12 ms·

Information Sovereignty

60 points by prostoalex 5y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
The rest of the Western world (yes Russia should be counted as part of it) seems to have become obsessed with the evils of Russia ever since the Russian Revolution, probably because it's a threat to the capitalist system dominating elsewhere. But the structure of Russian power has been oppressive since long before then, even when the espoused ideology was different.
- blfr 5y ago
  Russian power has been oppressive since long before communism but it was communists who managed to turn that oppression into full fledged genocide machine killing 20 million people in USSR alone with further tens of millions going though the Gulag system of slave labour (quite deadly as well). It was absolutely unparalleled in the Western world and only matched (also by communists) in China. Communism is a threat to humanity itself, not just capitalism.
  - trasz 5y ago
    You’re not aware of what US have been doing to natives, and then slaves, I guess? US still maintains its own Gulag, with the world’s highest incarceration ratio, and also uses it as slave labor.
    - blfr 5y ago
      Communists didn't invent genocides, prisons, concentration camp, slavery, or forced labour. But they do hold the world record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
      - trasz 5y ago
        Because it’s not fashionable to count victims of the US. Otherwise you would be able to find a book on that, right?
        blfr 5y ago
        Quite the opposite. It's extremely fashionable nowadays. There are countless books on slavery, Indian genocide, and related subjects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project However, American imperialism simply doesn't hold a candle to Russian or Chinese communism. When it comes to genocide or other mass atrocities, communists are usually in a league of their own.
        trasz 5y ago
        This is only about slavery - and even that doesn’t count the modern American Gulag of private prisons, or victims of American wars. Also, you’re repeating over and over the “doesn’t hold a candle”, but you failed to quote any numbers.
        blfr 5y ago
        I assumed you would know since you're interested in the subject. In general, the whole colonization of the west was a fairly understaffed affair. For example, the French and Indian War involved well under 100 thousand combatants, maybe even just 50 thousand. At the same time, during the Seven Years' War in Europe over a million people were mobilized. In multiple battles Europeans took about as many casualties as the North American theatre had participants.
        trasz 5y ago
        War in Iraq alone is about one million deaths. And given that you’re counting deaths of famine as victims of communism, you’d have to add victims of American sanctions around the world, as well as victims of American lack of welfare. You still hadn’t quoted any numbers.
lowbloodsugar 5y ago
>The policy logic does not stem from a coherent set of ideological precepts that require censorship and control to protect them, but the other way round: you want to impose control and censorship, so you invent a sort of ideology in order to justify it. Obviously, only those evil Russians do this. edit: doh! sarcasm! I forgot about Poe's law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- justicezyx 5y ago
  I find this particularly naive. There are lots of reasons why Russia becomes this since the collapse of USSR. If, imagine, somehow the privatization worked out wonderfully, every Russian is as happy as as their counterparts in US, UK etc. (In fact, that would not be sufficient...) Do you still think Russia would do this? If you think they still would do this, then it must be the free will of the country? Now given what's happening, should this be treated as a natural reaction to the fact that learning from a foreign system is not working, and the nation are trying something else? Remember, when you claim someone else is inventing certain ideology, that means there is a concept of ideology. The moment this concept is created, it naturally applies to the accuser, I.e., someone else inventing a different ideology than the accuser. Then, it's obvious that the foreign ideology was regarded by the ruling group as not suitable.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bobthechef 5y ago
  Right. Not like Americans do this... Taken further: if some people can't get what they want because legitimate moral obstacles get in the way, then they rationalize their desires in an attempt to give them a patina of legitimacy. However, that desire already functions as a summum bonum. So there's the real religion behind the scenes and then there's the public facing ideological curtain that conceals it.
pphysch 5y ago
The author of this blog post, Peter Pomerantsev, is a NATO-aligned professional propagandist, so it is hardly surprising that he finds the concept of Russian "information sovereignty" appalling. It's analogous to a Mongol invader finding the concept of "territorial sovereignty" in the Great Wall of China appalling. Insert `garfield_i_wonder_who_thats_for.jpeg`.
- flipbrad 5y ago
  Please could you clarify - what does he stand to gain here? In your Mongol analogy, motive is clear. Here, not so much.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    Sure. Information sovereignty was pioneered on a national scale by China's Great Firewall, upon which Bill Clinton famously commented, “There’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet. Good luck! That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.” A Russian GFW would make Pomerantsev's job--spreading anti-Kremlin disinformation to benefit NATO's geopolitical goals in the region--very very difficult. He would have to work harder for fewer results. Like the Mongol raider, this is bad for his job security and quality of life.
    - tialaramex 5y ago
      > "That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall" More so every day. It's amusing that US pundits appear to have believed Clinton was dead wrong about this just a few years ago. The analogy is apt, the Jell-O may seem initially to have been successfully fastened in place for now, and then you are distracted for a moment and it's slipped to the floor again.
    - elefanten 5y ago
      You seem to overestimate the effectiveness of national firewalls. Sure, they'll squash you like a bug if you start saying the wrong things publicly, but China hasn't exactly succeeded with keeping ideas and information out of the country. These aspiring totalitarian systems are quite porous.
