Discusses Western Obsession with Putin
The Western obsession with Russia's president. Excellent article by former CIA analyst Larry Johnson a former Cold War warrior.
https://sonar21.com/the-west-obsession-with-putin/
@marathon I really don't think it's that puzzling. It's part of the cognitively lazy pattern of simplifying things down to a single icon instead of having to grapple with a complex world.
Keep in mind, also, that major figures in US media these days have backgrounds in sports reporting, for some reason, so they basically promote that sort of pattern, giving people permission to reduce a complex world into the personal icons.
People will be lazy if you allow them, and at this point the culture is actually pushing them to be lazy.
The Western obsession with Russia's president comes out of lazy people trying to make sense of a complex world.
@marathon Well the problem is that they pay attention to politics AS sport, treating serious questions of governance as if it was a mere football game with lineups to set among two teams before the two teams competed when that's not at all how the government is structured.
You know, when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail? And it's going to make it pretty ineffective trying to drive in that screw with that hammer.
That's a huge reason why the US government is so messed up right now, so many voters voting as if everything is two football teams going at each other when that's not how any of this actually works.
The commentators that shape significant swaths of American thought present current events as if they were football games, which is unsurprising because so many of those commentators come from that world, and it's really messing up American understanding of the world they're living in. And then they vote based on that misunderstanding.
@volkris
I don't disagree 👍😊 We have similar in Canada.
PS, It's also interesting to notice conservative speakers repeating the conclusion that Putin has gone crazy, literally.
So many conservatives conclude that his actions reflect mental illness because they don't make sense, when really that's a symptom of their understanding of the world being wrong. But instead of considering that Russia might be more complicated than Putin, they conclude that it is indeed all about Putin, but he's the crazy one when the news doesn't align with the Putin-centric worldview.
@volkris Yet, many conservatives and sane lib/centrists like Putin and the new Russia! Sad that Russia is still barred from IIHF and Olympic competition (using their flag)
@volkris Good point re sports reporters, if true, American Sports culture is huge — seems to be the glue that binds them together. If Americans paid as much attention to politics as sport, the world might be a better place. Cheers