[Vektorceraptor]

No, not only the "ambitions of the common man", but of man or life itself, no matter if common or exceptional (if there is such a difference at all here). I'm living in Austria, and I feel that I have to leave this country. I want to move back to Bulgaria or somewhere else, where life is wild, natural and rough. The west has become tame and sick, and I got exhausted of it. I don't fit in this society anymore, and I can't be productive under its conditions. But you can't even say that out loud anymore, because that means "questioning the whole western ideology" and suddenly someone feels threatened, and myself becomes a criminal. I'm tired of a society where the fears of person A makes' person B a criminal, and of people lacking any decisiveness or spontaneity - and being afraid of spontaneous and decisive people. If wester culture is anything, then it is "fake". Probably the reason, why the author, "the rootless cosmopolitan" moved back to Bulgaria, and found again a sense of feeling home. I claim that the West has forgotten what "home" means. Western culture has become empty and fake - and I'm tired to explain the most obvious thing to so many people - and in the end, they don't believe you anyway. They really believe, they are part of something bigger, are very important and are going to be famous or something. Intellectual vanity and luxury and bragging.

And someone knows, very well, how to define himself and where he stands. The question is not how to objectively categorize or define you, but rather how and what you have to say about yourself.

edit: in Bulgaria, there is a common truth: life in Bulgaria is shit. But it is impossible to agree on the same truth in western societies, because that's the strong myth they rely on - that they are better, than the rest of the world. Do you get what I mean? Anyone who is dissatisfied with the west must be out of their minds.

There are things that have now become impossible in the West. Simply expressing unsatisfaction has become a danger for the status quo or the state.

[bryananderson]

Sorry but I can’t stand when someone takes their own dissatisfaction (which is entirely valid, it’s your life after all) and generalizes it to a grand social theory in a way that is simultaneously immensely self-important (everyone who isn’t dissatisfied in the exact same way as me is fooling themselves, no one could have a different experience from me) and deeply self-pitying (oh noo I’m a literal criminal in this society because someone had a surprised reaction to my dissatisfaction).

> But you can't even say that out loud anymore, because that means "questioning the whole western ideology" and suddenly someone feels threatened, and myself becomes a criminal.

What reality are you living in? The consensus in the west, online at least, seems to be that everything sucks and is getting worse. Personally I think that’s overwrought, but it’s certainly a sentiment that’s everywhere. It sounds like you are the one who’s struggling with the fact that some people disagree with you, which sounds like something you should be able to handle if you want to live a “wild, natural, and rough” life.

> Western culture has become empty and fake - and I'm tired to explain the most obvious thing to so many people - and in the end, they don't believe you anyway. They really believe, they are part of something bigger, are very important and are going to be famous or something. Intellectual vanity and luxury and bragging.

This is the embodiment of the meme of the guy in the corner at the party (“they don’t know…”) while everyone else is dancing happily. The fact that you feel that life in Austria is empty and fake actually does not mean that everyone else must be feeling the exact same thing and are just deluding themselves! The ability to understand that other people have different internal experiences than yourself is a really basic emotional skill.

I’m sorry that you haven’t been happy in the west. I’m sure you’re far from the only one. But your unhappiness doesn’t mean that western culture is against “life itself”, whatever that even means.

[stavros]

> The consensus in the west, online at least, seems to be that everything sucks and is getting worse.

It might be so in words, but it's not so in meaning. I understand what the GP means, the west has a mindset of "things are terrible and getting worse, the elite rule us, but this is still the best country in the world". The eastern mindset is more of a "this country is shit, but there are some nice things, and we try to focus on those".

It's hard to communicate a whole culture in a few comments, but the sentiment is very different.

[Vektorceraptor]

Exactly. One of the reasons why the West feels so empty and artificial is because it has lost this complex understanding of the world and people and acts only according to simple maxims, logical sentences or final conclusions. In principle, all of life has been reduced to the pure logic of political economy and statistics. Language, thinking, arts and freedom become impoverished. Now that life is so simple and can be controlled politically and economically, even the existential problems are being reinterpreted. They suddenly become logical problems themselves, solvable through calculation. Suddenly they are overcome with optimism that they can in principle be solved, and for everyone equally. So we don't have to worry about anything anymore and can just trust that someone will find the algorithm for it.

I think the only reason people can't read between the lines anymore is because they're too quick to get hung up on words that can be used as criticism. This destroys mutual understanding immensely.

[stavros]

> I think the only reason people can't read between the lines anymore is because they're too quick to get hung up on words that can be used as criticism. This destroys mutual understanding immensely.

