Anti-Maidan

[Goodfella]

I can see I'm wasting my time. All you see is my political identity, which is not even asserting itself on this issue. I discussed the scholarship, because, you know, I'm a scholar on this stuff, but nope, what you know is the truth, because it's a commie that said otherwise! I mean, hell, I even talked about what a crappy job the Soviets did of dealing with the problem, but nope, it's all communism apology if it contradicts the worst possibly imaginable scenario...

No one else gets shat on when discussing their topics of specialization like I do. Not the doctors, not the theologian, not the economists, not the mathematicians, not the scientists. No, people yield to their expertise. There's something about communism, and the Soviet Union in particular that makes everyone think they're the indisputable expert on it, because they read a wikipedia article, watched a History Channel special, or heard a blurb about it on the evening news.

I don't doubt in the least bit that you know a considerable amount about the topic, but I fear it ultimately amounts to a confirmation bias.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Domen is trying. By "you" I meant a generalized undefined person, not you. Sorry.

You still haven't addressed those facts though... Seems like you are trying to use our resident polandball as a distraction...

So... where did you get the impression that the Western media are heterophobic? Just wondering what news you've been fed on a daily basis.

 

[strijder20]

I don't doubt in the least bit that you know a considerable amount about the topic, but I fear it ultimately amounts to a confirmation bias.

You're just as susceptible to it as he is, and he has the expertise.

 

[Kyriakos]

..

 

[LamaGT]

This sort of attitude is worrisome although not at all uncommon. People like these, unfortunately, also tend to be woefully devoid of critical thinking and susceptible to propaganda.

Yeah except that he's right. The question of Ukrainian identity is a very complex one, with about 40% of the people speaking Russian or Russian-based surzhyk as first language, while ethnic Ukrainians are many more. I attribute it to two causes:
-Passport nationality (which is synonymous with ethnicity) is based on your father's nationality. You hopefully know that ethnicity is not genetically passed down to your children. I myself am officially a Ukrainian even though I identify more as a Russian.
-As Alexey said it's hard to identify strongly as either Russian or Ukrainian because of the situation, though I guess I'm more of an exception and most people identify as Ukrainian anyway.

 

[Goodfella]

You're just as susceptible to it as he is, and he has the expertise.

Right, trouble's that there are Stanford, Yale, and Amsterdam historians, among many others, who claim it was a deliberate genocide. What about their scholarship? Why should I take the word of someone who's demonstrated consistently that he lacks the propensity to objectively analyze historical events over the word of numerous other scholars?

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

That's how science becomes prejudiced: Not with the Party line? Not a scientist! History in the West has a long tradition of such prejudice towards the rest of the world. And now irresponsible media bias and intense political conjuncture adds to it. There was a hope and a gleam of objectivity once. Not anymore.

 

[Farm Boy]

There was a hope and a gleam of objectivity once.

It's the same muddy gleam now as it ever was. The past wasn't Nirvana. This isn't the end of days.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

It is. History degradation is nothing compared to materialist worldview being lost. Religious-like delirium is going to fall upon the human race once again. It will continue for centuries and centuries, or perhaps forever.

 

[Goodfella]

That's how science becomes prejudiced: Not with the Party line? Not a scientist! History in the West has a long tradition of such prejudice towards the rest of the world. And now irresponsible media bias and intense political conjuncture adds to it. There was a hope and a gleam of objectivity once. Not anymore.

That doesn't follow from anything I've said.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Anyway Holodomor is a conspiracy theory. Famine, yes.

***

SEVASTOPOL

New mayor has been elected.


Link to video.

***

Earlier. One videos of the following meeting was here somewhere. Now with a WWII song, The Sacred War.


Link to video.

 

[red_elk]

Russia must support this movement financially.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Right, trouble's that there are Stanford, Yale, and Amsterdam historians, among many others, who claim it was a deliberate genocide. What about their scholarship? Why should I take the word of someone who's demonstrated consistently that he lacks the propensity to objectively analyze historical events over the word of numerous other scholars?

I would presume Cheezy is better at evaluating which historical literature is better accurate. And more recent.

 

[Goodfella]

I wouldn't. Why would you presume that? If you presume he knows which literature is more accurate, you can probably presume he's right, in which case I'd loop back to posts 81 and 86.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Why would you presume that.

Because he's an expert in said history? This is not a hard concept to grasp. So far I don't have any reason to presume you're right, considering you're probably exposed to the typical American biases against the USSR. History written by the victors, "evil empire", "dirty commie"...you get the idea.

 

[LamaGT]

On the other hand, wikipedia itself admits that the regions hit hardest were pretty much exclusively what was Novorossiya, which already at that time, while not unequivocably Russian speaking, were certainly much less of a threat to the USSR than western areas. Famine is also quite an egalitarian killer, I'm sure that if Russians had extra rations it would have been discovered and mentioned.
So it really doesn't stack up.

 

[Goodfella]

Because he's an expert in said history? This is not a hard concept to grasp. So far I don't have any reason to presume you're right, considering you're probably exposed to the typical American biases against the USSR. History written by the victors, "evil empire", "dirty commie"...you get the idea.

You shouldn't presume I'm right, but not because I have some preconceived opinion that the Soviet Union's bad, but because I don't know a great deal on the subject. The point I'm really trying to get at though is what I said in post 86. To me, given my admittedly faint knowledge on this particular subject, there seems to be a large body of historians, from the West and from former SRs, who consider the Holodomer to be a genocide. These people, some of whom hold teaching positions at extremely prestigious universities, seem like more credible sources than Cheezy. What makes Cheezy's expertise considerably more profound than the expertise of tenured genocide and Eastern European professors? That's my point. Aleskey claims they're all predisposed to deride the USSR, which I'm not buying, especially given that one author I read was a communist himself. And this gets back to why I don't trust Cheezy's impartiality. He rarely implicates the Soviet Union, or any other nominally communist country for that matter, for any crimes, which to me, is indicative of his impartiality towards communist countries. Hence, I suspect a confirmation bias.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

How long ago did those historians you're referring to write their pieces of scholarship? Again, what are your qualifications for evaluating historical literature? And positions in universities? When I evaluate a molecular biology paper, I actually look at the molecular biology and analyses they did to criticize the paper. I don't look at the positions of the researchers involved hold.

 

[Farm Boy]

When I evaluate a molecular biology paper, I actually look at the molecular biology and analyses they did to criticize the paper. I don't look at the positions of the researchers involved hold.

(Not speaking either way on the matter of Cheezy and his peculiar brand of awesomeness(no, not sarcasm)) This requires meaningful competence within the field to be at all effective. If I'm reading about the humaneness of different slaughter practices I do not go out and start butchering animals so that I can develop competence at evaluating individual components of academic papers. What I do is take what I do know and try to determine which sources are most likely to be reputable and weigh their assertions, studies, determinations appropriately.

 

[Goodfella]

How long ago did those historians you're referring to write their pieces of scholarship? Again, what are your qualifications for evaluating historical literature? And positions in universities? When I evaluate a molecular biology paper, I actually look at the molecular biology and analyses they did to criticize the paper. I don't look at the positions of the researchers involved hold.

The molecular biology analogy doesn't really hold. I don't study molecular biology, so if you told me something pertaining to your major, I would obviously take it at face value, unless what you told me conflicted with what other molecular biology students, or even molecular biology professors told me, in which case I might view your opinion with some skepticism. If I was given reason to believe that you didn't arrive at your positions through impartial analyses then I would become increasingly skeptical. Finally, if you derided all who disagreed with you for having preconceived biases against your opinion, I would probably just defer to someone else.