On Reddit, there are two ways to see Russian people: Brainwashed toddlers who have no idea what’s going on in Ukraine or hordes of viscous, evil orcs (the amount of Tolkien lingo I’ve seen to describe this conflict is disturbing. I don’t think he’d want anything to do with it.) that should be destroyed. On Twitter, it’s common to see Ukranian journalists, probably Nazi simps themselves, call for the average Russian civillian to be punished and equate their culture to some warlike barbarian tribe. And on Facebook, you can just say “Kill all Russians” and get away with it.
Like I always knew that the West was slowly sliding into fascism, but I did expect it to happen this quickly.
Libs 2002: “Yeah, LoTR is kinda racist, the bad guys are swarthy hordes from the East and all that, but the movies are cool anyway.”
Libs 2022: “KILL THE ASIATIC ORCS!!1”
Tolkien tried to reclaim nordic mythology from the nazis and instead nazis are claiming Tolkien.
Funnily enough, Tolkien actually regreted to make the orcs too evil looking, he said after the books where released that they where supposed to be modest and agricultural tribes who mainly lived around mordor not because they where evil, but becausr they used the fertile soil around that was filled with ashes so they could plant. It was from mordor farms that most of the food of the army came. And orcs where mainly bad soldiers because they where mostly untrained farmers, not because they where dumb. I really would have loved if he developed more on this side of the orcs.
A Chinese writer’s perspective on this was that this wave of dehumanising was so fanatic and rabid because Russians were still somewhat ‘western and christian’. There are a sizable amount of the far right which sees Russia as the last bastion against Western ‘depravity’ (in this context they’d mean fighting against LGBT+ rights for example). As such the west desperately needed to paint them as impure barbarians with Mongolian genes fighting against the sacred ‘western civilisation’.
They also note that the same probably wouldn’t need be done against Chinese people (and Indian people for example as well) as their regular programming has already painted most of the non-angloid peoples as uncultured savages.
With many of the coddled westerners’ only contact with violence being through media such as Star Wars or LOTR with a clear ‘good vs evil’, it makes it easier for them to believe that they are morally just against those resisting their imperialist rule.
This does make sense, although I can say the average murican still views Russian people with the same lens they did as during the cold war: godless asiatic commies.
The generic action hero story schema in movies, anime, and video games do enforce the ego-centric “we good, opposition bad” mentality, but there are also types of story like a genre of comidic parody that makes fun of established themes in generic stories like “Adam Ruins Everything”. There are new isekai anime/manga that question the ego-centrism like “Konosuba” or “Death Mage Doesn’t Want a Fourth Time”.
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I love how libs go an use Star wars as an example of good vs evil, when its so fucking obvious on how the movies connect with reality: the empire is clearly an militaristic fascist state, that can be related with tons of fascists from real life (bri’ish empire, USA, nazi germany, emperial Japan, etc) and the rebels are clearly partisans and guerrila fighters fighting against the obviously fascist all by their own, and winning, with can be related to things on real life like the italian partisans, and the Vieht Kongs from the vietnan war.
The prequels are even more obvious: there is an corrupt and inneficient republic that works for imperialists and mega corporations, the first episode is an mega corporative monopoly doing an illegal invasion on a planet and almost getting away with it, the anti slavery laws are worthless outside the core (with is an literal emperial core lol) the jedis are pragmatistics, egotistical assholes who where so blinded by their arrogance they where not able to see an multigallactical war and an mass purge happening literally under their nose. The republic has no problem in using an literall slave army. And the CIS is really based if you cut off the greedy capitalists trying to make money out of the war and the sith manipulation, its mainly an revoluctionary army fighting for the independence of the planets outside of the core, that have been exploited and abused for literall centurys.
George Lucas is an very smart person, he knew very well what he was doing when he builded the lore, but neckbearded nerds that can only see big ecplosions on the screen are incapable of connecting the dots with the real life they live on.
Yep, if I recall correctly George Lucas modelled the Empire vs the Rebels after the US vs Vietnam during the Vietnam war.
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tolkien was a racist, but he was also a soldier in ww1 who saw active combat and knew how bad war was.
he was always extremely anti-war
Westerners are taught to be racist, the target always changes, but westerners are taught to use it as a weapon when the need arises.
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The west has viewed Russians that way since the founding of the USSR. It’s been non-stop atrocity propaganda since then. But just like how NATO didn’t dissolve after the USSR collapsed, the anti-Russian bigotry didn’t go away either.
Yeah, I’ve definitely experienced it as a Russian living in the U.S. It has gotten a lot worse recently, though.
I can’t imagine it getting better any time soon, so I hope you stay safe through all this!
It has always been that way really, if you took time to read some of the comments on Reddit etc. Now it’s just openly promoted by MSM, etc. As a Russian it was already difficult reading subs like r/europe, r/worldnews and the like. Now I’m avoiding them completely.
Yeah, this shit was building up for a very long time
Trump took 4 years to slowly shift the overton window right closer to fascism for republicans. Democrats went straight to “Nazism was good, actually” in a single week.
Complete with plenty of stories of people with Nazi grandparents coming out and being praised for their bravery.
Ya it’s a shitshow on r/russophobic
Reddit users are disproportionately American right wing extremists and fake Marxists so I can believe your claim. However, that will contradicts American fake news that collectively repeat every lies from American imperialists and say that Russians are opposing Putin although they will not explain why NATO will sanction all Russian citizens in retaliation against Putin’s humanitarian intervention against Ukraine Fascists.
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What anti-racism laws are you referring to? If you’re talking about the civil rights era, that’s because protesters would have started a revolution if their demands weren’t met. Anti-racism laws in the US were fought for, not given.
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Yeah the US government was shitting itself over the growing power of the revolutionary left and did what it could to quash it. The rise of ML parties like the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party USA was especially unacceptable. Consider that it was around this time that the War on Drugs and COINTELPRO began.
Think of the civil rights act as a concession, not a sign that the US government started caring about its black population.
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Change can happen here, but not without a nationwide movement backed by socialist parties and it’s about time for another one. The Black Lives Matter movement didn’t have one and look what it accomplished. It was the biggest movement in US history and the government responded by exacerbating the problems it was protesting against…
Also, the Civil Rights Act doesn’t need to be repealed de jure for it to be repealed de facto.
The USA is still extremely segregated and still flagrantly denies suffrage to black people by placing as many obstacles as possible like voter ID laws, limited ballot boxes, denying time off work to vote, preventing them from voting by mail, etc. This country is a fucking disgrace.
Yeah I agree, the way redditors are rationalizing war crimes is really disturbing.
