Try and find logic

We believe that we live in the age of reason, in the age of the mind and of the brain. The sciences have developed to such an extent that it is breathtaking. We seem to know more and more about the universe. Everything is based on reasoning, on scientific proof, on experimenting, on arriving at logical conclusions. We are very often told that the previous generations relied mainly on belief and on persuasion, and sometimes even on superstition. How different it is with our age! We are as scientific as scientific can be. We have been and are progressing to a bright future. We owe everything to science, to the brain, to reasoning, in a word – to logic.

Let us look at the present-day world, at the policy-making of the present-day world, at the prevalent convictions; let us see weather logic is the driving force behind the decisions that are made by the sons and daughters of the age of the sciences.

ONE. Throughout history there have been many nations that wanted to be independent. Quite a number of nations in Central and Eastern Europe. The Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs that made up the state of Yugoslavia; the Slovaks and Czechs that made up the state of Czechoslovakia; the Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians along with Ukrainians that were parts of the Soviet Union. All those nations that we have enumerated wanted to gain independence – they did not want to be part of a larger political structure, they did not want to be part of a union: mind you, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union (union!) where political unions or federations. Thus, Slovenes and Croats, thus Slovaks, thus Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians along with Ukrainians, they all wanted to become sovereign states, they all wanted to separate from respectively Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. So far so good. Quite understandable. Nations have usually wanted to have their own political entity. History teaches us again and again that two or more nations put together in one body politic sooner or later tend to pick up a bone of contention. Such is the natural law of politics, one might say. So in due time Slovenia and Croatia, Slovakia, Lithuania Latvia and Estonia, along with Ukraine gained their sovereignty. They became separate states in their own rights, they achieved their dream of becoming independent, their dream of not belonging to any larger political structure. Now what happened on the following day – on the day following their respective Independence Day?

Oh yes! On the following day, on the day following their Independence Day, they all wanted to again become members of a larger political structure. Slovenia and Croatia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and – of course – Ukraine, they all wanted to become members of another union, this time not the Soviet Union, but the European Union. Where’s the logic in all this?

Ah, you may say that the unions – Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union – were the wrong kinds of unions or federations, but were they? Let us begin with the statistics. Slovenia and Croatia within the state of Yugoslavia, Slovakia within the state of Czechoslovakia constituted large components of those federations or unions.  Consequently, they had an important say in decision making. Now those same states –Slovenia, Croatia, and Slovakia – have become parts of a far larger union – the European Union – where they are tiny insignificant members. If the Slovenes or Croats say that they needed to separate from Serbia because Serbs dominated them; and, similarly, if the Slovaks needed to separate from the Czechs because the Slovaks maintained that the Czechs dominated them, then how much more are those countries dominated once they have become members of the European Union?

Consider the three Baltic States: Lithuania Latvia, and Estonia Yes, the three Baltic States where tiny parts of the big Soviet Union, but they are even tinier parts of the bigger European Union. The Soviet Union numbered upwards of 240 million people whereas the European Union numbers upwards of 450 million inhabitants. Plainly, the Baltic states have lost in significance being part of the larger European Union. But then you may raise an objection and say that being members of the European Union the three Baltic States have a much better chance of developing themselves economically and otherwise. Is that true?

One of the striking features of the three Baltic States is that they have been depopulating themselves for all the years during which they have belonged to the European Union. The other significant feature is that they have lost most or all of their industries. Yet another feature is that against the background of such countries as France, Germany, Italy or Great Britain (when the latter was a member of the European Union) Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian culture and economic clout turned out to be was very – very – insignificant. It was different when they belonged to the Soviet Union. For one thing, they did not depopulate themselves. On the contrary, the number of the inhabitants of those three  republics steadily increased. For the other thing, the Baltic Republics were viewed by the rest of the Soviet Union’s inhabitants as almost foreign nations, as something that resembled the West. Russians or Ukrainians looked up to the Baltic Republics.

