In recent weeks, the western public has been obsessed with the question “What goes on in Putin’s mind?” Western pundits wonder: do the people around him tell him the whole truth? Is he ill or going insane? Are we pushing him into a corner where he will see no other way out to save face than to accelerate the conflict into a total war?

We should stop this obsession with the red line, this endless search for the right balance between support for Ukraine and avoiding total war. The “red line” is not an objective fact: Putin himself is redrawing it all the time, and we contribute to his redrawing with our reactions to Russia’s activities. A question like “Did US intelligence-sharing with Ukraine cross a line?” makes us obliterate the basic fact: it was Russia itself which crossed the line, by attacking Ukraine. So instead of perceiving ourselves as a group which just reacts to Putin as an impenetrable evil genius, we should turn the gaze back at ourselves: what do we – the “free west” – want in this affair?

We must analyze the ambiguity of our support of Ukraine with the same cruelty we analyze Russia’s stance. We should reach beyond double standards applied today to the very foundations of European liberalism. Remember how, in the western liberal tradition, colonization was often justified in the terms of the rights of working people. John Locke, the great Enlightenment philosopher and advocate of human rights, justified white settlers grabbing land from Native Americans with a strange left-sounding argument against excessive private property. His premise was that an individual should be allowed to own only as much land as he is able to use productively, not large tracts of land that he is not able to use (and then eventually rents to others). In North America, as he saw it, Natives were using vast tracts of land mostly just for hunting, and the white settlers who wanted to use it for intense agriculture had the right to seize it for the benefit of humanity.

In the ongoing Ukraine crisis, both sides present their acts as something they simply had to do: the west had to help Ukraine remain free and independent; Russia was compelled to intervene militarily to protect its safety. The latest example: the Russian foreign ministry claiming Russia will be “forced to take retaliatory steps” if Finland joins Nato. No, it will not be “forced”, in the same way that Russia was not “forced” to attack Ukraine. This decision appears “forced” only if one accepts the whole set of ideological and geopolitical assumptions that sustain Russian politics.

Why are the West's actions not criticized here in the same vein?

These assumptions have to be analyzed closely, without any taboos. One often hears that we should draw a strict line of separation between Putin’s politics and the great Russian culture, but this line of separation is much more porous than it may appear. We should resolutely reject the idea that, after years of patiently trying to resolve the Ukrainian crisis through negotiations, Russia was finally forced/compelled to attack Ukraine – one is never forced to attack and annihilate a whole country. The roots are much deeper; I am ready to call them properly metaphysical.

Anatoly Chubais, the father of Russian oligarchs (he orchestrated Russia’s rapid privatization in 1992), said in 2004: “I’ve reread all of Dostoevsky over the past three months. And I feel nothing but almost physical hatred for the man. He is certainly a genius, but his idea of Russians as special, holy people, his cult of suffering and the false choices he presents make me want to tear him to pieces.” As much as I dislike Chubais for his politics, I think he is right about Dostoevsky, who provided the “deepest” expression of the opposition between Europe and Russia: individualism versus collective spirit, materialist hedonism versus the spirit of sacrifice.

Bizarrely blames Dostoevksy for the 'metaphysical' reason behind Russia's invasion

Russia now presents its invasion as a new step in the fight for decolonization, against western globalization. In a text published earlier this month, Dmitry Medvedev, the ex-president of Russia and now the deputy secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, wrote that “the world is waiting for the collapse of the idea of an American-centric world and the emergence of new international alliances based on pragmatic criteria.” (“Pragmatic criteria” means disregard for universal human rights, of course.)

So we should also draw red lines, but in a way which makes clear our solidarity with the third world. Medvedev predicts that, because of the war in Ukraine, “in some states, hunger may occur due to the food crisis” – a statement of breathtaking cynicism. As of May 2022, about 25m metric tons of grain are slowly rotting in Odesa, on ships or in silos, since the port is blocked by the Russian navy. “The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that millions of people are ‘marching towards starvation’ unless ports in southern Ukraine which have been closed because of the war, are reopened,” Newsweek reports. Europe now promises to help Ukraine transport the grain by railway and truck – but this is clearly not enough. A step more is needed: a clear demand to open the port for the export of grain, inclusive of sending protective military ships there. It’s not about Ukraine, it’s about the hunger of hundreds of millions in Africa and Asia. Here should the red line be drawn.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, recently said: “Imagine [the Ukraine war] is happening in Africa, or the Middle East. Imagine Ukraine is Palestine. Imagine Russia is the United States.” As expected, comparing the conflict in Ukraine with the plight of the Palestinians “offended many Israelis, who believe there are no similarities”, Newsweek noted. “For example, many point out that Ukraine is a sovereign, democratic country, but don’t consider Palestine as a state.” Of course Palestine is not a state because Israel denies its right to be a state – in the same way Russia denies the right of Ukraine to be a sovereign state. As much as I find Lavrov’s remarks repulsive, he sometimes deftly manipulates the truth.

