5 ms·

I grew up in communist Yugoslavia, and it is obvious both to you and me where this is leading to. You get downvotes from people who were sold a lie.

inglor_cz 6y ago
Zdravo, brate. We the former Eastern Europeans feel like Cassandras these days.
the_why_of_y 6y ago
Is your argument that the ethnic conflict and genocide in several former Yugoslav republics in the 1990s was caused by an education system indoctrinating people with anti-racist attitudes? I didn't grow up in Yugoslavia, so please elaborate a bit how that worked, because I don't understand.
- drno123 6y ago
  Not anti-racist but anti-capitalist. In Yugoslavia no one could own a business that employs more than 8 people, so all bigger companies were owned by the government, because anti-capitalist. As a result, management of all but micro business was selected not based on ones success and merit, but based on political connections, and in addition to that, there was no competition. The products mostly sucked and companies were performing badly. The economy was mostly surviving on international loans, and when this stopped, as a result, we had enormous inflation in the mid and late 80s. Food became scarce, I remember one time when you could buy only 1kg of sugar per household. Electricity was also scarce and there were periodic blackouts. Under such economic conditions, all it took is few “charismatic” sociopaths to start two bloody wars (the first one being in Croatia and Bosnia between 1991-1995 and the second one in Kosovo 1998-1999). Again, anti-racism has nothing to do with it, and I am appaled at how you have tried to mark me as a racist.
  - the_why_of_y 6y ago
    Thanks for your answer, which I've upvoted. I'm sorry that I caused you offense - I don't know much about Yugoslavia, so I couldn't parse your comment as referring to anything else but the wars of the 1990s, so I couldn't get your point in the context of an article concerned primarily with anti-racism.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Poland in the 1980s was fairly similar, including drowning in national debt, devaluation of the Zloty and omnipresent shortages of food and clothing. Without black market, nothing would be available. (I grew up close to the Polish border and we had a lot of visiting Polish workers in my city, so I had the information first hand. I can still speak and read some Polish even 30 year later.) Unlike Yugoslavia, Poland was ethnically homogeneous at that time and did not disintegrate in an orgy of violence, but the living standards were nothing short of appalling.
  - Dracophoenix 6y ago
    Didn't Slovenia have a looser grip on economic activities and private ownership than the other republics?
- mhuffman 6y ago
  >Is your argument that the ethnic conflict and genocide in several former Yugoslav republics in the 1990s was caused by an education system indoctrinating people with anti-racist attitudes? It didn't start off that way. They never do. They start off, almost always, as "fighting for the underdog or oppressed". After time, that goes "viral" and gets lots of broad support from the people as it is very reasonable and eventually becomes the main, acceptable, opinion of society (this is where we are getting now with various "wokenesses" and "hatenesses"). After that, other opinions and points of view are added to the original positions. Then, dissidents to any of those points of view are ostracized, and eventually it becomes illegal or quasi-illegal to hold different opinions or say certain things or act certain ways. In fact, people that do are considered "enemies of the state" or just "enemies". And it goes downhill from there. This is how you can go from a worker's support group, or a minority protection group, and eventually turn into people getting their heads cut off for political reasons, put in to work camps, or straight up tortured or burned to death in the streets. It really doesn't make any sense how it goes from something so reasonable to something so unreasonable, but it has happened over, and over again in nearly every part of the world. South America, Europe, Africa, Asia. And it almost always happens the same way. And there are signs of it are happening here. That is what they are eluding to. And the worst part is that once it gets going, it doesn't take long.
- padastra 6y ago
  My parents grew up during the Cultural Revolution. I'm slightly modifying some terminology so the parallels become more clear (original terminology was in Mandarin anyways, so...): It started off as pro-equality and for the people. Then, any evidence that you are outperforming others in a "capitalist" way became evidence that you are anti-equality and therefore against the people. This quickly devolved into merit not being determined by a willingness to pay (the cornerstone of economics) to merit being determined by virtue-signaling and connections (the cornerstone of politics). As many other posters have mentioned, this is a poor way to judge merit and soon beliefs come up against reality. When this happens reality always wins and things that become dependent on higher-productivity (in modern society, this is almost all things) collapse. I see a lot of parallels. For the left, the structures of capitalism and racism are intertwined. In this article, the author gives examples of how being a white male and doing well is itself evidence of soft-racism. These parents are noticing that in corporate boards, medical schools, law schools, elite colleges across the country, merit is determined not by accomplishments but by virtue-signaling (note: this is not the same as Affirmative Action; one is boosting entrance rates for Blacks, American Indians, and Latinos/Latinas, the other is saying "only this type of White person who has acknowledged that racism/capitalism is inherent to their accomplishments is allowed"). Assuming these beliefs come to dominate American power structures in the next 20 years (more than in the past 20), I am quite worried. Some structural anti-racism might be a net good. Heck, America has a lot of room to move to the left and a bit more equality may also be a net good -- McCarthyism was much more extreme in the other direction, after all. But historically, this cult-like faith-based groupthink where dissension and alternate beliefs are seen as evil has not turned out well; reality always wins over beliefs.
  - legacynl 6y ago
    There are some pretty big and critical differences you're glossing over. - The forcing of ideals in Yugoslavia was done 'top-down', by people with power, not bottoms-up. - Citizens have no authority over others. - The United States is a democracy, with separation of political powers. I hope you understand that this makes the comparison to Yugoslavia nonsensical.
    - 6y ago

inglor_cz 6y ago

Zdravo, brate. We the former Eastern Europeans feel like Cassandras these days.