Just one small example of what we mean. The Baltic Republics had very tiny populations: they vacillate between 1 and 3 million. Now imagine a writer or a movie director who create in such tiny states. It was the policy of the Soviet Union that if a writer or a director were moderately successful their books and their movies would be translated into Russian and sometimes into other major languages of the Soviet Union. Thus a book that was written or a movie that was shot in the language of a very tiny minority all of a sudden gained very a large readership or audiences: more than 200 million people. Now it is not the policy of the European Union to have works of art like books or movies that originate in such little nations translated into English or German or Italian or Spanish. Consequently, a creator – a novelist or a film director – stands no chance of asserting himself across the European Union. Contrarily, it is the western culture – the western books, the western films – that have flooded those little nations, culturally leaving them no breathing space.

TWO. One of the European Union’s principles is the free flow of capital, people, goods and services, which means, among other things, the abolition of border tariffs. It is said that tariffs between the nations or member states thwart the development of economy. If you do not give this claim some thought, you may tend to take it at face value and think that the claim is correct. But is it?

Let us begin from this simple observation that tariffs have been with us for centuries, which obviously means that they have had a purpose. And, of course, they did have a purpose. They protected the economies of particular states. They work something like the rules of martial arts which state that you do not allow a 200-pound  fighter to confront an 180-pound fighter. How otherwise? Obviously, the weaker fighter is doomed to lose. The same is true of economies. A much weaker economy cannot compete with a much stronger economy. It needs protection. Protection comes in the form of tariffs. So if you care for the economy of your nation, you do not readily agree to lift the border types tariffs. Even the world’s strongest economy – the United States – employs tariffs! And – lo and behold – the European Union – the champion of free trade – does the same!

The European Union has border tariffs protecting European economy from the competing Asian or American economies. Ah, then it clearly appears that tariffs are not bad, that tariffs serve a useful purpose! Consider also that particular EU member-states apply financial subventions to protect certain branches of their economies. Such subventions are a form of tariffs, cleverly introduced into the Union’s system. For what is the difference between imposing a pay on a foreign product when it is imported into the country and subsidizing the country’s own product so that it can successfully compete with imported goods? There is no difference. It is a matter of technicalities. A nation’s producers are protected in one way or another against competition from abroad. Why did then weak member-states agree to the abolition of border tariffs, knowing full well that the big-member states have subventions? Did the national economists and leaders of those weaker member-states not see that the tariffs were concealed in subventions? Did they simply trade off the interests of their own nations?

THREE. The progressivist European states have introduced laws of abortion on demand or similar laws to the same effect. They say that it is the human rights to do away with another human so long as it finds himself in between conception and birth. The law-givers additionally underline this policy with the argumentation that the world is suffering from overpopulation. So far so good. We may not agree with this attitude to life, but we may agree that there is some logic in it: the world is overpopulated, the world cannot sustain those few billion people. The planet is running out of its resources and we need to do something about it. Of course, it would be better to prevent conception – which is also done – without resorting to terminating pregnancy. But again – lo and behold – the same authorities that maintain that there are too many people are supporting the policy of importing people from other continents because – so the argument goes – we need people for our economies! So which statement is true? Do we have too many people, or do we need more people? Because it happens so that roughly as many people are being imported into European countries as many foetuses are aborted. Where is the logic? What’s the sense? What is being meant?

FOUR. The importation of people from the Third World is presented to Europeans, Americans and Canadians as enrichment. To put it otherwise, it means that Europe and North America are enriching themselves simply because they import people from the other continents. But if we are enriching ourselves, then someone must be by the same logical token be impoverished, be driven into poverty. Historically, Europeans and Americans used to enrich themselves by importing goods and resources from Asia and Africa. That meant that those goods and resources were taken from Asian and African nations, making them poorer and poorer. That is something that is commonly referred to as colonialism, something that is vehemently condemned and denounced as antihuman. Do you see the point? I hope you do. Now European nations along with the Americans and Canadians are again enriching themselves at the cost of the Third World nations by robbing them this time not of material resources but of human resources. So, is colonialism a bad thing or not?

