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> many Western academic fields were largely infested with ideological leftists. (And to a great extent they still are.) Sounds like we're edging into an old Co
by forapurpose 9y ago
> many Western academic fields were largely infested with ideological leftists. (And to a great extent they still are.)
Sounds like we're edging into an old Cold War ideological fight, attributing things to characterizations rather than addressing the ideas.
How does the parent post explain the CIA and Henry Kissinger's 'Detente'?
EDIT: minor edit, more edit
- philwelch 9y agoI was referring more to the “many in the West who supported the Soviets as the future of humanity”, which was very much an ideological question. Detente was a short-lived policy of the Nixon years. By the early 1980’s, US foreign policy pivoted more strongly to a consistent anti-Soviet stance, consistent with the neoliberal revolution in economics that predicted the failure of central economic planning and invalidated countless Nixon-era policies both on the domestic and foreign levels. It may have been a surprise to the West just how much of a house of cards the Soviet bloc was, but it was probably also a surprise to Gorbechev that the Soviet system couldn’t survive his attempts at reform. The far more optimistic notions about the USSR had their heyday during WWII, when their rapid industrialization and valiant defense against Hitler won them considerable respect, and the “enemy of my enemy” situation shielded them from the now-obvious criticisms of Stalinism.