Unfortunately yes, this has become much more common now. "I'm offended by your words, therefore you have no right to say them" is a thing that is very widespread. Yes, free speech does mean that you allow poisonous ideologies to spread, but a lack of free speech means that you allow them to ossify and persist because nothing can be challenged any more.

[bluetomcat]

It's an ongoing path of over-rationalisation which is developing since early modernity. The current trend of the "appification" of the entire human condition is just a late manifestation of that intellectual lineage starting at least since Descartes and Spinoza. All aspects of life are seen through a rigid, mechanistic structure of institutions, rules and behaviours. "Anecdotal experience" is often discarded for a unique "reputable" source of truth.

[stickfigure]

Wait a second. You accuse the West of being overly reductionist? Isn't that an incredibly reductionist thing to say? There isn't a monolithic "West". There's billions of people with widely divergent attitudes and beliefs.

[jahnu]

The self pitying from people claiming “you can’t even say anything anymore” is almost comical at times.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wt8Dxpb3b6E

[Vektorceraptor]

I guess I have to take a stand on this. I don't care about social media, I said goodbye to it a long time ago. It is even a problem to measure or evaluate the world based on social media.

So where does the feeling of people not feeling heard or understood come from? Well, firstly, because they like to be told first and foremost that this isn't true at all. You could say anything. But you overlook the simple fact that you didn't listen to the other person when you gave your reply. People neither listened to his reasons nor asked about them, nor were interested in them. Second, people who like to feel entitled or special have learned to simply ignore other people's problems. As Taylor Swift aptly said - 'shake it off'. This 'shacking off' occurs all the more, the deeper and more complex, i.e. more incomprehensible, your problems are to outsiders, so that an enormous effort is necessary to make them understandable. And also very compressed, because the time span of attention is also no more. On the one hand, it is often difficult to communicate, but on the other hand, interest in listening has also decreased. Thirdly, many people probably have similar problems and therefore intuitively avoid each other. Suddenly the company of others feels exhausting, perhaps demanding an imagined care that you cannot give because your own strength is not enough, or creating a fear of rejection because you need the care of others, but they also have the right to refuse this.

I could go on with many other reasons...

[jahnu]

So far all I’ve read are vague claims of oppression. I do sympathise that you don’t feel happy about something. Life can be a struggle and nearly everyone has their share of challenges. But based on what you have written so far I’m very unconvinced it’s anything much to do with western life because a) it’s terribly vague and b) sounds very familiar to stuff I’ve heard before from people just wanting to blame others for their own problems. I’m listening though so be specific and I’ll genuinely consider anything you have to say.

[Vektorceraptor]

Hey Jahnu,

I don't know if this of any interest to you. And it is in German too, so maybe even not understandable to you. But the findings are shocking. The majority of German people are afraid to express their opinion as it strikes them. So if you are interested in it or just want to look up how the "trend" feels in Germany, here a very actual analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOvG35T8NEw

[qwertthrowway]

Thanks for your comments I find your writing has some satisfying and interesting components to it. These are important observations— putting in words some of my own feelings of my own western society. I would emphasize also a feeling of decline: that there is a sense of helplessness with the state of society sometimes.

[cassepipe]

Here is some gunpowder, crafted by a "cosmopolitan" post WWII german jewish emigree. It's called the Jargon of Authenticity and it can be fun : https://ia801903.us.archive.org/0/items/adorno_jargon/adorno...

[UncleOxidant]

Replying as a 60yo American living in the Western part of the US (ie. I'm about as Westerner as it gets, I suppose)...

> I claim that the West has forgotten what "home" means.

This I mostly agree with. The America I'm familiar with is quite rootless. In fact rootlessness was encouraged even ("you should be willing to move to a new/better job"). It goes all the way back to manifest destiny - always be on the move. There's a temporary feeling about everything. Most of our buildings aren't intended to last centuries - they're intended to be knocked down when something more profitable comes along and that might happen just be in a few years.

> Western culture has become empty and fake

I agree with this as well. Style over substance. Confidence is valued over competence.

> They really believe, they are part of something bigger, are very important and are going to be famous or something.

But this part I don't agree with. I think if anything Americans in 2023 would like to feel like they're part of something bigger but that feeling has been lost for quite a while now. There's no shared vision of what America should be at this point like there mostly was 40 or 50 years ago. That common vision has shattered into a million pieces especially over the last 10 years or so. We're the most isolated people on earth.

> There are things that have now become impossible in the West. Simply expressing unsatisfaction has become a danger for the status quo or the state.

I don't think you've been listening. There's plenty of expressed dissatisfaction - I just did above. Social media is rife with dissatisfaction.

[mikhael28]

Agreed on all points, though I would say that 'home' has very different meanings, for very different people.