Hokusai 5y ago
> Traditional Russian ... values are under active attack from the USA and its allies, as well as from transnational corporations and foreign NGOs,’ ... It defines ‘Russian values’ as ‘life, dignity, rights, freedoms’ as well as ‘high ethical ideals, a strong family, prioritising the spiritual over the material, humanism, kindness, justice, collectivism and patriotism’. I cannot disagree with much of what is said here (even that I guess that strong family is just a short hand for anti-gay, so maybe I am missing other 'eufemismes'). But, to reduce corruption would be the first step. As 'prioritising the spiritual over the material' is not compatible with corruption. Life, freedom and dignity are not compatible either with executing journalists and opositors. I can understand the will for information sovereignty. But it just seems an excuse to avoid international accountability. Facebook is not cited in the article, I guess that USA corporations are not so bad if they are willing to share data with the Russian government.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  > even that I guess that strong family is just a short hand for anti-gay, so maybe I am missing other 'eufemismes' Pro-family is anti-LGBT only incidentally as a conceptual consequence. It is not as if pro-family was some invention confected just to stick it to the gays. According to natural law theory, the family (traditionally understood) is the basic unit of society, the rest of society and the human race functioning as the extended family ("natural" here means entailed by human nature; we can do all sorts of unnatural things, but they are harmful to us and do not help us in genuinely flourishing as human beings as conformity with nature does). The only reason something like "pro-family" has become a term is because the natural family has become the target of ideological attack.
  - trasz 5y ago
    “Pro-family” is an euphemism used pretty exclusively by religious extremists to condone homophobia. Well, sometimes also to draw attention away from the fact their role models are child rapists. If anything, the anti-LGBT actions are against the family: their only purpose is to make life harder for LGBT families.
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
failwhaleshark 5y ago
Russia is just one example of a "turning inwards" Dark Ages. China tried walling themselves off from the world and xenophobia for 2000 years, but they lost the technological advantage. If anyone believes they can "go it alone," then they should look at North Korea.
Kenji 5y ago
> There is, however, a catch. A system based on cynicism and paranoia means people end up distrusting everything. The Kremlin has, by most accounts, produced a decent vaccine for the coronavirus. But the government can’t persuade the Russian people that they need to take it. People fear they are being used as guinea pigs, that there’s something dishonest going on. In the same week the National Security Strategy came out, new figures (though it’s hard to trust the figures) showed Covid-19 rates rising horribly throughout the country. Only 13 per cent are vaccinated, despite Putin’s claim that the Sputnik V is ‘just as reliable as Kalashnikov assault rifles’. Maybe if they stop treating everyone like idiot toddlers and come up with real, honest justifications for why e.g. a 25 year old should take the Covid vaccine even though death by Covid at that age is as likely as being struck by a lightning. For young people, the vaccine may be substantially more dangerous than the virus. People aren't stupid, you know? We can read academic papers, we can see numbers, we can calculate. Average age of Covid death: 80+, usually with one or multiple severe comorbidities like cancer. How fucking stupid do you think we are? Do you think you can control us with fear?
slg 5y ago
You could write a very similar article from the Russian perspective looking at the West. Just like you can dismiss the Russian ideologies of collectivism as a retroactive justification for authoritarian control, you could argue that the West's ideology of freedom is a retroactive justification for oligarchy of the affluent. Even going back to the colonial days "freedom" meant freedom for white protestant land-owning men so was it ever really about freedom? I'm not sure either side of that argument is completely right or completely wrong.
- pphysch 5y ago
  It's actually not even an ideological or moral issue. Modern Russia is not particularly collectivist; influences of liberalism and Christianity are strong, if not stronger than the Communist collectivism of Soviet times. It's purely an issue of sovereignty. For NATO/Washington, it does not matter how a country is run as long as it is run with significant influence from Western interests. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that brutally limits freedoms and butchers dissidents, yet it gets to be in the "democracy" club, because it does not attempt to defend its sovereignty (i.e. it lets Washington build military bases and control private industry on Saudi soil). Russia, Syria, et al. are democracies, yet are in the "authoritarian" club because they do attempt to defend their sovereignty.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    Syria defends their democracy by bombing the opposition voters though
    - pphysch 5y ago
      ...according to the "democracy" club. Syria in the last decade has been the target of one of the most ambitious disinformation campaigns involving NATO governments and media (including Reuters, BBC, Bellingcat)[1], so I would exercise extreme scrutiny with regards to these claims. [1] - https://telegra.ph/OP-HMG-Trojan-Horse-Part-4-Undermining-Russia-I-02-04 https://telegra.ph/OP-HMG-Trojan-Horse-Part-4-Undermining-Ru...
bobthechef 5y ago