FIVE. The policy of the oh so progressivist elites of the European Union, the United States and Canada are such that the arrivals from Africa and Asia should assimilate and integrate with the host nations but simultaneously they have the human right to fully preserve their heritage, their religion, their languages, that customs and what not. Pause for a moment and ask yourself: How can you square the circle? You either integrate and assimilate, or you remain separate. These two things cannot be reconciled. How many people perceive it as such? Or maybe the powers that be think that it is possible to integrate and assimilate at the social level and to maintain one’s own heritage privately? When you come to observe the actual world, then you plainly see that it is impractical and not feasible. Assimilate and integrate while preserving your separate identity – go and find logic in it!

SIX. Now the military matters. The NATO alliance was created after the Second World War as a response to the growing power of the Soviet Union. Western Europeans felt threatened by Moscow. They wanted to unite and to have American support in case Moscow invaded Western Europe. (Notice in passing that NATO was created before the Eastern political bloc had its own military alliance in the form of the Warsaw Pact. In other words, the Warsaw Pact was created as a response to the creation of NATO.) During the four decades of the Cold War the two pacts were poised to either attack each other or repulse the attack from the other side. As we know, eventually it so happened that the Warsaw Pact capitulated: it was dissolved, the member states became independent, and could go their own political ways. More to it, the Soviet Union – this formidable giant that the western world competed with militarily and politically – also disintegrated. The Soviet Union surrendered, adapted western ideology of capitalism and market economy, it discarded Marxism and Leninism, it embraced again its Christian religion and its Russian pre-revolutionary heritage. What need was there for the existence of NATO? What need was there for expanding NATO? The only answer is that the alliance was not defensive right from the start. Now when the West’s archenemy had been defeated, the West’s masks were taken off. NATO was there to stay, bracing for another conflict. A conflict with Russia. Why?

Because it is very often argued that Russia is an imperialist country. Europeans believe in it. Russia is an imperialist country because – mind you – it dissolved its military pact, it dissolved the Union in which it was the dominant element, because it has as many as four military bases outside its borders, it has imperial ambitions because it… does not form military alliances that encircle Europe or the United States. Now, neither does the United States nor the European Union have imperialist ambitions although NATO has expanded, although the United States has more than 800 military bases around the globe, although the military expenditure of the United States is as large as the top military expenditures of the next top ten countries combined. No, the United States is not an imperialist country although it is used to waging wars, toppling governments and presidents, intervening in different parts of the world, and imposing its political will on others. Where is the logic in the statements about imperial ambitions?

SEVEN. Now the western world claims to believe in economic competition. The West wants to have free trade – no border tariffs (though how insincere that is we have already discussed above). The Western thinkers maintain that free trade and competition contribute to the development of all of humanity. They claim that manufacturers should be free to look for such conditions of production that make the production cheap and effective. This was precisely the basis of the concept of outsourcing: the phenomenon of transferring production from Western European countries and the United States or Canada to the countries in Africa and, especially, Asia. That is the reason why China, India and Vietnam have absorbed, adopted and then developed many different types of western technology. Outsourcing was a big stepping-stone for China and India to develop their own economies. But once those countries have developed their own economies, they are perceived by the West as enemies! Why? Do they want to invade the West militarily? Are they attempting to forge military alliances aimed against the West? No. They simply began to develop rapidly, much faster then the United States, Canada or Western Europe. They have begun to outstrip the West in more and more fields of economy and technology. That is the only reason why they have become to be perceived as a threat to the West.

