders and take no responsibility for yourself.
Plato believed in the rule of men/rule of kings, and not the rule of law. Most societies have vacillated between both, with rule of men/kings being predominant. One of the purposes of our U.S. Constitution was to directly force everyone, including high officials, into the rule of law; sadly, we have discovered that if you merely ignore the Constitution, or claim it says the opposite of what it actually says, it has no force.
“The western world loves”? Fuck off.
It is the communist, the zionists. Why the fuck do you people here keep skirting the issue, using buzzwords such as SJW and blaming feminism?
They are simply tools and manifestations of the marxists.
The solution to the problems in the west can only be authoritarian.
http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2014/178/9/5/i_need_grunt_by_gruntchovski-d7o8qis.jpg
The futurism of this article is depressing.
Not really. We’re under threat as men, but also as a species. Its no different really to Stephen Hawking warning us that AI could go horribly wrong if we get ready to defend ourselves. All we have to do is prepare and argue our case. Successfully.
Great article.
Human nature is more stubborn than people realize, and Hegelian dialectics continue. The current social/political paradigms are creating problems faster than they can solve them. Unless we turn things around soon, the rot and decay will be irreversible.
If that happens, new forces will rise, converge, and accrete, and a new ideology will form as the antidote to our problems. Those who are disenfranchised now will be offered a place in the new system. Those who are lost will be given new direction. It will offer strength to the weak. In surrendering to it the low will find dignity, and for those of great standing who willingly surrender to it, the act of atonement of their great egos with a greater cause will be a religious experience. The human body, now denigrated, will be exalted by the new ideology. Our current system tells people to search for their own truth while obscuring truth with the failed ideologies of the past. The new ideology will embrace truth, will make truth. Lastly, a Voice will speak words with such truth that the Voice’s words and people’s own thoughts are no longer distinguishable. And then the people will obey the Voice, because they love the Voice, because it makes them whole.
TL; DR: For Hollywood, the Soviets and Communism were never the bad guys.
We must not forget Hollywood’s propaganda in supporting communism/the USSR, which probably lengthened the life of the soviet union a good 10-20 years, since it reduced the number of Americans/Westerners mad at communism’s evils.
If you go back and look at major spy/military/action movies and TV shows of the 1960s-early 1990s, you’ll notice something: almost never is the Soviet Union or a communist nation the bad guy.
Now, you might superficially think back and go, “You’re full of shit.” After all, didn’t James Bond constantly have funny-talking chicks trying to kill him/sleep with him and funny-talking bad dudes? What about the “Man from UNCLE”? Three Days of the Condor? Rambo?
Exactly: go watch them again.
James Bond: the bad guys were never the Soviets/communists, but instead crime lords (such as SPECTRE) who would try to shift the blame onto communists “unfairly.” The Russian chick would first try to kill Bond, thinking the British/Americans were the bad guys, but they would figure out that both nations were being played by “greedy criminals” and the two would team up and take down the crime lords. Repeat, ad nauseum, esp. during Sean Connery’s reign, but continuing through to Tim Dalton.
Man from UNCLE: A Russian and an American team up to stop crime by “greedy” people and are run by the UN.
Three Days of the Condor: The bad guys are US intelligence.
Rambo: In the original, the bad guys are US law enforcement. (Brian Dennehy, FTW).
In short, Hollywood made it a policy to make sure that the bad guys were not communists or from the Soviets.
The only big budget work from this period I can name that ever specifically made communists the bad guys was the original Red Dawn. That made the Cubans the bad guys, with alluded to Russian help. Yet that took an extreme right wing successful writer (John Milius) —who had the backing of about half a dozen major left-wing directors whom he’d worked for (e.g. Steven Spielberg: Milius wrote the awesome U.S.S. Indianapolis speech delivered in Jaws)–and of course Reagan’s rise.
Even today Hollywood is reluctant to make communism the bad guys. The recent Red Dawn is a good example, but how many Russian Gulag movies have their been or Mao-starving people movies have their been—especially in comparison to Nazi movies?
Meh. There are a few non-conspiracy reasons for this.
1. During the Cold War, people were scared shitless of nuclear war with the Ruskies. Having a fantasy enemy allowed film and television makers to capitalize on the Cold War atmosphere without overtly reminding people that the world might come to an end.
2. Filmmakers using Soviets as bad guys could look like they are in cahoots with the US government to make propaganda. When they recognize it, a lot of people have an aversion to propaganda.
3. Hollywood makes money internationally. Using Soviets as the bad guys would have killed movie sales in second world countries. Even now a lot of Russians are proud of their history, and so studios still have an incentive to avoid offending them.
