text/TheREALReasonPeaceinUkraineisImpossiblePavelShchelin.txt



TheREALReasonPeaceinUkraineisImpossiblePavelShchelin



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GDWjcaBoRg

Chapter 1: Pavel Shchelin on political theology
0:00
Welcome back everybody to neutrality studies. Today for the first time with a Russian political philosopher Pavl Shayin Pavl welcome to the channel.
0:10
Nice day to you Pascal.
0:12
Pavl can you tell us a little bit about yourself where and where you're coming from and you're also referring to yourself not only as a political
0:20
philosopher but also a theological uh thinker an orthodox thinker. Um, can you tell us where what what's your approach to trying to understand world affairs?
0:33
Well, thank you for your question. Hard to put it into several sentences, but I will
0:42
try. So, I studied as a political scientist. So, I graduated in international relations,
0:49
political science. I have several degrees from both Russian um university and from western universities like
0:57
University of Glasgow, Central European University in Russia. I finished Moscow State University for international
1:05
affairs. So kind of all of these uh topics we're going to talk together today I'm technically qualified to talk to if you're looking into diploma.
1:16
However, uh like several years ago, especially with the beginning of the war, um it was a big crisis in terms of
1:27
analytical paradigm I was working in which was more or less kind of you can say standard classical theories of
1:34
international relations like realism, um neism, structuralism, all these sort of things.
1:42
To me, they were insufficient to explain maybe the biggest paradox of what one
1:49
can say is an irrational behavior or one would say from other parties. Basically,
1:56
choosing strategies which clearly would hurt them like from an outsider perspective but still pursuing them with
2:05
a incred with incredibly uh diligent commitment. And around like
2:11
2022, I started to um explore less uh popular traditions of political thinking
2:21
and uh explanation models for in both individual and collective behavior. And
2:28
that's how I discovered both the tradition of what is called political theology in the west. And there are many
2:35
singers like Fog Foglin, like Carl Schmidt and just to name a couple maybe the most famous and at the same time
2:43
like Russian religious philosophy like also big tradition but kind of which existed on the margin plus rediscovering
2:51
the scriptures of holy fathers of Orthodox face and altogether it resulted
2:58
in a approach to seeing international affairs and political affairs.
3:05
as a subject centered uh approach you can call it this way.
3:12
What I try to look is what are the desire, who are the decision makers,
3:18
what are their desires, like what are the world they live in and how basically
3:26
these desires are uh either mutually exclusive or potentially um
3:34
capable of coexistence. And uh as a result like this project resulted like this shift in my paradigm resulted
3:43
basically in what I am right now and uh you can follow my work in like mostly in Russian I would say 80% or 80 or 90% of
3:51
it it's in Russian but it proved to be very helpful for people uh like in Russian speaking audiences to see the
4:00
meaning the reasons behind actions. So not just talking about facts or decision made but why people make certain kind of
4:08
decisions without trying to judge but kind of with trying to just simply to understand like it might be madness to you but that's what this person that's
4:16
the world view of this person that's what his desire is and for him that's the most logical choice. So something like this
4:24
in the nutshell in in a nutshell but let in a nutshell let's go a little bit further into the nutshell like what is the
Chapter 2: Worldviews, rationality, and reality
4:33
under under under that framework because you you you seem to distinguish like between worldview and then the
4:40
desires do you the world view directly impact the desire or absolutely different
4:47
yeah what I what I think is I'm being um weakness on a classical theories of international relations is that we still
4:55
presume um most of the times that such notions
5:01
as security, prosperity, development are universal that they mean
5:09
approximately the same things for all of the people and that's what I think is simply not the case. So there is no such
5:18
thing in my opinion as common rationality like there there are different worldviews and every
5:25
rationality like or you can call you can call it logos is contingent upon a certain worldview as upon certain
5:34
ethical worldview upon certain interpretation of history upon certain interpretation of simply how what
5:42