Comparing Ukraine's sovereignty and Palestine's sovereignty here is just :what-the-hell:

Yes, the liberal west is hypocritical, applying its high standards very selectively. But hypocrisy means you violate the standards you proclaim, and in this way you open yourself up to inherent criticism – when we criticize the liberal west, we use its own standards.

When has the 'inherent criticism' of liberalism ever halted its worst excesses?

What Russia is offering is a world without hypocrisy – because it is without global ethical standards, practicing just pragmatic “respect” for differences. We have seen clearly what this means when, after the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, they instantly made a deal with China. China accepts the new Afghanistan while the Taliban will ignore what China is doing to Uyghurs – this is, in nuce, the new globalization advocated by Russia.

Compared to what the 'free west' did in Afghanistan, such as stealing over $7 billion of Afghan funds

And the only way to defend what is worth saving in our liberal tradition is to ruthlessly insist on its universality. The moment we apply double standards, we are no less “pragmatic” than Russia.

This sounds awfully like a call for more western chauvinist imperialism


No wonder why The Guardian started to publish him again.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    hexbear
    37
    2 years ago

    And the only way to defend what is worth saving in our liberal tradition is to ruthlessly insist on its universality.

    Zizek calling for and supporting rainbow imperialism. Mega fucking cringe.

    • CyborgMarx [any, any]
      hexbear
      27
      2 years ago

      I love the use of the royal WE, who is this WE and how are these so-called people of WE gonna back up this “ruthless insistence” of universality

      The whole point of liberals is that they don’t do universal insistence of human rights

      • Foolio [any]
        hexbear
        11
        2 years ago

        Exact opposite. Liberalism, at least the Anglo version that dominates the globe, is inherently universalist because its values must be spread around the globe. If liberals don't spread Good Values, then they are letting Evil win!

        • CyborgMarx [any, any]
          hexbear
          15
          2 years ago

          That's just liberal propaganda propagated by idealists of the ruling class, Liberalism as expressed and actualized in the real world has always been selective, conditional, marketized, it can exist comfortably alongside Jim Crow, Apartheid, slavery, fascism, theocracy, even their cheerleading of property rights has never been universal, based more on political convenience and shifting cultural mores

          There is no coherent definition of liberalism that isn't binded to the developing process of capitalism specific to its historical eras, it is the ideology that justifies the continued existence of capitalism and in that justification; universality has to be sacrificed, because liberalism is about managing the workers and glorifying the Capitalists

          • Foolio [any]
            hexbear
            1
            2 years ago

            Well yeah in practice, but they ideology inherently must be universal. Perhaps that's just a legacy of English dissenters, but there's a strong tendency in liberal democracies to ruthlessly chase "sinners" and see that they pay in this life. Except once religion goes away "sinner" simply means "not a liberal".

            • CyborgMarx [any, any]
              hexbear
              2
              2 years ago

              Without practice, it's just worldbuilding, utopian literature masquerading as social convention, but everywhere we look we see how much liberals despise universality both in practice and in theory, watch how they react when you try to treat conservatives (i.e sinners) as they deserve to be treated, suddenly universality of rights are a sign of totalitarianism and uncivil madness, the inherent need in liberalism for submission and collaboration comes to the fore and the skin of universality is shed as if it was never there

              Liberalism is like an angler fish, the light is pretty and hypnotic to idealists who want to believe in a conflict free world without angst, struggle or oppression, but the fish is a monster that will ruthlessly murder any socialist developer that attempt to actually realize those "liberal" utopian ideals

              • Foolio [any]
                hexbear
                1
                edit-2
                2 years ago

                watch how they react when you try to treat conservatives (i.e sinners) as they deserve to be treated

                See you're viewing this like a compassionate socialist who thinks people have dignity. Sinners "deserve" to rot in hell and face the wrath of believers on Earth, so owning the "Red States" who will not repent is part of the program. The people who talk about "compromise" with the right don't want to compromise with the actual fash that's coming - they want moderate, centrist conservatives who are exactly like them but have a Red tie on. Basically, they want Poppy Bush. It's just nostalgia for a simpler time. When they meet actual right wingers, they are appalled, just too weak to be an effective resistance.