[cstejerean]

> Just because you can't free yourself from your nihilistic mental wheel, you have to conjure up and condemn the entire collective. Herein lies the birth of all 'structural arguments', I claim, ad hoc. 'My dissatisfaction must have structural reasons, otherwise I wouldn't be dissatisfied.'

> The west has become tame and sick, and I got exhausted of it. I don't fit in this society anymore, and I can't be productive under its conditions.

I can't help but notice the connection here though, your complaints certainly sound like attempts to conjure up and condemn the entire collective to explain your dissatisfaction. It might be worth reflecting on that.

[stickfigure]

I'm curious about your perspective, but I'm unable to understand these abstractions. Can you give me some examples? What fears of person A makes person B a criminal? What parts of western culture are "fake"? What do you mean by "fake"? Or by "tame and sick"?

You sound a lot like Holden Caulfield - a quintessential part of Western Culture.

[Shorel]

> But you can't even say that out loud anymore, because that means "questioning the whole western ideology" and suddenly someone feels threatened, and myself becomes a criminal.

That seems paranoid and irrational. I can say anything and criticize anyone from a Western country without issues (as long as the criticism is valid, not libel). I can't do that in China or Russia, which are the least Westernized countries.

> edit: in Bulgaria, there is a common truth: life in Bulgaria is shit

Life here is awesome. I welcome you to visit some places in Latin America for a real taste of shit life. You are really not aware of how good you have it. There is a whole different world outside of Europe. :)

[woah]

> There are things that have now become impossible in the West. Simply expressing unsatisfaction has become a danger for the status quo or the state.

What? Expressing unsatisfaction is one the primary genres of social media post.

[bruce511]

Yes, social media seems to exist to create outrage. But so much of it seems to be outrage for outrage's sake. Like other things it seems to have no resonant permanence. it seems to be manufactured for a purpose, then abandoned, or worse, endlessly recycled.

On the other hand, raising items of concern about some other things get enormous pushback (and quick down votes.) Things like-

Does the military really need 777 billion dollars? Why are health-care outcomes so disparate? Why is the US so far behind socially (workers rights, maternity leave, et al)? Why is the answer to another school shooting more guns? Why is building housing in my neighbourhood so hard? How is our life and lifestyle contributing to climate change? Why does climate change even matter?

In the US (and Europe etc) the comfortable middle class is so scared of change, any change at all, that they'll do anything to keep the status quo. And where there has been change there's a desire to rewind the political clock, to return to "happier times" (where, incidentally , wages were $10 a week, a detail lost in inflation discussions.)

Change is scary. Suggesting things could change for the better scares a lot of people who are confortable-enough. So yes, Expressing dissatisfaction with certain things which seem to strike at the heart of that comfortableness is thus not OK.

But clearly, since life is not perfect, we should create narratives explaining our current shortcomings. We need to blame -something- so better that we are presented with the issue (immigration! Gay people!) lest we start thinking for ourselves.

So yes, social media is all about dissatisfaction, but it all seems terribly shallow, self-serving, and, dare I say it, manufactured.

[woah]

Sounds like you're mad that some people online don't agree with your political opinions.

Imagining that your personal politics are something that everyone would agree with if only the veil could be lifted and a mysterious "they" would stop suppressing the truth is the lowest form of political thought.

[bruce511]

Hmm, im sorry it came across that way, that wasn't my intention. For the record I'm not personally on social media, so this wasn't meant to reflect a specific case or issue.

Rather I was trying to convey a sense that people are generally more angry about things that don't matter, while not discussing things that do matter

I make no judgements on "what is right" here, rather on the concept of some topics being "off limits".

Yes, I do find it hard to engage with issues as important as to what some actor tweeted (to get attention) when, for example, kids are scared to go to school because of school shootings. I went to school at a time and place where actual bombs were a thing, but I never felt the way kids feel today.

I wouldn't say I feel angry about this. I'm not being shot at etc. And I don't feel like the truth is bring suppressed- it's not like the actual ills of our society are a secret. I guess it's more a sense that we're fighting about the wrong things. And perhaps it suits some that we continue to do so.

[hydrok9]

I find your views very interesting and that they resonate with me. are you in fact planning to move back to Bulgaria?

[Vektorceraptor]

Thank you. Feels good to know others think or feel alike. It's not concrete yet, but I'm thinking about it out loud. The last time I applied for a job, I applied abroad. I don't feel fully ready to move to Bulgaria yet, but maybe later.

Most of my childhood Bulgarian friends were in the UK for many years, and some have returned. Well, I don't know yet... but it sounds nice.