I don't much like talk of "values" because it reinforces the fact-value dichotomy, which is not a real dichotomy. That is, it reinforces the erroneous notion that there's this value-free reality and that we can superimpose value however we see fit like some existentialist. In politics, it therefore becomes the imposition of values promoted by the strong, even if they don't believe them themselves but only wish others do because it leads to behavior that serves them (which is already a view of what is valuable). But you can't invent value and if you could it would be an absurdly meaningless and futile excersize. Value is factual. Thus, what we have are disagreements about is what is valuable, and in this case, within the domain of politics. Below, I'll use the author's choice of words for convenience. This analysis distinguishes between universal and local values. The author accuses the Russian gov't of essentially engaging in bad faith promotion of "local values" that are rationalized to get it what it wants. But this can mean one of three things, I think. Either all values are local inventions, in which case there is no basis for attacking Russia on the basis of manufacturing self-serving values because after all, everyone is doing it and no universal values exist. Or Russia is merely disagreeing with the West today about what truly are universal values by ostensibly appealing to a traditionally Russian understanding of what is valuable. Or Russia is rationalizing actions under the guise of traditional values. To reconcile the second point with the idea of "playing by foreign rules", it suffices to note that overlap between the stated values and the stated values in the West. By framing things as Russian, they are reclaiming their authority to decide what is valuable instead of subjecting themselves to the authority of the West. But this doesn't entail localism. It could just as well mean that Russia will project moral authority of its own and propose its views as universal. Russia is more ambitious I think than just a country that wants to be left alone with its own views. I think they want the Russian view to spread around the world like the US does. Unless of course they believe in a kind of Talmudic division between Russian and non-Russian, Russian values for Russians, something else for the goyim.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Barrin92 5y ago
> Russia needs ‘information sovereignty’: a de facto Firewall. But to justify it, you need an ideology Pretty much the core point of the piece but I'm not sure this is true. China of course has a national ideology "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and countless of phrases but often you also hear the straightforward argument that informational sovereignty is necessary for security, economic development and territorial integrity. An even stronger example is probably Singapore. A very tightly managed society, but completely depoliticized with almost no ideology to speak of, Gibson famously called it "Disneyland with the death penalty" in his piece that got Wired banned from the country. Traditionalists and other factions I think try to capitalize on the security state and to co-opt or capture it but I don't think the state is necessarily in control or happy about these movements.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  > A very tightly managed society, but completely depoliticized with almost no ideology to speak of Where did you get the impression that Singapore is completely depoliticized? Take a look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew and see the struggle of Lee family's rise to power. And the economy power controlled by the family https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ching https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ching Human together is politics. You cannot depoliticize unless everyone lives in complete isolation.
- TurkishPoptart 5y ago
  I wrote a rather lengthy thesis on Russian data localization and how it plays a role in the country's information security doctrine.[1] The push for data localization in Russia was a response to the domination of Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (the latter is blocked). The ideology here is state sovereignty; he who holds the data, has control. Pomerantsev is correct to say that Russia just doesn't want to play by foreign rules. Data localization has the added effect of bolstering the IT industry as a whole in Russia and spurring data center construction, even in Siberia, where cooling isn't much of a concern. The legal effect is to maintain a database of Russian citizens' online activity on these western platforms in case the FSB wants to build a case against a dissident or suspected criminal. Meanwhile you see since roughly 2008 a more ideologically hostile and "civilizational" discourse in Putin's speeches, those of his ultra-nationalist wing, and in some of their publications (look into Izborsky Club, and the writings of Alexander Prokhanov and Dugin). The Russian military doctrine and information security doctrines were later updated to prioritize shielding or protecting its populace from certain discourse and ideas (pro-LGBTQ, pro-democracy NGOs) and favoring a "patriotic" information sphere to uphold "spiritual and religious values". So the ideological basis for this information security policy is to bolster the "Russian world/Russkiy Mir," an imagined community of individuals beyond Russia's borders, including former Soviet sphere citizens and ethnic Russians abroad. And of course the utility in silencing the propagation of certain ideas and viewpoints is to minimize protests (the most destabilizing of which was likely Bolotnaya in 2011). So this ideology doesn't stop them from prohibiting or banning groups and discussion about Russia's biggest problem: corruption. The concerning point for me as an American is that in the past two-ish years we've seen our social media companies turn more draconian with the censorship and cooperation with our intelligence agencies, especially since Jan 6th and what the Biden administration is calling "misinformation". The U.S. was the survivor of the Cold War for many reasons, but the most compelling of which was that America represented a far more moral, humanitarian, and tolerant society, especially compared to the unfree, amoral, and atheist superpower. I'm getting off topic here, but I think you can see what I'm getting at. Ideology matters, just as much as ideological consistency does. [1]: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/42126 https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773...
NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
> high ethical ideals, a strong family, prioritising the spiritual over the material, humanism, kindness, justice, collectivism and patriotism’. It is interesting how in Slavic countries where corruption is on high rise government peddling same propaganda (my origin is Slavic country so I know) "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". I am not saying that western countries are any better, just saying that they can be recognized by the narrative of those at the top, which is always very similar. While they hoard majority of wealth they will use propaganda of spiritual over the material, humanism, kindness, justice, and especially patriotism...

