Mainstream modern geopolitics can be summarized in the struggle between the American-led western hegemony, and the rest of the world’s resistance to it. Today I’d like to take on the most recent disaster as a case study for that.
With the recent rapid geopolitcal developments taking over the mainstream discourse, I wanted to make a post summing it up, and juxtaposing it to the continued, comparatively slower, technological and economic changes.
A Calculated Outcome.
As it stands, I believe the situation in Europe is essentially not a complex one, altough the powers at be would rather play it differently. Why is it not complex? All we are seeing right now is essentially the inevitable, predicted Russian reaction to NATO/EU/USA (i.e. the West) aggression. Western encroachment on Russia has been building up since before the fall of the USSR, and denying this is indisputably wrong, in fact, denying this is essentially what brought Europe to it’s current predictment.
On Propaganda.
It’s very clear to most westerners, that the issue of propaganda is very real in many Eastern countries traditionally seen as authoritarian. Places like North Korea take it to such an extreme level that it becomes even comical to Western audiences. And for us, Russia and China are no different, perhaps just cooler in tone. However, the West has a very unique understanding of propaganda on it’s own borders, while its clear to us that media manipulation by the government is as bright as day in the East, we tend to believe that we largely don’t have to deal with this in our own governments, except of course for whatever the political party we are oppose to does.
This is a very, very dangerous belief. Let me be clear here. Every single country in the world is subject to propaganda, period. And no, the West is not a exception, not even in tone, while a country such as the US is certaintly not on par with somewhere like North Korea, it’s not too far from, say, China or Russia. The only difference here, is that a key aspect of Western propaganda is it’s subliminality. It actively disguises itself, and divides it’s influences among mainstream media, social networks and the ever more explicit societal code of conduct. I believe that Cancel Culture and PC Culture are the prime examples of it’s results.
Additionnally, given how America currently enjoys the position of global hegemon, her people don’t really need to learn much about the world. Its the rest of the Earth that has to learn English, and watch their (propaganda ridden) Holywood movies, etc. So because of that, the average American is notoriously ignorant (by first world standards) of geopolitical affairs outside their borders, and that fault is relentlessly exploited by western media, which routinely gets away with directly lying to their public, especially about information that could damage America’s geopolitical goals.
Disguised Supremacism.
While its very clear to most how ideologies such as Fascism or Communism clearly like to portray itself or it’s people’s cultures and even races as superior to others, Western propaganda has us look the other way when it comes to modern cultural developments in America and Europe. Because the West underwent a period of relative emancipation for it’s repressed groups (I.E. women and POC), and if their leaders happen to be of a given political party, then all of a sudden America as a whole is just and good, and her wars througout the world are justified.
For example, no one in America dares call Barack Obama or Joe Biden war criminals. By having the media paint one political party as objectively evil, and the other as fundamentally good, they can, for example, just blame all of America’s wrongdoings on Reagan, Bush and Trump, even though ALL five of those behaved essentially the same way when it comes to geopolitics.
So now, with a morally “right” leader like Biden, America’s quest is justified and she is right in demonizing her rival Russia’s geopolitical aspirations. Even if that means aligning itself with groups that defends the very opposite of the current core values of America, such as literal neo-nazi groups, and ethnic cleansing death squads, because after all, Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
In the future, I’d like to explore more the particular reasons for how the West reacts in specific cases, such as the war in Ukraine, and how both sides are likely to act in the future.