1. People were scared shitless of the Nazis and Japanese too; it didn’t
stop a ton of movies coming out making them the bad guys. Plus Hollywood
DID make movies where war with the Soviets brought about the world’s
end; these movies, however, were either “the u.s. is just as bad” (moral
relativism—Dr. Strangelove) or else caused/almost
by third parties, and not by the Soviets (James Bond movies, the more
humorous War Games in the 80s). Not to mention all
those futuristic scifi movies that posited a “past nuclear war.”
Furthermore, Hollywood has never had a problem with using fear as a moneymaker.
2.
Those WW2 movies and TV shows making the Nazis and Japanese bad made a
lot of money. And later movies making greedy capitalist bosses, the US
intelligence, or US law enforcement/military bad were successes as well.
Heck, think of all the bad civil rights movies that make southern
whites evil. They are blatant propaganda, but done well enough to make
moolah. Hollywood could have made money doing the opposite–making the
Soviets the bad guys—but chose not to. Remember, the CPUSA did
deliberately and relentlessly target Hollywood to make propaganda for
them; that is all well-recorded.
3. I don’t know how making the
Soviets the bad guys would not have made money, but somehow making the
US the bad guys or amorphous criminal organizations the bad guys somehow
would. Nazi and Japanese-hating movies made money, as did movies
showing racism to be evil—yet there were a ton of non-U.S. countries
averse to those views. Plus you’re also taking modern international
reliance and putting it on the past; China and the Soviets and Eastern
Europe weren’t actually markets for US filmmakers, while Western Allies
were.
Sounds like gospel truth to me… .don’t the banking cartels some people like to call illuminati, regularly broadcast their agenda for all to see…. hide the truth in broad day light…
Hollywood was ruled by the same peeps who invented and installed communism.
a quite healthy and natural ethno-state that beat almost all the problems we face today was defeated in 1945, the one you have been fed B.S since birth.
If you want to try a highly readable story about life in Stalin’s Russia then I recommend “Child 44” by Tom Rob Smith. It centres on an officer of State Security and the insane world in which he operates, a world in which everyone lives in fear of denunciation and where denunciation means death in a cellar or almost certain death in the gulags; where guilt is presumed of all and where becoming a person of interest leads to surveillance which leads to arrest which leads to death. Nobody, ever, is found innocent. To doubt a suspect’s guilt is to undermine the State and be arrested oneself.
There were 140 articles in the Soviet criminal code, but only one deliberately ambiguous line empowered all this to happen: a political prisoner is a person engaged in activity intended to overthrow, weaken or subvert the Soviet power. That could mean anything. Anything at all.
It’s a grimly fascinating read and, as I followed the story, I couldn’t help but recognise a lot of the twisted psychology that has emerged in the West over recent decades.
That was a solid piece of thriller fiction for me. Draws similarities to Gorky Park for obvious reasons but i liked the pervading atmosphere of paranoia about Child 44. Found it very accessible without being intellectually condescending for a non War & Peace tome reader like myself as well.
Wow that was a good article.
It’s the economy, it’s alway been the economy … stupid.
What people in Eastern Europe do not realise is that what they had was just pure state-capitalism (not socialism) and what they have now is quasi state-capitalism. The same goes for the people in the West, they live with the illusion of having a better system as officially the competing version in the East collapse … allegedly.
Eastern Europe was better off with the old crap system as opposed to this new crap system.
I personally would find this monument as an insult as it portrays weakness and helplessness.
Eastern Europe was better off with the old crap system as opposed to this new crap system.
Oh yeah, beginning with the 30 million exterminated like rats.
They had to import food from the USA because even with such a large and fertile land their ultra-shitty system could not even feed Russia.
What a nice system that keeps its own people from living by setting minefields, barbed-wire, and machine guns at the border.
Why are you lying though? Everything you stated with the exception of barbed wire was nonsense.
He (I assume) does not have any other argument, conditioned by the lies of today´s society, that is why.
30 millions? Yeah right!
Aat least for all the things that do not ad up, at the holocaust never shifts from 3 to 30 millions.
http://rationalrevolution.net/special/library/famine.htm
Birthrate says it all.
1983 positive.
1973 positive.
2003 negative.
2013 negative.
Most of these monuments are done by ‘rats’ who would never say shit during communism and now they revolve their trendy artwork around slandering communism. Fine example is a Czech singer Kryl, who sang against communism in the 60s and 70s and when he wanted to actually improve something in early 90s by joining politics, he was shut down and destroyed by traitor Havel. Now Kryl is unknown, despite being the best musician the Czechoslovakia has produced in the last 100 years and Havel is considered a hero.