But again – mind you – it is one of the tenets of western economic philosophy that the world should develop economically and that to develop economically the world needs competition and that’s the most efficient and cheapest should rightly win in this game because it benefits all of humanity. Now when a country like China emerges victorious in this competition, it becomes branded as the arch enemy of the United States. What is the logic of it? It turns out that all the talk about free trade, market economy and competition was mendacious. The Western elites sort of believed in those principles so long as those principles served their interests. The moment those principles stopped serving their interests, they were discarded by the same Western elites. Ah no, to be precise they have not been discarded – one does not want to lose face – they have been reinterpreted. China is successful, it is said, not because it produces better, faster, and cheaper, but because it applies dishonest means of manufacturing. Chinese manufacturers both mercilessly exploit labour violating human rights, and they pollute the environment, destroying our common home – the planet earth. Do you see the point? If we do not want to buy Chinese products or if we impose tariffs on Chinese products, it is not because the Chinese are successful economically and we can do nothing about it: it is because the Chinese are the evil guys who do not respect human rights and do enormous harm to our common home – the planet earth. Clever, isn’t it?

Much of the same is being done in dealings with the weaker nations of the Western world. We have already discussed the problem of tariffs – inclusive of hidden tariffs in the form of subventions. There is yet another instrument with which leading Western countries hold Central European countries down economically. This instrument is known as care for human safety and the environment. The Western politicians who act in cahoots with the Western manufacturers introduce ever more and more regulations regarding safety or environment protection. The Central European producers are expected to abide by these regulations if they are to be allowed to sell their products on the common market. Obviously, if you want to apply all those requirements concerning safety and environment protection, you need to invest a lot of additional capital in the manufacturing of your products. Now even in the absence of border tariffs, even in the absence of subventions, those requirements alone are potent enough to make your production non profitable. We must admit there is a logic to this policy, but there is no logic in the language that is used to cover up this clever scheme. Because on the surface of it free competition has been elevated to one of those holiest principles of international trade. In reality, it is the particular interests of particular nations or companies or different groups that are really protected.

EIGHT. Consider the logic that states that certain countries have the right to possess nuclear weapons while all the others are forbidden to have them. It might be understandable somehow in the case of the United States, Russia, and China, and maybe also India that it is only these four that are allowed to have nuclear weapons, because they are very big and very important globally. But then you come to think about the United Kingdom or France, about Pakistan or Israel, all of them having nuclear weapons, and you may begin to wonder why those countries are allowed to have such weapons but others – God forbid! On the one hand it is stated that all the nations are sovereign and are to be treated on a par, enjoying the same international political rights, on the other hand try developing your own nuclear weapons and you are in for a lot of trouble. The United States (the country – unlike Russia – that has no imperial ambitions, just a reminder), is highly likely to bomb you into stone age if you do not comply with the requirement of resigning from having nuclear weaponry. Where’s the logic?

Ah yes, it is stated that there are regimes – not the governments – or dictators – not presidents or prime ministers – who are irresponsible and who will certainly use the nuclear weapons to promote their own interests at the cost of all of humanity. And it is simultaneously claimed that governments – this time not regimes – or presidents and prime ministers – this time not dictators – of the United States, Great Britain, and France are responsible authorities, which is why they should have nukes at their disposal because they will certainly not use them to the detriment of all of humanity, whereas all of the other countries should be forbidden from having nukes because they will certainly use them to the detriment of the whole humanity. It is also to be understood that in countries like Great Britain or France the governments and the presidents and the prime ministers are going to always be reasonable and responsible, whereas in all the other countries the regimes and dictators are there to stay forever. Why? Is it because the French or the British are somehow biologically better than all the other nations on the earth? But then such a claim smacks of racism, which is summarily condemned in the West.