reality is and constantly Um within this framework every one of us operates. It
5:50
is tricky nowadays because intuitively we all treat our worldview as self-evident worldview and um very
6:00
rarely we truly bother uh to accustom ourselves with uh true alternative. It
6:09
kind of terrifies us. Uh you can argue, oh no, but we will we talk so much about diversity and like come on, we all we all agree that we're all different. No,
6:17
not really. Like when people talk about diversity, they mostly say, no, no, no, we believe in the same things but differently or we all might look
6:26
differently, but we actually believe in the same things. And that's what I find not the case actually for for especially
6:34
you would might be surprised for Russian let's say um political makers and simply Russian culture it is genuinely
6:43
difficult to accept that for example uh what we hold self-evident is not
6:50
self-evident for other people and it creates huge basically basically you can see you can say that the game of
6:58
international politics is a game of a broken telephone and in many ways that's creates uh the most uh
7:06
um one of the biggest uh reasons behind certain kind of tragic tragical and
7:13
comical character of this uh phenomenon or this this matter. So basically the core argument is very simple there there
7:21
is no such thing as a common rationality and there is no such thing as a truly universal human worldview. There is no such thing as basic baseline human
7:30
universal worldview. There are different worldviews which are all uh centered around a certain ethical system which in
7:38
its turn ultimately in its limit will have some religious understanding of reality. So some theological
7:45
underpinning and every desire a polit every decision a a politic a subject
7:51
makes it's within this framework and within this framework like his desires
7:58
exist his desires exist so something like this hey just a very quick note the best way to support this channel is by
8:07
signing up for my free substack you can also help with a paid subscription there or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com links below. See you there.
8:18
And what about what about reality? Does in in your understanding
8:26
do do we operate within an observer independent reality or is all and any form of reality always dependent upon the person looking at it?
8:37
Okay. So I would say theologically speaking uh obviously there is an objective reality but it's objective
8:44
reality which is contingent upon God like so like it's it's objective because we have God and through his perspective
8:52
this universal objective reality does exist however and that's kind of my tricky line. So on the one hand
8:59
objective reality exist the world exists. For example, if I jump from the 10th store food building, I uh will hurt myself badly, most probably die.
9:12
However, if within my world view, and that's the tricky part, I truly believe that I can fly, maybe I'm insane, let's
9:22
say, or maybe I just truly believe that I can fly. Then for me, this fact
9:29
doesn't exist until when I make the decision. And that's the tricky part.
9:34
So, you don't see what you do. You don't see what your world view is not allowing you to see. something of this sort like
9:43
it like some people can train like you can it takes enormous effort for you to truly embrace let's say that uh the
9:50
ability to see at least the baseline of different world views but that's kind of I think this paradox results so objective reality exists and uh we can
10:00
uh try to strive to understand it better but at the same time when we are talking about decisions made we cannot analyze
10:08
them just from the perspective For objective reality alone, we need to p to analyze it as exactly an intersection
10:16
between an objective reality like or at least the re some sort of like understanding that there is objective reality but also
10:24
understanding what the world view is on this reality because in terms of action
10:31
uh again maybe it's a little bit radical but 99% of the stories I know people act upon what they believe in and not upon
10:38
what they would like and every time they believe in something they think it's objective. So for example that's why usually pragmatist argument simply
10:46
doesn't work like for example you can provide a person like let's take Europe and Russia example like uh in terms of
10:54
like economic trade etc. You can bring let's say hundreds thousands of papers which pragmatically will explain that this for example for economic purposes
11:02
that this decision is optimal but if in my subjective view uh this decision um
11:11
simply does not fit like it it's it cannot be because it cannot be like all this rational pragmatic work will be
