[FredPret]

The rest of Europe (if Russia can be considered as being in Europe) went through centuries of war, revolution, upheaval, debate, and other forms of blood, sweat, and tears... all of it culminating in modern humanist thought. Modern Europeans across the socio-economic spectrum think of themselves as having rights and opinions and so on. That's a novel idea in human history (and one we should all heartily embrace)

Russia had more than it's fair share of heartache, but it is not an outlier in not having been through the Western European developmental pressure cooker.

[ajuc]

Russia is unique in that it was european enough to be the colonizer not the colonized (so it didn't get modern law from its colonial masters), and yet not european enough to develop a modern approach to human rights by itself.

[fsloth]

You say “modern” but we could say “western” as well. There is a well documented gradient in attitudes of elites to autocracy as a style of leadership between Europe and Asia. I.e as Alexander the Great moved east, he took up to the local institutions of totalitarian leadership, and was considered a total dick by his generals due this.

Also traditional example is the feud between Greek city states and Persia (Which is documented in the painstakingly historically accurate movies such as ‘300’).

I’m not saying peoples are predestined to be forever in one system of governance, but the differences predate enlightenment way, way back.

[dralley]

>The rest of Europe (if Russia can be considered as being in Europe) went through centuries of war, revolution, upheaval, debate, and other forms of blood, sweat, and tears... all of it culminating in modern humanist thought.

As Timothy Snyder points out, Europeans didn't stop engaging in imperialist wars because they grew morals and humanist thought, they stopped engaging in imperialist wars because in the 50s and 60s they either lost them all, or knew they couldn't afford to win them.

Russia may or may not undergo the same development, but losing in their war of conquest over Ukraine is a prerequsite to any kind of progress in this area.

[fsloth]

Yep.

For example Winston Churchill lamented deeply the loss of India and considered Gandhi an annoyance.

Another reason was that the American system of rule based relations instituted after second world war meant former colonial masters could still economically utilize the raw inputs from their colonies without risk of losing the colony to another colonial power and hence being cut off from those markets and resources.

Before second world war any territories unable to defend themselves from european powers were more or leas up for grabs - hence you were afraid that giving your colony independence, another colonial power would have simply annexed them, thus you would lose the resources and the market.

The US rule based order was overall good for the world, regardless of so many documented events of behaving as dicks within it.

[FredPret]

They developed the beginnings of humanism and applied it to themselves long before colonialism even started.

Racist thinking was prevalent and helped justify colonialism and humanism existing at the same time.

But you’re right, if Russia loses, everyone will win, even Russians.