NINE. Talking about human races. Oh yes, there are no races – there’s only one human race, as we are told, but sometimes it is very difficult to explain certain social phenomena, like the fact that non-Europeans living in Europe are irascible and prone to violence. Whenever such phenomena occur, a weird explanation is being offered: it is not because of race that they behave like that, but because of their culture. Many people – especially educated people – parrot this claim that if people from Africa behave violently it is not because it is something biologically intrinsic (that would be admitting that there are races and that they differ significantly), but because it is their culture. Yet, nobody seems to be bothered to ask the simple question: where does culture come from? Is it imposed from on high? Has it been dumped on nations from the planet Mars? Does it originate out of thin air? Of course not. Culture originates from and among the people that create it. Culture is the external reflection of the collective, average psyche of a given people. Culture reflects a community, a society, a nation, a race.

It is like with an individual human being. The way he dresses, the hairdo she wears, the language that he uses, the interests that she pursues, these and other things reflect the soul of the individual. Neither the clothes nor the hairdo nor the language nor particular interests can be imposed on an individual in the long run if these things do not overlap with the individual’s psyche. Of course you may try to induce an interest in somebody, but if it does not resonate with the person, it is doomed to failure. We all have our own psychological profile that makes us pursue the things that correspond to this inner voice, or – if you will – soul. The same is true of communities, the same is true of nations, the same is true of something that we commonly refer to as a human race. Culture is the product of the collective psyche of the people – culture is not and cannot be imposed on a community just as you cannot successfully impose an interest, a hobby on an individual.

If races are equal in terms of their physical or mental abilities, why then do we have all those types of affirmative action, why then do the powers that be elevate the people of colour as they say, especially people of African descent? Why is it so that people of Chinese, Korean or Japanese descent are not lavished with any privileges, with any affirmative action?

The claim about the equality of human races is similar to the claim of the equality of the two sexes. Supposedly, women can do all the things that the men can do with the same effectiveness. Why then imposing and introducing all those quotas on the companies and institutions that they need to have a certain number of women on the staff? By forcibly imposing those quota the powers by the very same token admit that without those quotas women (or certain human races) stand little chance of making a career, climbing the social ladder, or achieving something of significance.

Now the same system of favouritism was used in the socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. There, too, different types of affirmative action were at work. Sons and daughters of the working class and the peasantry enjoyed various privileges like the admittance to universities. Even if sons and daughters of the working class or the peasantry scored worse on entrance examinations, all the same they were admitted to a university or were granted responsible positions, while the sons and daughters of the ‘historically privileged’ classes were not. It all led to a situation where incompetent or not so competent people were put in charge of important projects, enterprises ministries, while competent and talented people were sidetracked. It did not work to the benefit of a society, as we know. Such affirmative action experiments failed miserably. It all ended in the demise of Central and Eastern European countries.

Why cannot anybody see that any kind of affirmative action is detrimental not only to the society or a nation as a whole, but also to those members of the societal the nation who are – as they say – unprivileged. It was in the socialist Central and Eastern European countries that due to all those socialist egalitarianism incompetent people ran the economy and they brought to ruin their respective countries. As a result, all people suffered. Similarly, it would be much better for the people of colour not to be favoured by the political system: it would be better for them to remain in ‘unprivileged positions’, because still it is much better for everyone to live in a developing and prosperous society than in a society which is plunged into poverty by incompetent managers elevated to managerial positions due to affirmative action.

TEN. If colonialism was bad and is denounced as such, because it meant exploitation of a certain group of people by another group of people, can’t we see that now Europeans are subjected to a reversed kind of colonialism? Because people imported from Africa and Asia are being sustained by the indigenous populations against their the will. That means that the arrivals from Africa and Asia are like the European colonisers of the 19th century. In both cases – whether the arrivals are Europeans in Africa or Asia, or Africans and Asians in Europe – the colonisation takes place at the cost of the indigenous populations. That’s simple logic, but somehow barely anybody seems to notice that.

It is sometimes claimed that Europeans need to atone for the sins of their forefathers. It is a ridiculous sanctimonious claim. First, it presupposes collective responsibility, which again in modern philosophy of law is denounced as preposterous. Second, it is not only Europeans – or, to be precise, their forefathers – who are responsible for exploiting slavery and committing other atrocious things: everywhere around the globe throughout all of human history nations and groups of people warred with other nations and groups of people, and – if victorious – enslaved them, and exploited them. Europeans were no different: they were neither worse nor better.