60 points by prostoalex 5y ago

The rest of the Western world (yes Russia should be counted as part of it) seems to have become obsessed with the evils of Russia ever since the Russian Revolution, probably because it's a threat to the capitalist system dominating elsewhere. But the structure of Russian power has been oppressive since long before then, even when the espoused ideology was different.

blfr 5y ago
Russian power has been oppressive since long before communism but it was communists who managed to turn that oppression into full fledged genocide machine killing 20 million people in USSR alone with further tens of millions going though the Gulag system of slave labour (quite deadly as well). It was absolutely unparalleled in the Western world and only matched (also by communists) in China. Communism is a threat to humanity itself, not just capitalism.
- trasz 5y ago
  You’re not aware of what US have been doing to natives, and then slaves, I guess? US still maintains its own Gulag, with the world’s highest incarceration ratio, and also uses it as slave labor.
  - blfr 5y ago
    Communists didn't invent genocides, prisons, concentration camp, slavery, or forced labour. But they do hold the world record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
    - trasz 5y ago
      Because it’s not fashionable to count victims of the US. Otherwise you would be able to find a book on that, right?
      - blfr 5y ago
        Quite the opposite. It's extremely fashionable nowadays. There are countless books on slavery, Indian genocide, and related subjects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project However, American imperialism simply doesn't hold a candle to Russian or Chinese communism. When it comes to genocide or other mass atrocities, communists are usually in a league of their own.
        trasz 5y ago
        This is only about slavery - and even that doesn’t count the modern American Gulag of private prisons, or victims of American wars. Also, you’re repeating over and over the “doesn’t hold a candle”, but you failed to quote any numbers.
        blfr 5y ago
        I assumed you would know since you're interested in the subject. In general, the whole colonization of the west was a fairly understaffed affair. For example, the French and Indian War involved well under 100 thousand combatants, maybe even just 50 thousand. At the same time, during the Seven Years' War in Europe over a million people were mobilized. In multiple battles Europeans took about as many casualties as the North American theatre had participants.
        trasz 5y ago
        War in Iraq alone is about one million deaths. And given that you’re counting deaths of famine as victims of communism, you’d have to add victims of American sanctions around the world, as well as victims of American lack of welfare. You still hadn’t quoted any numbers.