After neoliberal capitalistic reforms Eastern Europe enjoys even lower standard of living than during communism. Most countries like Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria won’t even make it into the next century.
Statistics from Slovakia
Agricultural production
http://karolondrias.blog.pravda.sk/files/2014/11/Obr-01-Polnoh-prod-sc-2012-1411011.jpg
Production of meat in Slovakia
http://karolondrias.blog.pravda.sk/files/2014/11/Obr-06-Maso-produkcia-2012-141103-300×388.jpg
Consumption of meat in Slovakia
http://karolondrias.blog.pravda.sk/files/2014/11/Obr-08-Maso-konzumacia-2012-141103-300×388.jpg
Number of scientists
http://karolondrias.blog.pravda.sk/files/2014/11/Obr-X01-Pracov-Veda-Vyskum-pocet-2012-141101-150DPI1-300×388.jpg
Some very reliable statistics, just like today’sgovernment reports. Why don’t you talk to your grandparents about meat consumption in the 80s?
Can you prove they are not reliable? Nope. My mother was supposed to be a scientist, she couldn’t despite having the education since all the scientific institutes in the area got shut down.
My mother ate meat EVERY day, both of her parents were average workers, nobody had ‘party circle’ friends.
Those graphs make it seem like everything was getting better and better until it suddenly “collapsed.” I don’t know about Slovakia or life in a bigger, well-supplied city (probably a lot better than life further East), but things peaked in the 60s for most of the Soviet Union. The 70s and 80s were a period of slow, grinding, depressing decline, followed by the murderous death-spiral of collapse in the 90s. Most actual food production occurred on “dachas” and small, private gardens – these fed my parents during the collapse. At least you have toilet paper!
Latvia? Bulgaria? They’re fine. Look at Moldova! At least during the Soviet Union it was probably one of the nicest republics (at least in terms of food and wine production!) but now it’s a total shit-hole. Sure, life there is now probably worse, but what would be better? Voting for more communists? It’s easy to blame others for your problems, but unless you have a strong tradition of respect for property rights, you can’t have a prosperous country.
Well the agricultural production was moved abroad, everything is MADE in ‘somewhere else’. Most factories shut down or moved abroad, same with research centers.
GDP put into research (Slovakia)
http://karolondrias.blog.pravda.sk/files/2014/11/Obr-X02-Veda-Vyskum-Percent-HDP-2012-141101-150DPI.jpg
On top of that the debt was 0% and in fact CSSR was lending to others. Military spending was over 5% (now its 1%). Czechoslovak army had over 1000 tanks, 800 modern and 350 fighter jets.
Of course certain things improved (quality of service, more freedom) but most have gotten worse.
Baltics are doing great?
http://b-i.forbesimg.com/markadomanis/files/2013/07/Baltics-Population.png That is why millions are running away and nobody wants to risk having more than 1 kid.
Bulgaria?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Bulgaria-demography.png
12% unemployment, population dying off so much that if something does not happen now there is not gonna be any Bulgaria in 100 years time.
You are right about Moldova though, the only countries that I see having any future out of Eastern Europe are Russia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and maybe Poland.
I am not a communist btw and I would not vote for them either. I believe in the American school of economics (Hamilton, John Adams, Lincoln, FDR, JFK)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_School_%28economics%29
Collapsed?
http://symonsez.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/barack_gorbachev.jpg
Thanks.
Thanks for what?
Info. Statistics. For attacking the lies we have been told about Czech history.
Oh yeah, Communist statistics, gotta love em.
Kid, did you know that during the Cold War, Communist Russia had to import grain from the USA to feed itself, even though the USSR had some of the largest and most fertile lands on the planet?
Can you prove the statistics I posted as wrong? Nope. A monolingual hick is gonna tell me about country I live in.
I’ve never been monolingual. But it’s people like you who love to talk about what they don’t know and resort to ad hominems.
Oh yeah, Communist statistics, gotta love em.
It is you who is resorting to logical fallacies. How am I supposed to answer a libertarian idiot whose argument is a non-argument.
The Czechs seem to be doing alright… Maybe it’s a cultural thing?
They aren’t. only Prague looks like its booming since it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world now also with great restaurants and other services. I would actually take Prague over London any time. In fact most young people wanna move out (not saying most will), the good news is that the Czech Rep. is attractive for Ukrainians and Slovaks. My childhood was definitely poorer than the childhood of my mom who would go for a vacation abroad every year for 2 weeks and then for further two inside of the country. That is something 80% of Czech now can’t afford despite people having higher education. My grandma was a factory worker and my granddad worked in the office.
