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Notes -
Russia is way more familiar with Western culture, and I don't know how seriously I should take Yuri Bezmenov, but apparently an argument can be made that the current internal divisions is just what they sowed back in the Soviet days bearing fruit now. In any case they probably have some cultural infrastructure left over from back then.
It would make sense. If the social discord was sownin the 1970s, then the first generation raised with it would be late gen X in the 1979s and 1980s. Those people are parents of high school and college kids now. So that means that only those in the boomer and early gen X era can even vaguely remember a time when racial politics and class/race resentment weren’t prominent parts of the political and social landscape. Most people under 60 or so think those things are normal.
And Russia has an advantage of being fairly culturally similar to the West to be able to talk in their language. They’re Orthodox Christians, which gives them an understanding of the foundation of Western religion. They’re shaped by Greco-Roman cultural norms, including individualism and guilt over shame. China has none of that. China was its own civilization for millennia. It’s influenced by Taoism, Confucius, and Buddhism. They emphasize conformity and respect for the elites instead of individual self expression and individual rights and liberties. As such, even though China has become a sort of city on a hill, it can’t really communicate it’s values because of the lack of commonality,
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