lowbloodsugar 5y ago

>The policy logic does not stem from a coherent set of ideological precepts that require censorship and control to protect them, but the other way round: you want to impose control and censorship, so you invent a sort of ideology in order to justify it. Obviously, only those evil Russians do this. edit: doh! sarcasm! I forgot about Poe's law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

justicezyx 5y ago
I find this particularly naive. There are lots of reasons why Russia becomes this since the collapse of USSR. If, imagine, somehow the privatization worked out wonderfully, every Russian is as happy as as their counterparts in US, UK etc. (In fact, that would not be sufficient...) Do you still think Russia would do this? If you think they still would do this, then it must be the free will of the country? Now given what's happening, should this be treated as a natural reaction to the fact that learning from a foreign system is not working, and the nation are trying something else? Remember, when you claim someone else is inventing certain ideology, that means there is a concept of ideology. The moment this concept is created, it naturally applies to the accuser, I.e., someone else inventing a different ideology than the accuser. Then, it's obvious that the foreign ideology was regarded by the ruling group as not suitable.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bobthechef 5y ago
Right. Not like Americans do this... Taken further: if some people can't get what they want because legitimate moral obstacles get in the way, then they rationalize their desires in an attempt to give them a patina of legitimacy. However, that desire already functions as a summum bonum. So there's the real religion behind the scenes and then there's the public facing ideological curtain that conceals it.

pphysch 5y ago

The author of this blog post, Peter Pomerantsev, is a NATO-aligned professional propagandist, so it is hardly surprising that he finds the concept of Russian "information sovereignty" appalling. It's analogous to a Mongol invader finding the concept of "territorial sovereignty" in the Great Wall of China appalling. Insert `garfield_i_wonder_who_thats_for.jpeg`.

flipbrad 5y ago
Please could you clarify - what does he stand to gain here? In your Mongol analogy, motive is clear. Here, not so much.
- pphysch 5y ago
  Sure. Information sovereignty was pioneered on a national scale by China's Great Firewall, upon which Bill Clinton famously commented, “There’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet. Good luck! That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.” A Russian GFW would make Pomerantsev's job--spreading anti-Kremlin disinformation to benefit NATO's geopolitical goals in the region--very very difficult. He would have to work harder for fewer results. Like the Mongol raider, this is bad for his job security and quality of life.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    > "That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall" More so every day. It's amusing that US pundits appear to have believed Clinton was dead wrong about this just a few years ago. The analogy is apt, the Jell-O may seem initially to have been successfully fastened in place for now, and then you are distracted for a moment and it's slipped to the floor again.
  - elefanten 5y ago
    You seem to overestimate the effectiveness of national firewalls. Sure, they'll squash you like a bug if you start saying the wrong things publicly, but China hasn't exactly succeeded with keeping ideas and information out of the country. These aspiring totalitarian systems are quite porous.

Hokusai 5y ago

> Traditional Russian ... values are under active attack from the USA and its allies, as well as from transnational corporations and foreign NGOs,’ ... It defines ‘Russian values’ as ‘life, dignity, rights, freedoms’ as well as ‘high ethical ideals, a strong family, prioritising the spiritual over the material, humanism, kindness, justice, collectivism and patriotism’. I cannot disagree with much of what is said here (even that I guess that strong family is just a short hand for anti-gay, so maybe I am missing other 'eufemismes'). But, to reduce corruption would be the first step. As 'prioritising the spiritual over the material' is not compatible with corruption. Life, freedom and dignity are not compatible either with executing journalists and opositors. I can understand the will for information sovereignty. But it just seems an excuse to avoid international accountability. Facebook is not cited in the article, I guess that USA corporations are not so bad if they are willing to share data with the Russian government.

bobthechef 5y ago
> even that I guess that strong family is just a short hand for anti-gay, so maybe I am missing other 'eufemismes' Pro-family is anti-LGBT only incidentally as a conceptual consequence. It is not as if pro-family was some invention confected just to stick it to the gays. According to natural law theory, the family (traditionally understood) is the basic unit of society, the rest of society and the human race functioning as the extended family ("natural" here means entailed by human nature; we can do all sorts of unnatural things, but they are harmful to us and do not help us in genuinely flourishing as human beings as conformity with nature does). The only reason something like "pro-family" has become a term is because the natural family has become the target of ideological attack.
- trasz 5y ago
  “Pro-family” is an euphemism used pretty exclusively by religious extremists to condone homophobia. Well, sometimes also to draw attention away from the fact their role models are child rapists. If anything, the anti-LGBT actions are against the family: their only purpose is to make life harder for LGBT families.
GoblinSlayer 5y ago

failwhaleshark 5y ago

Russia is just one example of a "turning inwards" Dark Ages. China tried walling themselves off from the world and xenophobia for 2000 years, but they lost the technological advantage. If anyone believes they can "go it alone," then they should look at North Korea.

