The coming clash of civilizations — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

Their view is likely one of the ‘finish of historical past’, as proclaimed by the scholar Francis Fukuyama. The issue is, Fukuyama proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy greater than three a long time in the past. It’s truthful to say the world has moved on a bit of bit since then.

It’s onerous to disclaim that ideological competitors is now making a comeback. And it appears as if within the coming a long time the conflict of ideologies will solely turn into extra intense. All three up to date nice powers – the USA, China, and Russia – are competing for greater than materials energy. Representing distinct ideological faiths, they’re additionally in competitors for human souls. There’s additionally a fourth competing ideology – radical Islamism – however it’s now disembodied and lacks a ‘service state’ after the defeat of its most vociferous advocates.

The US now champions a liberal-progressivist ideology, which, in its most excessive model, is called wokeness. In wokeness, the 2 important ideological strands of the fashionable West which have their origins within the European Enlightenment – liberalism and communism – lastly reunite after a bitter internecine feud. When the opponents of wokeness evaluate it to radical Bolshevism, it’s not with out purpose. In its struggle in opposition to structural oppression, wokeness is finally about destroying social hierarchies for the sake of justice – and on the expense of order.

Taken to its extremes, this new Western ideological battle for fairness and equality results in common homogenization, inevitably destroying the variety of social and even bodily identities. In a novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, one of many characters, a fiery Bolshevik, was dreaming a few post-revolutionary world wherein the borders come crashing down and other people intermarry so there are not any dominant and oppressed teams any extra: “everybody’s look might be pleasantly brown – and everybody would be the similar.” This Russian Bolshevik from the Nineteen Twenties might be part of the woke squads in Seattle or Bristol within the 2020s.

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China and Russia are sometimes lumped collectively as ‘fellow autocracies’. However, the truth is, Beijing and Moscow stand for very totally different ideological fashions. China’s is a synthesis of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist socialism blended with conventional Chinese language methods, resembling Confucianism and legalism, all boosted by superior digital expertise. The West more and more fears China not solely as a result of progress in Beijing’s financial and army energy, but additionally as a result of trendy China’s massively profitable report of improvement appears to validate the CCP’s ideology.

The coronavirus pandemic was a decisive second that demonstrated the effectivity of China’s system. Whereas most Western states, in addition to Russia and India, disastrously failed to guard their populations from the illness, the world’s most populous nation successfully received the battle in opposition to the virus. China’s system has a dystopian streak, however it’s presently the simplest one in relation to offering materials wealth for the plenty and defending human life.

It’s true that China lacks particular person freedoms, however do people actually need freedom, the burden of which is usually insufferable for the typical man? The well-known monologue of the Grand Inquisitor in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov might nicely belong to somebody within the higher echelon of the fashionable Chinese language Communist Occasion: “They may perceive themselves, finally, that freedom and bread sufficient for all are inconceivable collectively, for by no means, by no means will they be capable to share between them!”

So the place does Russia slot in? There’s a false impression amongst many within the West that President Vladimir Putin seeks to revive the communist Soviet Union. In actual fact, the present Russian ruler has repeatedly made clear that he’s very ambivalent in regards to the Soviet mannequin. Putin, briefly, isn’t any communist – in actuality, he’s extra like a neo-feudal ruler. His system of top-down authorities, which is a hybrid of a traditionalist empire and a contemporary nation state, might be the one attainable approach Russia might live on as a single political entity.

As a substitute of Bolshevik radicalism, Putin’s desire appears to be the previous Tsarist mannequin: No plans to construct an abroad empire, only a huge continental autocratic energy counting on nuclear weapons, ‘wholesome conservatism’, and ‘time-tested custom’. Putin’s system is completely against revolution. His rumored religious confidant, the Russian Orthodox Church’s Metropolitan Tikhon, has been incessantly warning in regards to the risks inherent in uprisings and upheaval. The Russian chief himself brazenly detests instability as a elementary evil, having stated, “Russia’s political system is evolving steadily in order to forestall any revolutions. We’ve got reached our restrict on revolutions.” Putin’s phrases usually sound as in the event that they have been coming straight from conservative main gentle Edmund Burke’s ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’.

Putin’s Russia has its beliefs primarily previously. That’s a significant purpose why the ideology of recent Russia appeals to many right-wing conservatives in Europe and North America who see Russia because the final main state that adheres to the values of what was once European Christian civilization. Putin’s Russia has one other benefit. Among the many competing ideologies, it’s the most interesting aesthetically. This can be as a result of for Putin’s state, order is prioritised over justice. Justice, particularly the limitless justice of the ‘woke’, is usually messy and even ugly. Order, particularly a hierarchical one, has a robust magnificence. Consider the aesthetics of The Lord of the Rings or Dune. Just like Hollywood epics exploiting medieval narratives, a lot of the attraction of ‘the Putin universe’ could also be drawing upon the themes of energy, masculinity, hierarchy, and miracle.

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One other attraction of the Russian system is that, regardless of being considerably imperfect when it comes to political and civil rights, it most likely boasts one of many highest ranges of personal freedom on the earth. The state in Russia is mostly reluctant to intervene within the non-public lives of its topics, if solely as a result of it lacks the capability to take action – and apparently doesn’t search this capability, outdoors of the latest Covid-19 measures, which have been opposed and overhauled in equal measure.

The Russian mannequin does have one main disadvantage. It’s ill-suited to ship financial and technological improvement.  For a decade now, Russia’s financial system has been stagnating and it’s unlikely to take off any time quickly. Nonetheless, the dearth of financial dynamism is likely to be a systemic function Putin is completely conscious of, accepting it as an inexpensive worth for political and social tranquility. To attain breakthroughs in improvement, you must be keen to conduct huge societal-scale experiments, generally bordering on revolution. For all of the variations of their ideological credos, the West and the CCP-led China share the style for experimenting with their future. It’s an irony misplaced on few that the brand new facial recognition system being developed in China to offer safety in public locations is known as Sky Internet, echoing the dystopian AI that haunts the world of The Terminator movies.

Humanity can now select between the West’s wokeism, Russia’s neo-feudal conservatism, and China’s barely dystopian digital socialism. It’s removed from a wide array on the menu, nevertheless it’s good to have a alternative anyway.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of the creator and don’t essentially signify these of RT.