BTW I am Czech, not Slovak, it is just I found those statistics since it was linked to me by someone else.
Nope, Czech Republic is economically fucked just like Slovakia. Economical damage after 25 years after “revolution” in 1989 is 4x higher than it was after WW2.
Term “Velvet revolution” is more of cruel joke. It should be renamed to “Coat swapping revolution”. Red coats were swapped with star spangled ones, but same people (or their spawns) are running the show without punishment.
Czech republic is land of western factories, cheap labour force, overgrown bureaucracy and politicians corrupted on every level. And of course there are all of those neomarxist ideologies.
“…for men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves, and this hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules: wherein they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse.” Machiavelli: Prince, Chapter III
Toddler, do you know that Germany has had to import food to feed its population for the last century or so? Tell us about what an economic failure Germany is.
Numbers I found from early 60s. Rice is not counted.
http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/966052ussr2.jpg
USSR imported feed grain for animals as the consumption of meat increased. Their imports were very low.
USSR began to decline with Brezhnev, Stalin’s and Khrushchev’s time were very successful. When Stalin took over the USSR had the life expectancy of 35 years (USA already had 55, Sweden over 60) and 70% illiteracy. Even though the USSR was crippled the most out of all countries after WW2 they still managed to put the first man in space.
http://missinglink.ucsf.edu/lm/russia_guide/Russianhealth2_files/image003.jpg (deaths during WW2 not counted)
The only hope to prevent this progressive descent from happening to each male reading here is to make each of ourselves as “anti -fragile” as possible. From health, intimate relationships to occupation and finances. There is no institution or person to do it for us – we need to knuckle under and personally do it for ourselves.
Lets see what people in the Czech Republic think.
Were the years 1990-2014 successful for our country?
Yes
No
Sample: 60815
Source: http://www.parlamentnilisty.cz/arena/rozhovory/Stepan-Kotrba-k-25-letum-od-plysaku-Husakovych-zvastu-jsme-meli-dost-chteli-jsme-jiny-socialismus-Nadeji-zabila-Albrightova-Byla-dohoda-KGB-a-CIA-Havel-byl-vybran-predem-341545
OK, there is discontent with the last 25 years as well as perhaps – if I’ve read it right (using google translate as my Czech is poor) some nostalgia for 1968 i.e. for Dubcek’s liberalising ‘socialism’? Saying that everything hasn’t gone swimmingly since the Velvet revolution though isn’t quite the same as saying things were better under communism.
If there is nostalgia for 68/69 and the missed opportunities to liberalise a socialist regime, was that even realistic? Those
soviet tanks that caused the likes of Jan Palac to self-immolate weren’t a discrepancy – they were the expression of communism defaulting to totalitarianism. Anything else is counterfactual fantasy?
If many Czechs do hanker for the past might that not also reflect the loss of prestige that followed the split with Slovakia – the split of a quite large country (albeit one with modern roots) into a smaller one, which to some extent is still rebuilding its prestige and influence?
This brings me to the point of the article, which isn’t really about the break up of Czechoslovakia at all, but about what makes people tick. You quote stats for standard of living etc but is it only standard of living, or the availability of toilet paper etc. which makes Czech, or any other people, decide that ‘the state’ meets their needs? Surely 1968, 1989, 1993 etc were just as
much about the prestige of the Czech nation, of its sense of history etc as they were about material things. You’re
right Prague is more beautiful than London – but if you mentioned it, isn’t that because things relating to Thymos, dignity, international status etc. matter at least as much as material things? Could you see Prague getting built under Communism? I can’t
Can you see ANYTHING built under neo-liberalism? Of course Prague couldn’t have been built in a communist regime. I agree, communist architecture is ugly. You have got the same system in the US. Destroyed infrastructure, the closing of hospitals, nothing built.
Talking about prestige, Czechs are now less proud than ever
It should not be the communist state that should provide materialism for the exchange of prestige. The fact that that is the case only shows the utter failure of the fraud that took over.
The destruction of modern state is a CIA strategy. Same done in Yugoslavia, Chechnya etc. Brezinski’s plan was to split Russia into like 20 failed states. There was no referendum to split the country, most people did not want it.
That is why libertarianism is something everyone should be against, massive secession and a return to a feudal state.
Can you see ANYTHING built under neo-liberalism? Of course Prague couldn’t have been built in a communist regime. I agree, communist architecture is ugly. You have got the same system in the US. Destroyed infrastructure, the closing of hospitals, nothing built.