11:19
fruitless. So something of this sort I will make the decision simply because I believe that we uh simply because uh I
11:26
need to protect my status like for example I'm civilized I'm civilized they are barbarians and I need we are the garden they are the jungle and I need to
11:35
protect my status of a garden that's the thing and simply the pragmatic cooperation between jungle and garden is impossible
11:44
because it is so is objectively let's say cooperation possible yes does it matter force is decision made. I would
11:51
argue no. Let's kind of I see. And within that within within
11:58
that framework then do you think that um we could for instance explain things like 21 sanctions packages of of the
Chapter 3: Sanctions and symbolic politics
12:06
Europeans. It's like the belief it must it must be good therefore it therefore it will work. That's uh that's what motivates it
12:15
kind of. It's even bigger. So uh and more basic. So let's say uh here comes
12:22
more like speaking I I brought that I believe in objective worldview and to me the objective worldview of human nature
12:30
is a orthodox understanding of men of sin of passions of desires of like vices and one of the biggest uh vices which we
12:38
all struggle but we all struggle differently is the vice of pride. So uh
12:47
uh what what do you see in sanctions? So imagine you're in a Brussel decision maker. You pass 21 you you pass
12:54
sanctions projects and within you and and very important you live and your whole life is in this world where the
13:03
west for the 400 years can break anybody that you are the center uh that you're
13:10
as a civilized and when you command something nobody questions your command like especially that's kind of the world
13:18
of Brussel commissera and it's good because ultimately you're bringing everybody to this um standard let's say
13:25
liberal rule-based order one way or the other which means like the combination of liberal values and the combination of
13:33
the basically you are a benevolent master. So that's your worldview and again at this point you don't have to say it's right or wrong. You just need
13:40
to accept that that's the world view of a decision maker and then you pass uh the dec. So Russia breaks the order from
13:48
your perspective. It rebelss against the sort. It rebelss against your right to be you. That's very important. It's not just about pragmatism. And this act of
13:57
defiance from your perspective your whole symbolic picture of reality became under threat. So you trying to use your
14:06
efforts to uh the force you have in a possession to break this rebellion, it
14:13
doesn't work. Well, immed first iteration doesn't work. And here you have three options. Option one to
14:21
actually uh ch uh examine uh uh the context like why the
14:30
decision didn't work. Maybe, just maybe, your worldview was not complete. Your
14:37
world view was not correct. Maybe your understanding of your reality you spent your whole time was simply wrong and you need to adjust it to make better
14:45
decisions. Well, that's incredibly tough. Absolute minority of people of are capable of doing this step. So,
14:53
we're going into the option potential two, which is double down. like if it doesn't work not my worldview can be
15:02
wrong it's not possible because it's not possible so I guess I just didn't do it good enough so let's let's try harder
15:09
basically I'm protecting my symbolic core I'm protecting my world view core and u if basically if a fact does not
15:18
fit into my worldview well it's worse for the fact kind of works like this and the problem of option number three like that's the third option and that's the
15:26
most difficult and that's kind of explains Hence why we are kind of in this spiral of negative decision making.
15:32
The more mistakes I pass along the line, the bigger the final choices. So my final choices to say the decisions were
15:42
that were made were wrong. The world view and I'm responsible for them. So to take responsibility and to effectively
15:50
experience a symbolic death or political death or let's say and by this I mean literally like symbolic death is like if my world view
15:59
die if I'm changing one world view one one symbol symb symbolic picture of reality to another symbolic picture of
16:08
reality you can say that one picture dies and new one emerges so but still it's death experience political death is very clear imagine politician saying you
16:16
know 21 package of sanctions, all of the cost for our economy, all of the cost for you guys. Yeah, that was a mistake. We are
16:25
sorry. Well, it will be really hard for you to keep on doing this career. I I would imagine so politically you would you will be dead one way or the other.
