Slavoj Zizek explains Russia

A really nice article that contains an interview with a well-known European intellectual Slavoj Zizek is provided here. The title of this article is "Leftists falsify the choice that Ukrainians face during wartime"

A couple of quotes:

"That’s why I wouldn’t dismiss Putin as a relic of some old Russian tradition. No, Putin represents the worst of a longstanding trend in Russian history, one that dates back to figures like Ivan the Terrible and Peter I — authoritarian modernizers who sought to bring Russia into modernity but on their own terms, using brutal, centralized control. This authoritarian modernization has a strong historical precedent, even extending into Far Eastern traditions.

For example, in the early 20th century, Pan-Asianism emerged in countries like China and Japan. They faced a similar dilemma: how to catch up with the West in terms of technology and economics without losing their cultural identity to Western liberalism. Their solution? Fascism.

Look not just at Alexander Dugin but at the whole crowd of ideologists orbiting Putin. Their core idea — it’s pure horror — is this notion of Eurasia, this mystical Euro-Asian identity. It’s such a stupid, vulgar, fascist kind of reasoning. On the one hand, you get this primitive Orientalism: embracing the idea that the East is passive, backward, stupid. On the other hand, you have this caricature of Western liberalism, a kind of decadent self-destruction through excessive individualism. Of course, they position Russia as the magical “right balance” — the supposed perfect synthesis of an individual in a harmonious, free society."

...

"It’s incredible to me how many pseudo-leftists are drawn to this strange fascination with Russia. Even though they admit that Putin is horrible, they still cling to the idea that Russia, somehow being less affected by Western consumerism, somehow preserves more “authentic” human relationships. For example, an idiot once told me that while the West is all about promiscuity and sexual freedoms, in Russia, “true love” is still possible.

This romanticized notion of Russia is often combined with another leftist dogma: that NATO is the ultimate evil. According to this view, anyone in conflict with NATO must have something good or virtuous about them. By this logic, Ukraine is disqualified from support because it’s seen as merely fighting a “proxy war” on behalf of NATO.

It worries me that they treat Ukrainians as some kind of idiots — they falsify the choice that Ukrainians face. This oversimplification completely ignores reality. For Ukrainians, the choice isn’t between peace and war — it’s between resisting or disappearing as a nation. The Russians have made that abundantly clear."

- Slavoj Zizek