The very notion that examinations of national character (national culture, really) is "racist" is one of the most sickening notions that has warped out of the anti-racism of the 1960's. In inventing the most un-progressive notion of Identity Politics (essentially ethnic nationalism of one sort or another, and automatically a precursor to some sort of fascism, thus) the Left in the 1960's opened the barn door for this kettle of worms.
Nowadays, rightwing nationalists probably scream racism as much as leftwingers do. If anyone criticizes their crappy and reactionary culture (note the long Left tradition of cultural critique here), the Right, and increasingly, even the Insane Left, screams racism.
This is sad more than anything else.
Every single progressive achievement in the history of mankind has come about through often-ferocious critique of existing reactionary culture. As soon as we mark off every culture, no matter how stupid, insane, backwards, reactionary or horrible, as equally valuable (another mad Left endeavor - the equality of all cultures), we've basically wiped out any chance to change that culture.
In this way the Left has actually jumped into bed with the worst of the cultural conservatives and reactionaries.
I don't really see much hope for change in any of this as long as the Left continues on this idiot phobia about "racism". Culture isn't race. Culture is culture, and it's mutable, often in a brief period of time, as the Maoists showed us. There's nothing essential or biological about culture.
Here at Robert Lindsay, we love to bash any old culture we feel like bashing. In this case, we are taking on the Russians. It's not really a bash - it's more an explication, but the cultural fetishists and Russian nationalists may well take umbrage.
We already looked at the Russian character in a previous post.
Let's expand on this a bit by looking at National Bolsheviks. Now, these guys, and other Third Positionists and "let's move beyond Right and Left" folks, do come around to the blog from time to time. I'm all ears, but everyone like this is pushing some kind of racism, usually some kind of White nationalism.
They are socialists, I'll grant em that, and US White nationalism is so useless and harmless, I'm almost tempted to ally with most any socialist out there, even these guys.
But let's take a look at the National Bolshevik Party in Russia. I read their platform, and I just cannot support them. They are absurdly anti-Semitic, they support the horrible war in Chechnya (!) and they apparently believe that Russia should conquer all of Europe and incorporate it into Russia.
This is actually an old Russian nationalist dream that goes back to 1850 or so - it has a pretty complicated philosophy behind it. Reader James Hajduk refers to it as "Russian messianism".
It has to do with the rivalry and even hatred that Russians feel towards the West. This refers to the conflict with Orthodoxy vs Roman Christianity, and contempt for Western science (recall that Dostoevsky wished to do away with mathematics because it came from the West), materialism, shallowness, violence and inequality.
You can see this loud and clear in both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky - Tolstoy rejects almost everything but spirituality. There is a strain of asceticism, contempt for materialism and the pleasures of the flesh, and a strong spirituality running through it. The West may be wealthier but the Russian is more pure, more connected to the Earth, more spiritual and especially he has suffered more.
There is a rejection of the Western tradition that knowledge can be gained through the senses. Similar to the early Gnostics, these Russians felt that the body and the senses were corrupt, tainted and liable to distortion, and hence could not be trusted to reveal the truth.
What could reveal the truth? Only spirituality in the form of Orthodox Christianity. This contempt for the body and the pleasures of this Earth led some leading thinkers such as Tolstoy to even reject sex. This never caught on with Russian peasants, who merely rejected marriage while embracing sex with gusto.
All of these things, especially the suffering, combine to make Russia superior to the West. Therefore Europe needs to be conquered and put under Russian rule to cure the West of its evil. In a way, I think Stalin may have been trying to do this in Eastern Europe.
All of these strains of Russian character were actually present in the USSR too, but most don't realize it. In fact, in order to understand Bolshevism, one must first understand the Russian character. There is also a strong "rejection of everything" and near-nihilism or outright nihilism to this type of thought.
This strain of thinking was very popular in a group of Russian thinkers in the 1850's known as Slavophiles. Some of these intellectuals, known as narodniks, went out to peasant villages to live with the peasants, but were unfortunately rejected by the peasants. There was a big conflict during this time between the Slavophiles and another group called Westernizers.
"Russia" is a complex concept. European, Asian, Roman (Moscow as the Third Rome), Orthodox Christian, atheist and nihilist elements all blend, and different Russians stress different elements. Often, they stress mutually contradictory elements at the same time, such that we see such peculiarities as the Orthodox atheist, the spiritual nihilist, etc.
The Soviet Union, despite the difference in ideology from Tsarist Russia, often pursued similar geopolitical goals.
Notes
1. I incorporated some of my email conversation with perceptive reader James Hajduk in writing this post.Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
