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Homo Sovieticus
- thatwasunusual 5y ago
- Koshkin 5y agoIn Latin, the plural is 'homines'.
- throwaway98797 5y agoa soviet is not a russian the modern russian has traits of a soviet but is a different person plus the actions of a country’s leaders do not represent the entire will of the people
- trhway 5y ago>plus the actions of a country’s leaders do not represent the entire will of the people and what is the will of the Russian people?
- diegoperini 5y agoA more accurate question would be "what are the wills of the Russian people?".
- _8j50 5y agoWho knows without fair elections. Every opposition to putin is killed or imprisoned.
- agumonkey 5y agoIn all honesty it's a fuzzy topic. A human, when basic needs are at play, has no independent will anymore. Putin has his hand on the country, as long as he can make people believe he is the only solution to their prosperity.. their will will align with that. That's partly how he maintained his position it seems.
- torginus 5y agoProbably the same as all people - to live in health, peace and prosperity.
- sebow 5y agoDefinitely, but there still exist such "homo sovieticus" in other ex-USSR countries(Belarus,Ukraine,Transnistria,even Moldova --all decreasingly though--).You also see this kind of mentality even in some western countries, but I'll stop here since we're getting into touchy politics. What's kind of funny is that long time ago Putin 'wanted' to distance himself from communism in order to not lose public support,though he always wanted to serve his own interests by carefully choosing his words, compared to someone like Yeltsin who arguably had more attempts at a more 'democratic' approach.
- throwaway98797 5y agoi find the people who left the Soviet Union the longest ago are more soviet than the Russians that remain. When you immigrate you hang tightly to “your” culture it freezes you. sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s bad. said another way, your identity is fixed on point of immigration while those living in the country have a chance to evolve.
- kreetx 5y agoAs far as I can tell, many countries with significant Russian populations have done really well in making the difference between Russian government and the Russian people, and how the war in Ukraine is a war of the former. Not to say that the support from the population within Russian Federation is small, but clearly there is a significant amount having doubts as to why. One can also see this manifest in how slow the advances have been thus far and how the morale in Russian forces appears to be low.
- ukraineally 5y ago>plus the actions of a country’s leaders do not represent the entire will of the people If the Russian people don't agree with war. They would show up in the capitals and shut down the country until this problem is resolved. If they do not, then your claim that Putin doesn't represent the entire will of the people is wrong. The subsequent poverty and isolation the Russian people are about to go through will mean the Russian people have all the reasons in the world to oppose the government. If they don't, then it just proves how much they support Putin.
- ithkuil 5y ago> If the Russian people don't agree with war. They would show up in the capitals and shut down the country until this problem is resolved After watching a video where Sergey Naryshkin, the director of russian foreign intelligence service, was visibly stuttering trying to find the right words to answer a simple question by Putin, hoping for his dear life that he didn't say something wrong, well, I'm not quite sure a reasonable person who cares about the life of their loved ones is going to risk it all. There wouldn't be dictators if it was easy to go to the streets and take it back.
- ukraineally 5y ago>After watching a video where Sergey Naryshkin, the director of russian foreign intelligence service, was visibly stuttering trying to find the right words to answer a simple question by Putin, hoping for his dear life that he didn't say something wrong, well, I'm not quite sure a reasonable person who cares about the life of their loved ones is going to risk it all. There wouldn't be dictators if it was easy to go to the streets and take it back. Yes I saw the same video. Putin surrounded himself with yesmen and propaganda. He most likely misled himself. Also yes, it takes a strong people to stand up to their government. We saw many people in the middle east topple their governments during the arab spring. Do you think the Russian people are strong enough to do the same? Idont.
- ithkuil 5y ago> Putin surrounded himself with yesmen and propaganda. He most likely misled himself. true. but it's also sending a message to his people "I can do whatever I want, look how afraid they are of me"
- azangru 5y ago> the modern russian has traits of a soviet but is a different person Is this even a meaningful statement? If you took a Soviet professor of physics in a big Moscow university and a Soviet grocery shop cashier in a small Russian town, would you find common traits among them that would at the same time set them apart from a professor of physics in a Finnish university or a Chinese shop assistant?
- Borrible 5y agoPersonally I prefer geostrategic determinism over kitchen sink sociology. "From the Russian point of view, creating a sphere of influence that would return Russia to its relatively defensible imperial boundaries is imperative." https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/geopolitics-russia-permanent-struggle https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/geopolitics-russia-pe... [https://web.archive.org/web/20220301131639/https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fworldview.stratfor.com%2Farticle%2Fgeopolitics-russia-permanent-struggle https://web.archive.org/web/20220301131639/https://12ft.io/p...] But what is really interesting is, everybody knew that. But nonetheless let it happen, for one reason or another.
- refurb 5y agoA plug for Stratfor. I know they have connections to the Western intelligence agencies but if you’re ever looking for a facts based analysis of a geopolitical situation, their reports are very good - dry, but highly detailed and often provide a lot of historical context for how the present situation arose. Not unbiased, but I guarantee you’ll learn something.
- pjc50 5y agoMost organisations (and indeed people) can be a lot more accurate about their enemies than they can be about their friends.
- overkalix 5y agoReally? The reports about the issues I intimately know are superficial and laughable. A mixture of newspaper clippings, geopolitical fanfic and macro statistics only aim to reassure the biases of the authors.
- refurb 5y agoIt’s all relative boss. Compared to someone involved in day to day? Superficial. Compared to NYTimes? Detailed and well researched.
