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I grew up in a eastern bloc country, and what the GP says is spot-on. This is not stereotyping, this is how it was. I still have nightmares about queueing for c

by ddalex 3y ago

I grew up in a eastern bloc country, and what the GP says is spot-on. This is not stereotyping, this is how it was. I still have nightmares about queueing for cheese alone as a little boy (my grandma was queueing somewhere else for soy-based meat substitute) and getting shoved around by angry people that were desperate to get some produce before it ended - cause the supply was always less then the number of the people in the queue. Imagine waiting hours for the truck to arrive with cheese and it finishes just in front of you.

smcl 3y ago
Yeah someone I knew in university was so hard up and malnourished he contracted scurvy. Therefore surely that is what life is like for everyone in the UK - just an entire nation of people living on the breadline with preventable diseases. You see what I mean, right? Like it's horrific that diseases from antiquity reared their head in a supposedly developed nation. But at the same time, that doesn't exactly tell the story of modern day UK and it'd be very dishonest to suggest that reflects the entirety of the (then) European Union. In the same way it's horrific that you had childhood trauma that persists to this day. You're under no obligation to defend the circumstances in which you grew up, but I'm sure you're quite aware that your experience was far from universal, as evidenced by comments here.
- ddalex 3y ago
  My experience was universal where I grew up. Everybody in my generation had it. Stop being so presumptuous
  - smcl 3y ago
    The issue in question here is that many in the west will unquestioningly accept an account of true hardship and just presume that this was the case for every one of hundreds of millions of people across an enormous bloc of countries. You don't seem keen to volunteer where you're from or what period you're talking about and I won't press you on that, but from speaking to guys I know from ČSSR, Poland or Yugoslavia your experience sounds really rough but not reflective of theirs. It's not presumptuous at all to say your experience of lining up for food, feeling scared and having lingering trauma about that is not reflective of the bloc overall. It is certainly an important part of it that should not be minimised (and tbh should be carefully considered so that it isn't repeated). But it is not reflective of every lived experience in the group of countries in question and, again, you know this.

by ddalex 3y ago

smcl 3y ago

Yeah someone I knew in university was so hard up and malnourished he contracted scurvy. Therefore surely that is what life is like for everyone in the UK - just an entire nation of people living on the breadline with preventable diseases. You see what I mean, right? Like it's horrific that diseases from antiquity reared their head in a supposedly developed nation. But at the same time, that doesn't exactly tell the story of modern day UK and it'd be very dishonest to suggest that reflects the entirety of the (then) European Union. In the same way it's horrific that you had childhood trauma that persists to this day. You're under no obligation to defend the circumstances in which you grew up, but I'm sure you're quite aware that your experience was far from universal, as evidenced by comments here.

ddalex 3y ago
My experience was universal where I grew up. Everybody in my generation had it. Stop being so presumptuous
- smcl 3y ago
  The issue in question here is that many in the west will unquestioningly accept an account of true hardship and just presume that this was the case for every one of hundreds of millions of people across an enormous bloc of countries. You don't seem keen to volunteer where you're from or what period you're talking about and I won't press you on that, but from speaking to guys I know from ČSSR, Poland or Yugoslavia your experience sounds really rough but not reflective of theirs. It's not presumptuous at all to say your experience of lining up for food, feeling scared and having lingering trauma about that is not reflective of the bloc overall. It is certainly an important part of it that should not be minimised (and tbh should be carefully considered so that it isn't repeated). But it is not reflective of every lived experience in the group of countries in question and, again, you know this.