Lost somewhere between the USSR and the point
Finding a way to disagree on trivialities
Scene setter: college campus (my alma mater), late ‘99. The first Matrix movie had been released not long ago. The college newspaper published a letter to the editor from some whiny liberal kid; let’s call him Student A. Student A was concerned about the state of race relations on campus and in American society. He advanced the idea that racism was so deeply ingrained in our society and everyday lives that it was as if we were living in some sort of Matrix. If I recall correctly, Student A even used this exact quote from Morpheus:
The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
We were so captured by it, so inured to it, that we didn’t even realize that we were racist.
Keep in mind: this was 1999. Peak BLM and SJW were still years—decades—away. Just like the message of The Matrix itself, Student A was a bit ahead of his time.
A few days later, the school paper published another letter to the editor. This one was a response to Student A, written by some meat-headed frat boy; let’s call him Student B. Student B argued that The Matrix wasn’t racist at all. In fact—he wrote—most of the protagonists were female and/or colorful: Morpheus, Trinity, Tank, Dozer, the Oracle. Even Neo himself, played by Keanu Reeves, who was born in Beirut and comes from a delightful mix of various racial stocks. Meanwhile, all the antagonists—from Thomas Anderson’s (Neo’s normie alter-ego) boss to the traitorous Cypher to the Agents themselves—were white men in suits.1
This story has nothing to do with the rest of the article, except to illustrate how it is possible for someone to be 100% correct and still miss the point entirely.
Sir Niall Ferguson wrote a piece for the Free Press called “We’re All Soviets Now”. In short, he argued that modern developed nations simply don’t see the kind of decline and degradation that the US is currently experiencing—with one exception: the late-stage USSR during the 70s and 80s. Specifically, the cause of the national decay is widespread demoralization brought about by universal loss of faith in a corrupt, hypocritical governing elite.
This article provoked quite a few hostile responses. Enough so that one of his most ardent opponents, Johan Goldberg, wrote a counter-article and then had an hour-long debate with Sir Niall. It’s all in the link below; I invite you to read/listen.
Those who’ve read my recent series about Communism and the US can probably guess where I stand on the issue. If you haven’t and are curious, feel free to check out:
I’m not familiar with any of Mr. Goldberg’s other work—I’m sure he is a very intelligent man—but I found his arguments to be wholly unconvincing. Which ordinarily wouldn’t bother me too much, except in this case I think it’s important enough—dangerous enough, even—to address.
I’ll offer some counter-counter-arguments first; then I’ll sum up with why I think it all matters to us.
Republicanism
Mr. Goldberg denied a connection between the USA and the USSR by asserting that the Soviets didn’t live in a republic, the way that Americans do. To which Sir Niall responded, rather obviously, that the country was called the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. Mr. Goldberg’s response was to fake-laugh—rather insultingly, which I think shows weakness rather than strength in a debate—and to assert that of course this wasn’t the case. After all, North Korea is officially called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and they’re not a republic at all!
Well, as long as we’re nitpicking at irrelevancies, let’s explore this point. “Republic” comes from the Latin “res publica”, meaning “a thing that is public”—in contrast to “res privata”, “a thing that is private”. Republics are political states that do not belong to a person, but rather to the citizens of the state. There are many possible types of republics: federal, Islamic, democratic, and socialist, to name a few. Some states are not republics; for example, Saudi Arabia and Jordan (officially, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan). These states belong to the House of Saud and the House of Hashem, respectively. The nations are literally the property of the royal line that rules each.
The US doesn’t belong to the House of Washington, nor did the USSR belong to Lenin or Stalin or Kerensky or anyone else. The USSR held elections (we can discuss how “free and fair” these elections were, right after we finish discussing 2020) and the winners of those elections ran the country, but the country never belonged to them. Debatably, the DPRK is a republic in name only, with the House of Kim establishing itself as a dynastic owner/ruler—but they at least cosplay at republicanism.
One might argue that Mr. Goldberg was using a more colloquial definition of “republic”, denoting a state with an established tradition of liberal democracy, popular vote, a constitutional order, and all the other niceties we imagine when we think about what kind of nation we successfully turned Afghanistan into after only 20 short years.
But even by this much more specialized definition, Mr. Goldberg’s criticism doesn’t hold. It is true that the USSR is lacking in many of the attributes of what we would today consider an enlightened, liberal democratic (not Liberal or Democratic) republic. But who in their right mind could deny that the USA is experiencing a retreat from those ideals, too? The Bill of Rights, faith in election integrity, social tolerance, and pluralism—they are all under assault. And to admit this is to agree with Sir Niall’s argument that the US is heading down the same path that the USSR did.
“Are we the baddies?”
At one point, Sir Niall rhetorically asked “are we the baddies?” to illustrate the imagined moment of realization that Americans should be experiencing. Mr. Goldberg immediately pounced on this, taking issue with the assertion that Americans should think of themselves as “the bad guys”.
The problem is that this is not at all what Sir Niall was saying. He was referencing this classic of British comedy, which I strongly encourage you to watch in its entirety—even though it has that most infuriating component, a laugh track.
“Are we the baddies?” is about two SS officers who suddenly realize that they are fighting on the side of the bad guys. They come to this realization through something seemingly irrelevant: they notice that their side uses the skull as its symbol.
This realization doesn’t come easily. “Hans”, in particular, resists; he offers a string of ridiculous reasons why the skull isn’t so bad: pirates use the skull, he says, and pirates are fun! Plus, the skull isn’t as repulsive a symbol as, say, a rat’s anus.
They are not willfully evil; they have just never even considered the possibility that their side might be the wrong one—that the belief system they grew up in was warped. They are basically good and moral people. Once it sinks in, they both abandon their posts—presumably either to desert or even to switch sides.
This is what Sir Niall was reaching for: that one seemingly innocent little nudge that prompts us to re-examine our belief systems. That kicks over our bucket, one might say. He wasn’t trying to say that Americans are bad guys. He was calling attention to the thing that is glaringly obvious as soon as you bother to notice it: that the promises and slogans we constantly hear from our politicians are hollow mockeries. They are lies, and we know that they are lies, and they know that we know that they are lies, and yet we all still dance the two-step together.
That the American government that we blindly follow, and the American state that we reflexively defend, have both drifted away from their foundational principles. That this drift is causing a crisis of confidence and morale among the American people.
In the interests of keeping my posts to a manageable length, I’ll pause here. Please join me again next week for a few more counter-counter-arguments, plus the conclusion—the point that lies at the end of my own meandering argument.
OK… Cypher never wore a suit.
No historical moment is exactly the same (to paraphrase Heraclitus, you cannot even visit the same country twice), but no historical moment is perfectly unique either.
I grew up in the USSR, and I'm often invoking 1980s parallels myself; but those are just parallels. Kamala is not Gorbachev despite propaganda trying to pull off a New Hope™ trick with both. And of course there are differences, most importantly in that most countries nowadays need fences to keep people out, not to keep people in.