Kenji 5y ago

> There is, however, a catch. A system based on cynicism and paranoia means people end up distrusting everything. The Kremlin has, by most accounts, produced a decent vaccine for the coronavirus. But the government can’t persuade the Russian people that they need to take it. People fear they are being used as guinea pigs, that there’s something dishonest going on. In the same week the National Security Strategy came out, new figures (though it’s hard to trust the figures) showed Covid-19 rates rising horribly throughout the country. Only 13 per cent are vaccinated, despite Putin’s claim that the Sputnik V is ‘just as reliable as Kalashnikov assault rifles’. Maybe if they stop treating everyone like idiot toddlers and come up with real, honest justifications for why e.g. a 25 year old should take the Covid vaccine even though death by Covid at that age is as likely as being struck by a lightning. For young people, the vaccine may be substantially more dangerous than the virus. People aren't stupid, you know? We can read academic papers, we can see numbers, we can calculate. Average age of Covid death: 80+, usually with one or multiple severe comorbidities like cancer. How fucking stupid do you think we are? Do you think you can control us with fear?

slg 5y ago

You could write a very similar article from the Russian perspective looking at the West. Just like you can dismiss the Russian ideologies of collectivism as a retroactive justification for authoritarian control, you could argue that the West's ideology of freedom is a retroactive justification for oligarchy of the affluent. Even going back to the colonial days "freedom" meant freedom for white protestant land-owning men so was it ever really about freedom? I'm not sure either side of that argument is completely right or completely wrong.

pphysch 5y ago
It's actually not even an ideological or moral issue. Modern Russia is not particularly collectivist; influences of liberalism and Christianity are strong, if not stronger than the Communist collectivism of Soviet times. It's purely an issue of sovereignty. For NATO/Washington, it does not matter how a country is run as long as it is run with significant influence from Western interests. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that brutally limits freedoms and butchers dissidents, yet it gets to be in the "democracy" club, because it does not attempt to defend its sovereignty (i.e. it lets Washington build military bases and control private industry on Saudi soil). Russia, Syria, et al. are democracies, yet are in the "authoritarian" club because they do attempt to defend their sovereignty.
- FredPret 5y ago
  Syria defends their democracy by bombing the opposition voters though
  - pphysch 5y ago
    ...according to the "democracy" club. Syria in the last decade has been the target of one of the most ambitious disinformation campaigns involving NATO governments and media (including Reuters, BBC, Bellingcat)[1], so I would exercise extreme scrutiny with regards to these claims. [1] - https://telegra.ph/OP-HMG-Trojan-Horse-Part-4-Undermining-Russia-I-02-04 https://telegra.ph/OP-HMG-Trojan-Horse-Part-4-Undermining-Ru...

bobthechef 5y ago

I don't much like talk of "values" because it reinforces the fact-value dichotomy, which is not a real dichotomy. That is, it reinforces the erroneous notion that there's this value-free reality and that we can superimpose value however we see fit like some existentialist. In politics, it therefore becomes the imposition of values promoted by the strong, even if they don't believe them themselves but only wish others do because it leads to behavior that serves them (which is already a view of what is valuable). But you can't invent value and if you could it would be an absurdly meaningless and futile excersize. Value is factual. Thus, what we have are disagreements about is what is valuable, and in this case, within the domain of politics. Below, I'll use the author's choice of words for convenience. This analysis distinguishes between universal and local values. The author accuses the Russian gov't of essentially engaging in bad faith promotion of "local values" that are rationalized to get it what it wants. But this can mean one of three things, I think. Either all values are local inventions, in which case there is no basis for attacking Russia on the basis of manufacturing self-serving values because after all, everyone is doing it and no universal values exist. Or Russia is merely disagreeing with the West today about what truly are universal values by ostensibly appealing to a traditionally Russian understanding of what is valuable. Or Russia is rationalizing actions under the guise of traditional values. To reconcile the second point with the idea of "playing by foreign rules", it suffices to note that overlap between the stated values and the stated values in the West. By framing things as Russian, they are reclaiming their authority to decide what is valuable instead of subjecting themselves to the authority of the West. But this doesn't entail localism. It could just as well mean that Russia will project moral authority of its own and propose its views as universal. Russia is more ambitious I think than just a country that wants to be left alone with its own views. I think they want the Russian view to spread around the world like the US does. Unless of course they believe in a kind of Talmudic division between Russian and non-Russian, Russian values for Russians, something else for the goyim.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Barrin92 5y ago

