4 ms·

> You don't need to help the poor - just get off their backs. That's a very naive and over-simplified point of view. During the 1980s' Perestroika, everyone in

> You don't need to help the poor - just get off their backs. That's a very naive and over-simplified point of view. During the 1980s' Perestroika, everyone in my country of origin (which was one of Moscow's Cold War satellites) assumed basically the same thing you're assuming: that as soon as those "russkies" got off their backs, they would become rich and prosperous. Well, 22 years had passed since the russkies left, and hopes for prosperity are few and between (some progress has been made but nowhere to the extent that was hoped). BTW, I'm in no way nostalgic for the USSR era; I just don't like when naive opinions like this that have nothing to do with reality propagate because they sound "just". I now believe that the whole contemporary educational system which teaches students that colonialism was uniformly bad needs to be revised. I have yet to see something good come out of nationalism (with Israel a possible exception).

jayferd 14y ago
I might have rephrased, "It's very difficult to help the poor unless you also get off their backs". Perhaps it's not helpful to think "everything will be better if those people get off our backs", as you mention. But I'm a U.S. citizen, and I've only recently given up bananas for good. When we're the ones doing the oppressing, it's also not helpful for us to pretend it doesn't exist.
- bluekeybox 14y ago
  "Oppression" is dangerous terminology to use when no actual physical intimidation is taking place. When peacetime gets labeled "oppressive", people begin to see wartime with a different set of eyes, and the country gets thrown into a cycle of violence from which it is difficult to get out of.
  - jayferd 14y ago
    That's a good point, which I'll have to think about. Clearly not all violence is physical violence. But it's also very easy to use that as a carte blanche for revenge - as in "you're oppressing me this much, so I can do this much violence to you in return".
    - bluekeybox 14y ago
      > Clearly not all violence is physical violence. I'm sorry, but I will have to again disagree with this, even more so than regarding oppression. I am entirely with the WHO definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence). I believe this is very important. Otherwise peace gets labeled war, war gets labeled peace, free speech is deemed violence, and violence is deemed free speech. Example. If you look at history, violence in the Balkans began with the spread of nationalism into the highly fragmented populations living under the Ottoman empire. While the Ottoman regime was quite far from what we know as a liberal democracy, certain power balance was maintained, and certain groups (Jews for example) enjoyed more freedom in the Ottoman empire than in the neighboring European countries. With the fall of the empire, the newly prominent ideologues of nationalism claimed that an ethnic (as opposed to administrative, economic, social, etc) group of individuals has a right to self-determination. They relabeled the lack of ethnic self-determination as a condition that could only arise under violence. By postulating this "ghost" of centuries-old violence, they justified violence on their part against all other ethnic groups that seemed to lie in the way to ethnic self-determination. Instead of learning how to live with each other (actually they already knew how to live with each other, before they unlearned it that is), various groups took up arms, and the region that could potentially be as prosperous as the Scandinavian countries remains to this day the poorest region of Europe. What I meant to say with that long story was that as soon as we have a situation where there is no violence being done to individuals, yet a large group claims to be violated, there is a potentially explosive situation on our hands. When there is violence done to individuals already, then the situation is already bad of course, and not as likely to get worse.
      - jayferd 14y ago
        > By postulating this "ghost" of centuries-old violence, they justified violence on their part against all other ethnic groups that seemed to lie in the way to ethnic self-determination. Definitions aside, this seems to be where it all broke down. Using an oppressive situation to justify physical violence was clearly not helpful here.
        14y ago

jayferd 14y ago

I might have rephrased, "It's very difficult to help the poor unless you also get off their backs". Perhaps it's not helpful to think "everything will be better if those people get off our backs", as you mention. But I'm a U.S. citizen, and I've only recently given up bananas for good. When we're the ones doing the oppressing, it's also not helpful for us to pretend it doesn't exist.

bluekeybox 14y ago
"Oppression" is dangerous terminology to use when no actual physical intimidation is taking place. When peacetime gets labeled "oppressive", people begin to see wartime with a different set of eyes, and the country gets thrown into a cycle of violence from which it is difficult to get out of.
- jayferd 14y ago
  That's a good point, which I'll have to think about. Clearly not all violence is physical violence. But it's also very easy to use that as a carte blanche for revenge - as in "you're oppressing me this much, so I can do this much violence to you in return".
  - bluekeybox 14y ago
    > Clearly not all violence is physical violence. I'm sorry, but I will have to again disagree with this, even more so than regarding oppression. I am entirely with the WHO definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence). I believe this is very important. Otherwise peace gets labeled war, war gets labeled peace, free speech is deemed violence, and violence is deemed free speech. Example. If you look at history, violence in the Balkans began with the spread of nationalism into the highly fragmented populations living under the Ottoman empire. While the Ottoman regime was quite far from what we know as a liberal democracy, certain power balance was maintained, and certain groups (Jews for example) enjoyed more freedom in the Ottoman empire than in the neighboring European countries. With the fall of the empire, the newly prominent ideologues of nationalism claimed that an ethnic (as opposed to administrative, economic, social, etc) group of individuals has a right to self-determination. They relabeled the lack of ethnic self-determination as a condition that could only arise under violence. By postulating this "ghost" of centuries-old violence, they justified violence on their part against all other ethnic groups that seemed to lie in the way to ethnic self-determination. Instead of learning how to live with each other (actually they already knew how to live with each other, before they unlearned it that is), various groups took up arms, and the region that could potentially be as prosperous as the Scandinavian countries remains to this day the poorest region of Europe. What I meant to say with that long story was that as soon as we have a situation where there is no violence being done to individuals, yet a large group claims to be violated, there is a potentially explosive situation on our hands. When there is violence done to individuals already, then the situation is already bad of course, and not as likely to get worse.
    - jayferd 14y ago
      > By postulating this "ghost" of centuries-old violence, they justified violence on their part against all other ethnic groups that seemed to lie in the way to ethnic self-determination. Definitions aside, this seems to be where it all broke down. Using an oppressive situation to justify physical violence was clearly not helpful here.
      - 14y ago