[atoav]

As someone who knows the people and the place, I have to say that a lot of the political takes I ever heard from regular Serbians have either been of a fatalistic self-defeating kind ("everything is shit and it cannot be changed") or of a nationalist self-defearing kind ("everything is shit and it is the fault of $other_nations").

I can emotionally understand why the stances are often so fatalistic — it has to do with the way society in Serbia works on a daily basis — but as a foreigner who worked there once and has friends living there I could witness myself that a lot of the problems there are home grown. The focus on the unfair outside world is a great way to ignore the shit that goes on at home.

That being said I have been talking about regular Serbs. Like everywhere you will also find sharp analytical minds with singular positions in Serbia and it is well worth listening to them.

I don't believe any serious intellectual position in the west still believes the myth of the end of history.

[mantas]

Cafe discussions are not about „serious intellectual position“ though. And I've a feeling that lots of regular Westerners still believe in this myth. Or at least want to believe.

All-in-all, I think the most important part is to keep talking about what is in one's head. Pushing people to just get over it and change what is in their heads does not exactly work.

[atoav]

Nowhere did I say it was about serious intellectual positions. That is why I specifically made the distinction between regular people and academics.

Also it feel funny to be called a westerner based on a city that is actually a 6 hour car drive from where I grew up. And I grew up next to a couple that fled the war, he was a Serb, she was a Bosnian. My parents took them in and gave them our cellar, he got a job at my fathers company (and works there to this day).

[mantas]

I didn't call you a westerner. I said that in my experience a lot of regular westerners still believe in that myth. And that this crowd is closer to Cafe crowd.

As for „serious intelectual position“ as a split between academia and regular crowd, I'd argue that many people in academia today are con artists at best. And boy do they have end-of-history-ish views. But yes, that's not „serious intelectual position“.