16:34
So, you don't want to do it obviously because ultimately you cannot be wrong or like if you if you basically you're
16:41
not a sucker. Like there is for example this famous video of Mr. Zalinski in back in like I think 2019 talking to
16:49
Ukrainian soldiers back in don't ask oblast and uh basically he's exactly asking them well but I'm not a sucker
16:57
like yo so this sort of thing and this for example simple desire of not being a sucker or accepting that you're being a
17:05
sucker and for example if suddenly you live in the world where you actually when Russia is not just a gas station or
17:13
its economy is not in shambles or its military is not a second trade or simply it's concerns or or simply it can limit
17:21
your desires it can limit your opportunity so like you have to take your account like it has right to tell
17:29
you that you can do ABC but notice for example the context of NATO expansion we can talk about it more later but notice
17:37
that European and uh western position was very specific it was not about it was not as much as about Ukraine joining
17:46
NAT NATO though obviously it was the case but from these governmental officials and you can find later quotes it was
17:55
very important that no we have a right to accept anybody we want nobody has a
18:03
right to tell us you can't accept somebody into the NATO you see so it's about status it's about rights it's
18:10
about your understanding of reality and for many European an politicians, it's better to suffer the consequences of uh
18:19
I don't know uh especially since it's not them suffering really. Uh um sorry my computer you need to edit.
18:29
Okay. Okay. Uh uh so it's better for them uh to basic basically to let the
18:36
situation develop to the worse than to challenge this symbolic core of their world. You understand it? Basically,
18:43
it's like they live in the world of 1991 and they would rather die symbolically
18:50
or or in case of Ukraine for example literally and who knows what comes in the future then accept that this world
18:58
view is not coherent for example and is this then a phenomenon is this a psychological phenomenon how you
19:05
understand it or does it also have well it's more it's kind of I would call the masses that you create right because you believe as a group and you foster a
19:13
group that then that then goes with you and supports you and claps at whatever.
19:18
So is it actually a political phenomenon more than psychological?
19:22
Uh I would say is the best word for it is symbolic. So what what symbolic uh what symbolism means? Symbolis means
19:29
that the that there are immaterial ideas if you want to put it that there are logos and then they embody themselves in
19:37
people and symbol is the unity of immaterial meaning and material form of this meaning and that's kind of and
19:45
that's kind of you can see this approach. So we are looking in what meanings basically different pe people embody and we
19:53
understand that the limit of decision making of a decision that sorry that the
20:01
range of possible decisions for a decision maker is limited by this kind of immaterial meanings he embodies in
20:09
himself and obviously it reinforces itself again is it possible for a decision maker to change Yes. And every
20:18
deep tradition like has a word for or way for this form of change. For example, sometimes it's like initiation
20:26
or some people goes you can go deep anthropologically and graphically speaking like how what a change of worldview entails but they are all
20:34
pretty consistent. It's an experience which is not death death but it's death like. So in terms of what person
20:43
experiences it's a lot and we simply don't like people don't want to do it like especially within the liberal
20:50
paradigm. So they would uh rather let uh the situation go to what one would say worse like that's going what what you
20:59
can call like drive to mortality or the logic behind a suicidal behavior something like this and that's what we
21:07
can see and that's what's happening and I would argue that the problem of international relations theory for
21:14
example is it it's really underv values these phenomenons like it just for example takes that security is objective
21:22
and neutral and for granted and we can all agree on the meaning of security and it's simply not the case.
21:29
Yeah. Yeah, I mean especially realism has that has that huge problem that it that it uh basically portrays certain
21:39
certain concepts as absolute as if though everybody shared them like even even concepts like anarchy or or well
21:46
security and security maximization as if though every state and every state leader understood the same under uh
21:54
security maximization. and so on. You're like, "No, we need to take into consideration that a security maximization to a Vladimir Putin might
22:02
be completely different from security maximization to a Donald Trump or a Graham or some of the neocons that that
22:10
will will understand completely different things and then they will strive toward those even if security maximization is their uh their their absolute northstar.
22:22
Yeah. So firstly I would say first it's not that the fact that security maximization is self-evident highest value not the case like it can it's it's
22:31
not necessarily self-evidently the case however like the the problem exactly runs even bigger so even if we agree
22:38
that but we all can agree that for a statesman security is pretty important however as you said what this security
22:46
the meaning of this security is not uh similar to all of them. It's embedded
22:54
into symbolic order each one of them lives. That's kind of the thing.