                • CyborgMarx [any, any]
                  hexbear
                  1
                  2 years ago

                  You misunderstand I'm not referring to the inhabitants of red states, who liberals believe to be a bunch of removedd troglodytes (another example of universality being shed as a population comes too close to the worker/capital line) I'm talking about capital-C Conservatives, the operators and foot soldiers of the modern fascist movement, Tuckers, Buckleys, Eve Fartlows, Spencers and Karl Roves, McCains and Bushes, liberals aren't disgusted by these people, any liberal opposition to them is performative and immediately shed as soon liberal media/leadership signals these people are to be rehabilitated, anyone still disgusted isn't acting out of liberal concern they're defying liberal programming, they saw the fish face and retreated, eventually some decide to go back and stare at the light and others become radicalized

                  End of the day what liberals want isn't solely nostalgia, it's theater they crave, for everyone to dutifully play their assigned role and ignore behind the curtain that eldritch human meat grinder called capitalism, they want Hollywood and Disneyland and Hamilton, the trick is not to be fooled by the drama they present, cause that angler fish is a good actor

      • Awoo [she/her]
        hexbear
        24
        2 years ago

        I really think China is onto something with their ruthless insistence on non-intervention and respect for sovereignty.

        It seems to me to be the only systemic way to prevent those with ulterior motives from using morality to get support from their population to actually do imperialism.

        The acceptance of different values and the rejection of use of force to spread values needs to become a thing.

  • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
    hexbear
    32
    2 years ago

    Ctl+F Nazi = 0 hits.

    Go to hell you dipshit fake leftist, I'm glad I never bothered to read anything from this pseudo intellectual.

  • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]
    hexbear
    31
    2 years ago

    Alright this is garbage, but I'm still gonna love him for making that dual-wielding hotdogs gif happen

  • DivineChaos100 [none/use name]
    hexbear
    30
    2 years ago

    "The “red line” is not an objective fact: Putin himself is redrawing it all the time, and we contribute to his redrawing with our reactions to Russia’s activities."

    No??? He was pretty fucking consistent about his red lines for decades, this is bullshit.

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]
    hexbear
    27
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    I don’t know Zikek I’m pretty sure it was that Ukrainian artillery barrage on Feb 16th that crossed the unspoken line

    But I guess that’s just been memory-holed

    • ButtBidet [he/him]
      hexbear
      8
      2 years ago

      Gosh I'm sure you're right, but Google is turning up nothing. Can you help me out with some details or a link please.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      hexbear
      5
      2 years ago

      If you want to play tit-for-tat, you can run this back to Russia's annexation of Crimea. Or Ukraine's ousting of a Russian-aligned head of state in a coup. Or western intervention in the region as part of the "Orange Revolution" in 2004. Or whatever.

      But Zizek's main focus being

      a clear demand to open the port for the export of grain, inclusive of sending protective military ships there. It’s not about Ukraine, it’s about the hunger of hundreds of millions in Africa and Asia. Here should the red line be drawn.

      is about as far away from some neoliberalist war-hawkery as you can get while still taking a position opposite Russia in the dispute.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          hexbear
          3
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          Around 60k-100k considered it bad enough to pack their shit and flee. That's peanuts beside the millions displaced from Ukraine overall in the latest conflict, so maybe it proves the Russian invasion of Crimea was right and good.

          But this has nothing to do with Zizek's primary focus - namely, that combat along the coastline should not halt grain shipments to East Africa and the Saudi Peninsula, particularly in light of the ongoing bad harvests and famines.

  • JohnBrownsBussy [he/him]
    hexbear
    21
    2 years ago

    Zizek is a lib. He's happy enough to borrow Marxist analytical frameworks for his work and pal around with left-wingers, but whenever he's asked to make policy prescriptions it's always lib shit.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      hexbear
      14
      2 years ago

      Zizek is a lib.

      :zizek:

      You can recognize that Western capital has nefarious intentions for Ukraine without condoning a full military invasion of Iraq Ukraine. Zizek's only getting re-printed in The Guardian because his take can be spun as "pro-Western". In the same way that Chompsky can churn out 10,000 lines about the deprecation of the imperial core and be ignored, but he's got the spotlight as soon as he says "I'm voting for Joe Biden", the sudden elevation of Zizek in a mainstream journal is extremely sus in the timing.

      But Putin's Russia is no less :LIB: than Biden's America. This invasion is very much a power play by a rival imperial faction, not some kind of Cuban-style extension of Mutual Aid to a regional ally. The decision to invade is going to extend the schism between Eastern and Western Eur-Asian states for another generation (at least), further entrenching the oligarchs within their fortresses of nationalist bigotry. Zizek has this all dead to rights.

      What's more...

      So instead of perceiving ourselves as a group which just reacts to Putin as an impenetrable evil genius, we should turn the gaze back at ourselves: what do we – the “free west” – want in this affair?

      This is a critical leftist critique of any foreign policy. We cannot forever be reactionary in our response to foreign leaders. And this reactionary sentiment is at the heart of Zizek's article.