But, yes, there’s an important difference. Europeans in Africa or Asia may have been exploiters, but at the same time they introduced the advanced technology, medicine, agriculture, architecture, political solutions, social solutions, and so on and so forth. Is that the case with arrivals especially from Africa? Yes, there are fanatic ideologues who claim that we owe almost everything to African thought and ingenuity, but such claims are beyond ridiculous.

ELEVEN. Multiethnicity is said to be a good phenomenon. It is said that a mixture of the different kinds of heritage and beliefs contributes to the development of a community. But at the same time we are witnessing again and again that multiethnic political entities suffer from very cruel civil wars. Again and again we witness that multinational countries disintegrate, and they disintegrate along their national or ethnic or racial or religious fault lines. Why then it is claimed that multiethnicity is beneficial? If it were beneficial than the Irish would like to still remain part of the United Kingdom. As it is, they do not want to be a part of the United Kingdom. Why? If it were beneficial, then the people in Scotland would not want to separate from England, the people of Catalonia would not want to separate from Spain, Ukrainians would not want to separate from Russia, Slovaks would not have separated from Czechs, just as Slovenes and Croatians would not have separated from Serbs. Why? Because allegedly living in mixed communities they would mutually enriched themselves enormously. Yet, they all preferred to go their own ways.

Where is it Austria-Hungary today? It disintegrated into several separate, sovereign nations: Austria, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia… they all made-up (forcibly) one big multinational state, a kind of union, and this union disintegrated, and it disintegrated overnight when an opportunity for disintegration presented itself. Why then do all those nations and many others want again to participate in yet another union? Do they learn anything from history?

TWELVE. It is often claimed that Europe must support Ukraine in the latter’s war against Russia because otherwise Russia will invade Central and then Western Europe. How can Russia want to invade Europe which in terms of demography is three times as large, which in terms of economy is a few times stronger and more powerful? How can Russia want to invade Europe if it has not been capable of conquering Ukraine for long four years now?

THIRTEEN. Russia’s claim that she was compelled to invade Ukraine because Russia felt threatened by slowly being encircled by NATO is denounced as unfounded. But if you are not biassed against Moscow, then you can plainly see that those claims are very well founded. And you can draw a comparison. Israel for that matter attacks any nation and the Middle East which Israel suspects of developing nuclear weapons i.e. threatening Israel itself. You may still remember the Israeli air raid hitting targets in Iraq in the 80s of the previous century. Now we are witnessing a war against Iran. Mind you that Iran or Iraq does not even border on Israel, while Ukraine does border on Russia! So Tel Aviv has the right to drop bombs on Iraq or Iran the moment it thinks that those nations are developing nukes whereas Moscow does not have a similar right to intervene in Ukraine when it learns about Ukraine’s plans to become a NATO member, a member of an anti-Russian military alliance!

Where is the logic in all this? Read through those 13 points and try to figure out the logic behind them. You do not need to be an expert. Simple logic is sufficient. The powers that be reveal themselves to be mendacious. They say one thing and do another. They claim one thing but mean something different. The use words that do not correspond to their deeds. They absolve of guilt one country and at the same time they condemn the other country for acting in exactly the same way. To appear righteous in the eyes of the Europeans, they reinterpret history and they apply different vocabulary to describe similar historical phenomena. Common people usually let themselves be drawn into the discussion of isolated insignificant events. We know that if you concentrate on a single tree, you cannot see the forest. So, rather than observing a tree and discussing a bush, we should take a step back and take into consideration the entirety of the forest. Only then can we see the process and the tendency. Particular events are like specks of dust. Specks of dust do not tell you the story about processes. Only when we see the cloud of dust can we notice the direction in which it is progressing, can we see its shape, colour, and density.