the_why_of_y 6y ago

Is your argument that the ethnic conflict and genocide in several former Yugoslav republics in the 1990s was caused by an education system indoctrinating people with anti-racist attitudes? I didn't grow up in Yugoslavia, so please elaborate a bit how that worked, because I don't understand.

drno123 6y ago
Not anti-racist but anti-capitalist. In Yugoslavia no one could own a business that employs more than 8 people, so all bigger companies were owned by the government, because anti-capitalist. As a result, management of all but micro business was selected not based on ones success and merit, but based on political connections, and in addition to that, there was no competition. The products mostly sucked and companies were performing badly. The economy was mostly surviving on international loans, and when this stopped, as a result, we had enormous inflation in the mid and late 80s. Food became scarce, I remember one time when you could buy only 1kg of sugar per household. Electricity was also scarce and there were periodic blackouts. Under such economic conditions, all it took is few “charismatic” sociopaths to start two bloody wars (the first one being in Croatia and Bosnia between 1991-1995 and the second one in Kosovo 1998-1999). Again, anti-racism has nothing to do with it, and I am appaled at how you have tried to mark me as a racist.
- the_why_of_y 6y ago
  Thanks for your answer, which I've upvoted. I'm sorry that I caused you offense - I don't know much about Yugoslavia, so I couldn't parse your comment as referring to anything else but the wars of the 1990s, so I couldn't get your point in the context of an article concerned primarily with anti-racism.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Poland in the 1980s was fairly similar, including drowning in national debt, devaluation of the Zloty and omnipresent shortages of food and clothing. Without black market, nothing would be available. (I grew up close to the Polish border and we had a lot of visiting Polish workers in my city, so I had the information first hand. I can still speak and read some Polish even 30 year later.) Unlike Yugoslavia, Poland was ethnically homogeneous at that time and did not disintegrate in an orgy of violence, but the living standards were nothing short of appalling.
- Dracophoenix 6y ago
  Didn't Slovenia have a looser grip on economic activities and private ownership than the other republics?
mhuffman 6y ago
>Is your argument that the ethnic conflict and genocide in several former Yugoslav republics in the 1990s was caused by an education system indoctrinating people with anti-racist attitudes? It didn't start off that way. They never do. They start off, almost always, as "fighting for the underdog or oppressed". After time, that goes "viral" and gets lots of broad support from the people as it is very reasonable and eventually becomes the main, acceptable, opinion of society (this is where we are getting now with various "wokenesses" and "hatenesses"). After that, other opinions and points of view are added to the original positions. Then, dissidents to any of those points of view are ostracized, and eventually it becomes illegal or quasi-illegal to hold different opinions or say certain things or act certain ways. In fact, people that do are considered "enemies of the state" or just "enemies". And it goes downhill from there. This is how you can go from a worker's support group, or a minority protection group, and eventually turn into people getting their heads cut off for political reasons, put in to work camps, or straight up tortured or burned to death in the streets. It really doesn't make any sense how it goes from something so reasonable to something so unreasonable, but it has happened over, and over again in nearly every part of the world. South America, Europe, Africa, Asia. And it almost always happens the same way. And there are signs of it are happening here. That is what they are eluding to. And the worst part is that once it gets going, it doesn't take long.
padastra 6y ago
My parents grew up during the Cultural Revolution. I'm slightly modifying some terminology so the parallels become more clear (original terminology was in Mandarin anyways, so...): It started off as pro-equality and for the people. Then, any evidence that you are outperforming others in a "capitalist" way became evidence that you are anti-equality and therefore against the people. This quickly devolved into merit not being determined by a willingness to pay (the cornerstone of economics) to merit being determined by virtue-signaling and connections (the cornerstone of politics). As many other posters have mentioned, this is a poor way to judge merit and soon beliefs come up against reality. When this happens reality always wins and things that become dependent on higher-productivity (in modern society, this is almost all things) collapse. I see a lot of parallels. For the left, the structures of capitalism and racism are intertwined. In this article, the author gives examples of how being a white male and doing well is itself evidence of soft-racism. These parents are noticing that in corporate boards, medical schools, law schools, elite colleges across the country, merit is determined not by accomplishments but by virtue-signaling (note: this is not the same as Affirmative Action; one is boosting entrance rates for Blacks, American Indians, and Latinos/Latinas, the other is saying "only this type of White person who has acknowledged that racism/capitalism is inherent to their accomplishments is allowed"). Assuming these beliefs come to dominate American power structures in the next 20 years (more than in the past 20), I am quite worried. Some structural anti-racism might be a net good. Heck, America has a lot of room to move to the left and a bit more equality may also be a net good -- McCarthyism was much more extreme in the other direction, after all. But historically, this cult-like faith-based groupthink where dissension and alternate beliefs are seen as evil has not turned out well; reality always wins over beliefs.
- legacynl 6y ago
  There are some pretty big and critical differences you're glossing over. - The forcing of ideals in Yugoslavia was done 'top-down', by people with power, not bottoms-up. - Citizens have no authority over others. - The United States is a democracy, with separation of political powers. I hope you understand that this makes the comparison to Yugoslavia nonsensical.
  - 6y ago