Talking about prestige, Czechs are now less proud than ever
Survey:
Are we proud on (the) Czech (Republic) or are we ashamed of our nation?
http://i.imgur.com/muO2RaA.png
It should not be the communist state that provides materialism for the exchange of prestige. The fact that that is the case only shows the utter failure of the fraud that took over.
The destruction of modern state is a CIA strategy. Same done in Yugoslavia, Chechnya etc. Brezinski’s plan was to split Russia into like 20 failed states. There was no referendum to split the country, most people did not want it.
That is why libertarianism is something everyone should be against, massive secession and a return to a feudal state.
You and your statistics. There are some ugly buildings in the centre that are presumably
post-89 so I get your point, but there are also some nice new chrome and glass structures that would look right at home in the City of London (London’s finance district).
I appreciate there is discontent, re. corruption etc. as with the anti-Zeman protests and that that may well be about national pride / prestige (or at least the Prague version) – but surely that’s something harder to address under an authoritarian regime? Re. corruption for instance that’s pretty high on the agenda at the moment, something that wouldn’t have happened under the old regime.
“There was no referendum to split the country, most people did not want it.”
Wasn’t it decided by Klaus & his slovakian opposite number over tea or something, all of which sounds authoritarian rather libertarian. As for Brezensiki / CIA plots – well that’s an imponderable, but if it’s true then that’s geo-politics isn’t it, as with Ukraine etc.
To clear myself.
The reason I use surveys is to make myself clearer, I think everyone who lives in the CZ knows about the lack of pride.
I don’t know that much about the things behind anti-Zeman protests, some even suggest conspiracy theories about American embassy organizing it. What seems kinda weird that no other politician ever gets protests like that even though Zeman is not widely unpopular.
The protests had nothing to do with corruption though. They had two reasons.
1) Zeman publicly supported China and said Taiwan is part of China
2) Zeman said in an interview curse words like ‘cunt’ , ‘shit’ and phrases ‘I am not gonna stick up for whores’ (pussy riot) and ‘The government fucked up the law’
By libertarian I did not mean that was the way Czechoslovakia went down but rather the support of mass secession by libertarians in the US and elsewhere. I even heard a libertarian say in an interview ‘I want 7 billion nations in the world’.
“Zeman said in an interview … ‘I am not gonna stick up for whores’ (pussy riot)
I read about that. He should write for ROK
Thanks Odin and the Norns for financialism, right?
No, it is only under an authoritarian, revolutionnary system that those problems may be adressed at all.
Decisions must be made, plans have to be drawn and applied.
Czechs have had 24 years of “democracy” to purge the banksters and their political prostitutes.
How could they lose elections when they control the outcome?
The people of the US on the other hand have had this over a 100 years.
You’re not wrong about behind the scenes mafia perhaps, but what makes you think you’d even get the authoritarianism you want? the thing about authoritarianism is that once instituted you have no control over it, unless you happen to be the authoritarian in question
Not as much nostalgia as the times where things sucked but sucked a lot less than today.
Something we will get to know soon enough.
Birth rates.
Birth rates are high when people feel like sharing the world they live in. It has been pretty low in the last 24 years.
Excellent article.
You seem to have found the essence of the process the west is taking itself through. Feminist ideology indeed is about tearing the masculinity out of men. It starts when they are born to single mothers. Chemical alterations are made in boyhood through the use of Ritalin to “cure” essential masculine development. Once this broken male reaches adulthood, is told he is part of the patriarchy and rape culture and most check his privilege. By middle age, what should be his most productive years, he is useless even to himself.
Even if the available women were desirable for marriage, he is incapable of heading a family. So another single woman gets knocked up to meet her narcissistic and selfish desire to have a baby she can fully control. Thus, the cycle perpetuates.
The only way to fight it is to simply not participate. If you are already a product of the endless cycle of masculine destruction, you probably cannot recover. But even you can chose not to participate. To find the small shred of masculinity still inside you and reject feminist ideology and the state. Do not participate in their sick society, reject it.
The rest of us that escaped the clutches of the master plan – we must go on attack.
“It starts when they are born to single mothers. Chemical alterations are made in boyhood through the use of Ritalin to “cure” essential masculine development. Once this broken male reaches adulthood, is told he is part of the patriarchy and rape culture and most check his privilege”
Nicely put. They give Ritalin to boys just as they neuter young male dogs. The whole rape culture thing is just the social equivalent of a muzzle.
The majority of baby boomers were born and raised in nuclear families.
Much better to complain and lament than to device solutions.
“The Abolition of Man” is an excellent read.
As I recall isn’t Fukuyama embarassed about “The end of history” these days?
What with his being proven wrong in a rather flashy manner consisting of multiple aircraft crashing into buildings and the start of the modern era or global jihad.