{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "Yo, whatever anon wrote in to defend tank club\u2019s honor against my \u201cself-righteousness\u201d\u2026 yeah, okay, you\u2019re on to something,...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/149579632583/", "html": "Yo, whatever anon wrote in to defend tank club\u2019s honor against my \u201cself-righteousness\u201d\u2026 yeah, okay, you\u2019re on to something, looking back that \u201cis hilarious\u201d does sound pretty condescending. Maybe \u201cis interesting\u201d would be better but that\u2019d still sound condescending in a \u201coh, look at ~this~\u201d way. I think the way that people align around totalizing, universal ideologies in response to the specifics of early 20th century Eastern Europe really is interesting and important though.

Which is to say I didn\u2019t want that to come off as rooting for a side and hooting the other, sorry. So what position do I want to come off with?

The \u201cWilsonian\u201d solution to the \u201cnationalities problem\u201d, widely applied post-WWI - form states around ethnolinguistic blocs where they stand, even though it\u2019s all just gradients, maybe cheat a bit because the result makes no economic, military, or geopolitical sense, then firmly remind everyone to be tolerant and war is illegal - was a clear failure.

And the Yalta approach, widely applied post-WWII - drawing lines in a way that made sense and comported with the relative strength of power players and then shifting homogenized populations to fit - well, it worked, didn\u2019t it?

Not like that resolves anything.

Following WWI, Armenia formed along the \u201cYalta\u201d model in a catastrophically traumatic process, I\u2019m sympathetic to anyone who cares for Armenian people having an aversion to this.

Following WWI, Poland formed along the \u201cWilsonian\u201d model with catastrophically traumatic results, I\u2019m sympathetic to anyone who cares for Polish people having an aversion to this.

For people committed to socialism to come down on either side of this in alignment with those sympathies isn\u2019t\u2026 wrong, but the way that shatters unity is pretty interesting. (And on occasion hilarious, when people talk at each other in the same voice of totalizing universalism.)

(And the dream of non-programmatic spirit of socialism that understands, aligns, and improves the people and land incidentally wherever they are now while rejecting the false promise of nationalism? Which I think is being deployed as a way to transcend all of this?

I\u2019ve said in private message to quoms but I\u2019ll repeat here since you\u2019re curious - even assuming the can opener, reject all you want, but if the totalizing ideologies of great power blocs could still get experienced as various nationalisms, the chance that this wouldn\u2019t strikes me as nil.\u00a0 At best a wiping of the slate, a reset to day zero, a new Golden Age that will itself get invoked in future palingenetic promises and irredentist claims.)

Finally, if you\u2019re telling me I\u2019ve got some weird followers, God, I know. Try to be a good influence. If there\u2019s anywhere I\u2019ve got cause for self-righteousness it\u2019s sure as fuck not maintaining the purest cordon sanitaire. You know this account only really got active under influence of the great witch Monetizeyourcat?

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