Chapter 4: Russia-West stories and political language
23:00
You know, one of the things that that strikes me or or still puzzles me very much especially about the western
23:07
approach is that they constantly seem to um map their own behavior or how they
23:15
would behave on others. So they they interpret for instance Russia Vladimir Putin as oh he wants to take over Europe
23:23
and he wants to control us all when in fact yeah I think that's what you would like to do. You would love to split up Russia and control the Russians. So
23:31
you're kind of mapping your desires on the other one and then and then suppose they must act out of those desires. Is that also something that you think is
23:39
actually absolutely inherent to how how people I would say it's inherent and you can say that for example Russian uh that
23:47
Vladimir Putin's desire for the first let's say 20 years of his terms and Russian desire of the '90s of this pragmatic cooperation with Europe was
23:56
exactly the same process like it's basically what he would want it it to be and he assumed that his uh party that
24:03
the opponent wanted the same that's why for example you can find otherwise is just weird and sorry kind of weak
24:10
whinings about we were betrayed like uh we were betrayed that they lied to us.
24:15
How could they? Whereas for example generally historically speaking yes politicians do lie and yes they pursue
24:22
different goals. So why does it why does it hurt you so much? because from his initial understanding some form of genuine panuropean security architecture
24:31
which leads to this global like uh panuropean prosperity was was self-evident here you just need to
24:39
remember that he comes from the background of the KJB school of the early 80s and when most people say it's dark and grim but it's actually where
24:47
all this kind of pro- west pro- European drive emerged within the Soviet Union this whole idea of convergence like it
24:55
was not just uh liberal dissident that's kind of emerged within the um let's say body of Soviet state apparatus and his
25:03
dream of convergence like respectful partnership that's the way that's the coin phrase for example which kind of seems self-evident for him
25:12
and like he says I'm ready to treat you as a respectful partner and I assume you treat me as such whereas for example in
25:20
the western approach to reality there is simply not such thing as a respectful partnership it's based on the slave master dialectics like sorry like if you
25:28
lost you lost and uh you lost in 1991 here is the terms of your surrender why do why is your opinion should be of no
25:37
concerns and for him it was no no we didn't lose in 1991 it's kind of we voluntarily agreed to uh bury the acts
25:47
of war in order to bring to bring this convergence and prosperity across the continent and you can see how exactly
25:54
even in the story these stories they don't correlate and but the people make the decisions based up on the story they
26:01
live in that's exactly an example of why understanding the symbolic architecture or the worldview of a politician matters
26:08
so you have in this scenario one story of Vladimir Putin where respectful partnership is the desired common goal
26:17
which on its in its turn it's underpinned on the story of World War II understood by Russian which is like we despite all of our differences all
26:26
people of good will united and destroyed the absolute evil and that's why why should we fight against each other let's
26:33
just use this positive example and bring prosperity together something along this line but in form of respect so let's
26:41
treat each other with respect and the western story of master and slave of winner and loser of surrender of 1991
26:50
and it's a completely different story which simply has no word or respectful partnership. If you notice the west simply doesn't uh there is no word for
26:58
it. There is a word like LA which is very specific and it's u I would even argue that the world la for example
27:06
there is a big misunderstanding between Russians again and the westerns that's what Russian understand as friendship like basically Russia equates friendship
27:15
with allies but it's simply not the case because friendship is kind of ethical and metaphysical whereas allies is
27:23
situational built upon certain interests and like if the game changes is well we are not allies anymore. Okay, the
27:31
situation changed. We are not allies anymore and that's why okay we were allies against Nazism but like in 10 years we became like you are still the barbaric animal which hurts me etc etc.
27:42
So this the key is like and that's what I think is important for your audience is
27:49
uh not the po the point of understanding these stories is not to judge them at
27:55
first but to accept that they matter that some things that can sound as madness to you like even for example
28:03
let's say Putin's desire for partnership sounds as madness for a regular European uh it might still be the system of value
28:12
So the symbolic order from which he makes his decision and if you actually want to understand and tomorrow like what he might do in the future you need
28:20
to understand his range. It's equally important for Russians like even if you want partnership you need to understand
28:27
that the west doesn't want partnership it's simply not in the menu like what you want from the west. So you need to
28:34
understand like what and even if again you can consider its madness that this partnership is not in
28:42
the menu if your goal is to understand and to analyze international reality you need to accept you need to exactly see
28:50
it for what it is not not for what you want it to be like promising. No, but yeah, but that's that's very hard to do again because you would I I absolutely
28:59
agree what of of how you um describe that because like what you seem what you what seems self-evident to you seems must be self-evident to others as well.
