| > My point is that this is a cycle. It happens again and again, but as most people only have a 50–100 year historical perspective they don’t see that it’s happening again. This is what Timothy Snyder calls "politics of eternity". There is no progress, history repeats itself, no point trying to change anything. It's the natural counterpart to "politics of inevitability". At first we believe progress happens by itself, and is inevitable. We don't need to do anything. Democracy, rule of law, personal liberties, human rights are just better than any alternative, so they will win automatically. Time is a line that might move left or right but mostly it moves up, towards better situation for everyone. "End of history" basically. When this doesn't happen the natural reaction is to move to politics of eternity - nothing really changes, history is a huge circle that happens over and over and we have no way to change what happens, so there's no point trying. Reality is - it's neither constant progress nor a cycle. It's chaotic, and we have (small) influence over what happens. But it's very useful for people with power that we think we don't. I'm Polish. I remember (barely) communism, and what most people in the west don't get is how Russian propaganda works. It's not that everybody believed that USSR and communism is the best. Almost nobody believed that in 80s, and literally nobody believed that near 1989. The propaganda was focused on making cynics out of people. Yeah maybe we have it bad, but they are full of bullshit too. Their liberties and human rights are just a facade, like here. These people protesting are all paid or spies. Free press is an oxymoron, press is always paid by someone. Just ignore all the news, you won't know what's true anyway. Why not choose the press paid by your own country over press paid by enemies? "Everybody lies" is much easier thing to believe than "we are great and only tell the truth and they lie", and once enough people believe in it - change is impossible, because all protests and movements are distrusted, and people are lazy and prefer not to do anything when it's not clear who is right. > Fear of another World War nearly stopped World War 2, but didn’t. Fear of another war CAUSED WW2. Appeasement was why Hitler could get as far as he did. |