[tptacek]

You're dancing around it, and there are plausible alternate meanings for "cosmopolitans" and "postmodern cosmopolitans" and even, perhaps, "cosmopolitan intellectuals". But "rootless cosmopolitan" has an unambiguous antisemitic meaning.

[CodeMage]

No, it doesn't. It might be unambiguous in some cultures or some circles, but it's not globally unambiguous.

For example, I didn't even think of it until you pointed it out. I disagree with a lot of the sentiment in Vektorceraptor's comments, but I immediately grasped their meaning behind "rootless cosmopolitan".

Maybe it's because I hail from the same region. I was born in what was Yugoslavia back then and is now Serbia, and I left when I was 20. I spent 14 years in South America, and another 10 here in the US, and I guess that makes me one of Vektorceraptor's "rootless cosmopolitans": someone who has been exposed to different cultures and can live in them, but doesn't really feel at home in any of them.

So no, "rootless cosmopolitan" might sound to you like a dog whistle for "Jew", but it doesn't have to mean that on a culturally diverse site like this one.

EDIT: It might be worth reflecting on the fact that English is not a native language for everyone here. When picking words, some of us might make a suboptimal choice. Ask yourself whether you would have had the same reaction if Vektorceraptor had picked "uprooted" instead of "rootless".

[tptacek]

It's not a western dog whistle, but rather a Russian one.

[pvg]

A Soviet one, to pedant it up a notch.

Edit: Also, I don't really know whether Kenarov is in any way Jewish but it's not hard for me to imagine someone using the term satirically but not intending to (at least, not strongly) evoke its antisemitic aspect. I don't think that really works in English and aimed at a Western audience but people do irony-recycle the old slogan tropes quite a bit and it's a linguistic theme throughout the piece.

[stickfigure]

Even more backstory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan

[pvg]

Yeah that's a good page and covers the weirdness of the term well. You read 'rootless cosmopolitan' in English and think 'ah yes, Soviet antisemitism and Stalin's abortive final purge'. And that's not at all wrong! But the term as used by the Soviets is not a simple euphemism like, dunno, 'urban youth' is in the US.

The ideological terms where picked fairly carefully with an eye towards 'ideological soundness' and had multiple purposes. 'Rootless cosmopolitan' was an antisemitic dogwhistle, it was also part of a deliberate effort to shift to a more Russia-centric Soviet ideology. In a way it was also a Russian dogwhistle so tptacek was kind of right after all, completing the pedanticircle.

[selimthegrim]

Something similar did happen in Communist Yugoslavia

https://www.pismenica.rs/danilo-kis-o-nacionalizmu/

[CodeMage]

Something similar to what? I'm confused.

Thomas was asserting that "rootless cosmopolitan" was an antisemitic slur that Vektorceraptor deliberately applied to Kenarov. I asserted that the knowledge and usage of that expression is not nearly as universal as Thomas claimed. Thomas clarified that it's a Russian dog whistle.

I've just finished reading the essay you linked there. How does it fit in this discussion?

[selimthegrim]

Maybe you read Tomb for Boris Davidovich or Anatomy Lesson?

[CodeMage]

Nope. I see you're a fan of Kiš. I haven't read his stuff, apart from the essay you linked in another comment.

I'm still trying to figure out what you're trying to say, though.

If your point is that there was plenty of bigotry in old Yugoslavia, then yeah, I know that. It's still alive and well in the remnants of it. The casual bigotry and rampant nationalism are part of the reason why I'm still "rootless", because I wouldn't fit in with my compatriots anymore.

But none of that was really the point here. The point is that a phrase might be very well recognized by some people here and totally unknown to others who might stumble into using it by accident.

I mean, I don't actually know if Vektorceraptor was being deliberately antisemitic or not. Maybe Vektorceraptor did know it and its antisemitic connotations and used it like that on purpose. Or maybe not, maybe it meant what I read from it and described in my reply.

Yeah, it's fascinating to read the history of that expression, and to find out it's not a "Western", but a Soviet expression. But I'd like to offer a gentle reminder that the countries that comprised the Soviet Union are one set, and the countries that used to be in the Soviet sphere of influence is another set, and they're not the same set.

[tptacek]

I don't know either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725778

The simpler, calmer point to make is: just don't non-ironically use the term "rootless cosmopolitan" on HN.

[CodeMage]

Yep. As I replied there, I appreciate both the clarification and the opportunity I've had to learn about a phrase to avoid.

[TaurenHunter]

Your post resonated with me and you have a well-structured description of this sentiment. Are there any books/articles that you can recommend about this issue?

[daemonk]

I appreciate the perspective. There appears to be a lot of commonalities between your viewpoint and themes of classic Russian literature.