29:09
Uh but and it it's especially hard though when actually from the other side you have similar jargon, right? Yes. And
29:18
you know it's very good that you point that out that in the 1980s like this is this is this for deformative years of of
29:26
Vladimir Putin and then you basically you have the jargon of cooperation coming from the west and while uh
29:34
Gorbachov was speaking of the a common European home, George Bush senior was speaking of uh you know an um from from um from Portugal.
29:47
Yeah, he had he had he had they they also had a concept and you have people like Jack Matlock and so on, you know, brilliant US strategists who actually talked in
29:56
those in those terminologies and who maybe had the same understanding, but you had the other the other group, the
30:02
other crowd who won out and then um and then ba basically for 10 years had the
30:10
sellout of Russia and for Vladimir Putin this must have looked like bad decision at home. So all we need to do is to to rectify that and then to explain the
30:19
Russian position and it we need to explain it better but explain it better.
30:24
We need to explain it better and he tried for 20 years to explain it until until it became clear that's not how it works.
30:32
Even now like you can argue that there is still Russian positions this desire to explain still plays a huge role like in terms of Russian tradition of
30:40
diplomacy. That's why he always goes to history like one hour lectures. It's it's part of the explaining in order to begin again from common understanding.
30:51
So is this Russia mis or is this the current Russian leadership mis misunderstanding how understanding on
30:57
the other side works? Well, less like I mean I would say it's a very internal conflict like within the Russian elite
31:05
and uh uh by conflict I don't mean like political fight but more exactly the symbolic transformation the younger generation of Russian elite like those
31:14
who are like say now 40 to 50 they are much more radical like they don't have any um enchantment of the west as for
31:22
example people whose formative years for 80s and '90s were and they have no sentimental feeling for Europe for example like like common European home
31:31
no not really like if like that's kind of let me put it this way they are much more welcoming to many of the caragana
31:38
rhetoric like type of type of rhetoric uh but I just want to point line one important um let's say theme you you
31:47
brought it up like exactly about uh the language issue which makes it even harder nowadays because for example even
31:56
when I was studying we kind of all took this kind of liberal universalist globalist language and uh even if we
32:05
think it's not like for example the language of United Nation is still liberal and globalist in its simply dictionary like if if if you trace its
32:13
philosophical origin it's kind of still coming from there the problem is like
32:20
every one actor on a global plan on on a global area uh now speaks more or less especially
32:28
and official level the same language but the meaning behind each word is still word is still contingent upon the
32:37
symbolic order inside and that what's makes it so hard to understand because for example you have this modern situation in Ukraine you noticed
32:46
everyone talks about peace every literally everybody talks about peace but what Russia means by peace what
32:54
Ukraine means what Ukrainian officials mean by peace what US means by peace, what Europe means by peace, they are all
33:01
different concepts of peace. The word is the same but the meaning behind the word is different and and it's not just it's
33:08
opposite like you cannot like so even within the same word there is no ground for unity but that uh from a media
33:17
perspective and from propaganda perspective because let's be clear the quality of media understanding can has dropped significantly like we live in
33:25
the media age of uh u let's put this way very little value of reputation and uh with like this uh desire of hyping and
33:35
that's why for example often it happens where people take the word out of context and then they say for example clear Putin talks about Putin says uh we
33:45
are open for peace and like all media like Putin said Putin said he's ready to enter the war etc etc to to end the war
33:52
which is not the case because what Russia means we are ready for peace it's ready we are ready to have a peace conference which will uh enshrine our
34:00
requirements like in an official juristical format for example. But if you don't know the context, it's easy to
34:08
interpret it the way you want to interpret even if you're good willing.