      Medvedev predicts that, because of the war in Ukraine, “in some states, hunger may occur due to the food crisis” – a statement of breathtaking cynicism. As of May 2022, about 25m metric tons of grain are slowly rotting in Odesa, on ships or in silos, since the port is blocked by the Russian navy. “The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that millions of people are ‘marching towards starvation’ unless ports in southern Ukraine which have been closed because of the war, are reopened,” Newsweek reports. Europe now promises to help Ukraine transport the grain by railway and truck – but this is clearly not enough. A step more is needed: a clear demand to open the port for the export of grain, inclusive of sending protective military ships there. It’s not about Ukraine, it’s about the hunger of hundreds of millions in Africa and Asia. Here should the red line be drawn.

      This is a GOOD FOREIGN POLICY and I am overjoyed to see the real threat to the region - starvation inflicted by trade sanction and embargo - as the focus of Zizek's concerns. Not some nebulous concept of liberty or sovereignty, but the real material conditions of people who rely on Ukrainian food stocks to survive.

      If keeping people fed was the highest priority of every liberal, they wouldn't have such a shit reputation.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          hexbear
          4
          2 years ago

          he is essentially assuming that people supporting Russia either believe Putin or are being simply contrarian to the western narrative

          Replace "western" with "Biden's" and I think its closer to the mark. But yes, lots of people - particularly American conservatives - are doing exactly that.

          Putin doesn’t give a shit about ethnic Russians in contested territories, he just wants those territories. The fact remains that he is helping them

          Maybe in the same way the US "helped" the Kurds in northern Iraq. But as a consequence, he's destabilized the supply of grain to the Middle East and East Africa - regions that are already experiencing famine. His incidental (military) aid to the Donbas region is going to kill who even knows how many by way of collateral damage.

          Hence Zizek's proposed "red line" fixating on getting food out of Ukrainian silos and into bellies.

          No western policymaker is going to prioritize this over the tug-of-war with Russia on Ukrainian real estate. But this sentiment is ultimately what separates a guy like Zizek from actual liberals. His focus is on saving lives. Theirs is on some ideological pursuit of territorial indoctrination.

            • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
              hexbear
              5
              2 years ago

              My problem is that, being generous, he has completely lost the plot because of the excessively narrow framing

              I believe he's focused on a bigger picture, namely the famine inflicted on the region due to the conflict.

              And, as a guy living in the West with a Western audience, he is advocating for a materialist foreign policy that preserves human life first and foremost.

                • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
                  hexbear
                  5
                  2 years ago

                  but adding a handful of valid concerns to the analysis does not make it totalizing

                  The Zizek view is simply that territorial control is incidental to preservation of human life. And he's critical of the Russian policy towards Ukraine because it deviates from that view. However, he insists that just because Putin's ground troops are causing undo suffering, doesn't mean Western states are justified in piling on.

                  So he advocates for a foreign policy fixated on releasing grain reserves in the midst of a famine. This is the "red line" he insists western states should be drawing, rather than some arbitrary question of regional control. And shifting the conversation to preservation of human life on a continental scale, rather than fighting over a land in the sand at some international border is good, whether or not you're apologizing for Ukrainian fascists or Russian nationalists.

                  There are still voices that, as far as I can tell, he is completely discounting, like the part about ethnic Russians not wanting to get shelled. That seems kind of important for preserving human life.

                  I haven't seen anything over the last two months that lead me to believe the amount of shells dropping on the heads of ethnic Russians has gone down. I have only seen the number of shells dropped on ethnic Ukrainians go up.

  • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
    hexbear
    21
    2 years ago

    I mean, I guess if he also thinks that like, U.S. approval of the war in Iraq is based in the 'individualistic spirit' or something. I think there is something deeper that is usually going on here. Like, so many people from this region, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Solvenia, Solvakia, Finland, etc, were basically unaware or underestimated the scale and tragedy of the low grade civil war since 2015 for so long that now that it has escalated to large scale military actions, they simply reject that it was even happening, in order to paint Russia as an entity who is evil beyond physical comprehension. So much so we must talk about the metaphysics or appeal to long dead authors in order to get a grounding on the situation. No room for materialism here folks.

    There is a level of denial here that is very American, maybe that just make it human,

  • bayezid [any]
    hexbear
    21
    2 years ago

    You're all are forgetting is that zizek is a troll.

    Dude reviewed the matrix 4 and said it's a film not worth seeing, which is why he didn't watch it before reviewing it.

  • DJMSilver [he/him]
    hexbear
    19
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Zizek was always a hack that just read more than the average pseud. The moment he doesnt have Lacan or Badiou to fall back on he just becomes your typical fascist.

    • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
      hexbear
      16
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      "Leftist sounding argument" can be bad too [insert random example from 200 years ago or something].