- didymospl 5y ago
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoI don't see anything distinctly Soviet about it other than them coining the term. The description seems like a very good fit for various swaths of western demographics. When people grow up surrounded by "you're part of a machine/system" ideologies they tend to exhibit these qualities regardless of whether the machine is portrayed as good (for all their faults, the USSR did try had to convince people they were part of something meaningful), neutral or evil.
- antattack 5y agoIt's true, it exists everywhere but at much smaller scale. Societies have developed mechanisms to keep it in check like freedom of press, education, and checks and balances.
- MrYellowP 5y agoCharacteristics. 1. Indifference ... fits most people around the world. 2. Avoidance of taking any individual responsibility. Sounds very western to me, but it's not the state that's supposed to provide. It's everyone else who's expected to accept demands and wishes. 3. Chauvinism. The dominant cultural influence in the EU is the US. News are biased towards the west and rarely ever contain anything substantial from outside, unless it's to bash someone. No matter how much people travel to other countries, they're still the same domesticated apes when they've returned. 4. Obedience. Oh boy, europe got plenty of that and people don't even realize. 5. Heavy drinking. Well, that's actually typically Austrian. Though "heavy" is relative, of course. Someone drinking three beers daily might not be drinking vodka, but it's still alcohol and it's still daily. They'd not be considered a "heavy drinker" there, yet, of course they are. This submission is just mindless bashing. There's no point in attacking the russian people like this. You should look at how stupid and degenerated your own people are. I can assure you that, without knowing where you're from, you're living in a massive blob of them.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago>This submission is just mindless bashing. There's no point in attacking the russian people like this. You should look at how stupid and degenerated your own people are. I can assure you that, without knowing where you're from, you're living in a massive blob of them. I can't speak to the USSR or Europe but having lived and worked in about half a dozen US states I assure you the authoritarianism is not evenly distributed. In my observation it seems to track with government ability to enforce whatever its whims are (which correlates strongly with wealth), ability of people to cater to those whims and jump through those hoops (also wealth correlated) and inability of the people to affect said government whims they disagree with or are hurting them without the blessing of those currently holding power.
- MichaelMoser123 5y agoI think there was this theory of concergence between capitalism and socialism. It was a thing back in the seventies. I still think that the authors of this theory were on to something.. The link to an article from the soviet encyclopedia (they didn't like the idea, actually) https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Convergence+Theory#:~:text=a%20modern%20bourgeois%20theory%20according,convergence%E2%80%9D%20was%20taken%20from%20biology https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Convergence+Theo....
- JasonFruit 5y agoI've been reading about the Russian Revolution lately, and one feature of radical revolutionary thought has stuck with me: they believe that changing the environment in which people live will create a new type of person, the "New Soviet Man", or whatever name they give the particular flavor of new man their ideology will free humanity to become. This is in contrast to the conservative and reactionary idea of humanity, where there is a human nature that is constant, and the best a new environment can offer them is a different way to express their essential humanity, with all its typical virtues and failings. I personally think history bears out the latter view pretty well, but even if you don't find either convinces you, it's a valuable way to view the aspirations of the two schools of thought.
- FpUser 5y agoMany of the characteristics described in the reference are totally suitable to government bureaucrats in Homo Capitalisticus population I think.
- sparrish 5y agoWhich characteristics would that be?
- FpUser 5y agoDo I really have to spell it: Indifference to the results of his labour Lack of initiative and avoidance of taking any individual responsibility for anything. Obedience to or passive acceptance of everything that government imposes I can go on but it is better to stop.
- motohagiography 5y agoThis "homo sovieticus," has echoes in a few places, as it seems like problem that as always been with us. Most recently, it matches the (a bit vicious, imo) right wing "NPC" meme fairly closely, which refers to "non-player characters," a feature of role playing games and videogames whose dialogue and action are rote, and describes people whose ontology is defined by dominant narratives. Arendt talked about them as "Little Eichmanns," in reference to people who think in clichés to justify participation in atrocities and organized crimes against humanity. The existence of the middle class is a fairly modern development, where previously they would have been called the "mob," and mob rule, and the role they played in the French revolution was that of the "sans coulottes." It's a reocurring theme. What's notable about the archetype is that it is independent of class because it is an identity that is the effect of an orientation and alignment to power without a guiding principle. The term I have used for this archetype has been "banal nihilist," but I've come to suspect the idea is conceptually closer to something that some evangelicals are talking about when they talk about "spiritual warfare" (big thing with many of them) where there is essentially a force that seeks to separate the individual from the basic human dignity provided by a belief in God, which elevates humans above animals because we can take moral instruction. This evil wants to spiritually enslave people. A similar evil force comes up in other world religions as well. The idea that we are just animals, and our ethical and moral systems are only material and immediate and accountable to other men is seductive and even liberating in a limited sense, but it deprives life of the possibility of meaning from beyond what we can materially percieve in the moment, as though our purpose could be no greater than that of a cow or a chicken. Whereas, to make anything new, necessarily, you need to believe in the possibility of something you can't yet see, and so a belief in a God as representing something greater than your material circumstances ensures this possibility is always in mind. Without it, you're just a cog, etc. There's probably an evolutionary reason for it, but it seems unreasonably effective. This Homo Sovieticus seems to have analogies to the New Man, the Last Man, and other states of subjugation, and perhaps the lesson from the general theme is that we should be critical of people and ideas that attempt to moralize individual subjugation.
- delf 5y agoSecondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by the Nobel Prize Literature winner Sveltana Alexievich who also wrote Chernobyl Prayer is quite a good insight into what a Soviet person is: https://www.amazon.com/Secondhand-Time-Soviets-Svetlana-Alexievich/dp/0399588825 https://www.amazon.com/Secondhand-Time-Soviets-Svetlana-Alex...