> Russia needs ‘information sovereignty’: a de facto Firewall. But to justify it, you need an ideology Pretty much the core point of the piece but I'm not sure this is true. China of course has a national ideology "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and countless of phrases but often you also hear the straightforward argument that informational sovereignty is necessary for security, economic development and territorial integrity. An even stronger example is probably Singapore. A very tightly managed society, but completely depoliticized with almost no ideology to speak of, Gibson famously called it "Disneyland with the death penalty" in his piece that got Wired banned from the country. Traditionalists and other factions I think try to capitalize on the security state and to co-opt or capture it but I don't think the state is necessarily in control or happy about these movements.

justicezyx 5y ago
> A very tightly managed society, but completely depoliticized with almost no ideology to speak of Where did you get the impression that Singapore is completely depoliticized? Take a look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew and see the struggle of Lee family's rise to power. And the economy power controlled by the family https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ching https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ching Human together is politics. You cannot depoliticize unless everyone lives in complete isolation.
TurkishPoptart 5y ago
I wrote a rather lengthy thesis on Russian data localization and how it plays a role in the country's information security doctrine.[1] The push for data localization in Russia was a response to the domination of Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (the latter is blocked). The ideology here is state sovereignty; he who holds the data, has control. Pomerantsev is correct to say that Russia just doesn't want to play by foreign rules. Data localization has the added effect of bolstering the IT industry as a whole in Russia and spurring data center construction, even in Siberia, where cooling isn't much of a concern. The legal effect is to maintain a database of Russian citizens' online activity on these western platforms in case the FSB wants to build a case against a dissident or suspected criminal. Meanwhile you see since roughly 2008 a more ideologically hostile and "civilizational" discourse in Putin's speeches, those of his ultra-nationalist wing, and in some of their publications (look into Izborsky Club, and the writings of Alexander Prokhanov and Dugin). The Russian military doctrine and information security doctrines were later updated to prioritize shielding or protecting its populace from certain discourse and ideas (pro-LGBTQ, pro-democracy NGOs) and favoring a "patriotic" information sphere to uphold "spiritual and religious values". So the ideological basis for this information security policy is to bolster the "Russian world/Russkiy Mir," an imagined community of individuals beyond Russia's borders, including former Soviet sphere citizens and ethnic Russians abroad. And of course the utility in silencing the propagation of certain ideas and viewpoints is to minimize protests (the most destabilizing of which was likely Bolotnaya in 2011). So this ideology doesn't stop them from prohibiting or banning groups and discussion about Russia's biggest problem: corruption. The concerning point for me as an American is that in the past two-ish years we've seen our social media companies turn more draconian with the censorship and cooperation with our intelligence agencies, especially since Jan 6th and what the Biden administration is calling "misinformation". The U.S. was the survivor of the Cold War for many reasons, but the most compelling of which was that America represented a far more moral, humanitarian, and tolerant society, especially compared to the unfree, amoral, and atheist superpower. I'm getting off topic here, but I think you can see what I'm getting at. Ideology matters, just as much as ideological consistency does. [1]: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/42126 https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773...

NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago

> high ethical ideals, a strong family, prioritising the spiritual over the material, humanism, kindness, justice, collectivism and patriotism’. It is interesting how in Slavic countries where corruption is on high rise government peddling same propaganda (my origin is Slavic country so I know) "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". I am not saying that western countries are any better, just saying that they can be recognized by the narrative of those at the top, which is always very similar. While they hoard majority of wealth they will use propaganda of spiritual over the material, humanism, kindness, justice, and especially patriotism...