34:12
And if you're illw willing, you can see how it creates gigantic uh possibility for a cognitive warfare for deliberate
34:20
manipulation for a special scop manip manipulation directed at different actors.
Chapter 5: Peace proposals and ending wars
34:28
Absolutely. Absolutely true. So, but that leaves us then with this with this question whether the um the misunderstanding or the
34:36
non-understanding or the the the the refu the refusal to understand is that is that part and parcel of the game of
34:45
the people who play this um do they actually you it's just difficult for me to believe
34:52
that you and I as observers of this tragedy we can have this conversation and we can try actually to figure out um
35:00
what are the motivating factors of the of these actors and that but that's not what the actual actors then do among
35:07
each other. So you know that's why I often say like the Europeans are extremely hypocritical they they must
35:16
understand that after 21 action packages there is no chance that that the next round will break the neck of the of the
35:24
beast. Right. So the other reasons again as you said you cannot just suddenly accept political
35:31
debt and say like I I was wrong. Uh but that that the rhetoric that they throw out is not the belief system behind the the the decision or not.
35:43
Okay. Uh it depends to an extent it still is because it's still based based like even in their let's say peace
35:50
proposals it's still at least connected to this value system of us determining the rules like basically let's interpret
35:59
how basically Europeans would say as a current quote unquote peace proposal is
36:04
okay fine graciously we benevolently agree to freeze the conflict and we will
36:13
integrate you the leftover of Ukraine into our military structures. But you filthy president fine like or filthy
36:21
Russians you let's take what you take but we will never accept it. So it will be a gray zone and you will still return
36:28
it one way or the other and nothing ultimately you will still achieve nothing and ultimately we won.
36:34
That's kind of the thing we we graciously accept your surrender.
36:38
That's that's the of that's the peace idea of Europe at the moment.
36:43
Yeah. Yeah. And you can say that's how this and that's why for example in my opinion that explains this phenomenon
36:49
your I think one of your guests of um uh Alexander Mercury like noticed it many many times that Europe negoti
36:58
negotiates among itself. But that's also very important because your quote unquote peace proposal or even without
37:07
it fit fit within your exactly symbolic picture. And if you're say we graciously accept your surrender, well this doesn't
37:16
hurt the fundamentals of this uh Brussels face you faith you can call it this way. So yeah it's not ideal but
37:25
it's still within the limit of possibility. What it can't accept? It can't accept the reality of defeat. We are the good guys. Good guys always win.
37:34
We cannot be defeated by bad guys. If we are defeated by bad guys, it means we are the bad guys because only bad guys
37:41
lose. So you see how this circular reasoning starts to function and that's challenges the story. So
37:48
yeah and the the the negotiating amongst themselves of the European is the kind of the collective figuring out of how far does our uh does our acceptance go?
37:59
How far is our our our corridor of the of the possible and then that's that's that's the outcome. Just neglecting that
38:08
that corridor is like still far away from anything that's somehow reasonable to the Russians.
38:13
Yeah. But but but your ultimate goal is to protect your symbolic picture not the Russian symbolic picture and god forbid
38:21
like your purpose like so you need to constantly within the symbolic picture that's why I bring the question of desire. So what is the purpose of a
38:28
politician and from this perspective like obviously like uh none of this like that's kind of it is hypocritical in a
38:36
way but that's kind of way deeper and longer story how we ended up in like canan reality where you can't talk about
38:43
the reality of war from a like historical perspective even for example and you always need to apply uh to
38:52
combine it with liberal mantra but let's say so obviously nobody has uh a uh of
38:58
the of the parties have peace as the highest value and there is a very easy check like I would say even Russians are kind of hypocritical when they talk
39:07
about peace because you need to I think you will agree that in international relations peace cannot be the highest
39:15
value because what is the quickest pass for peace imagine let's let's imagine that there is a symbolic picture where peace like like absence of conflict is
39:23
truly the highest value like truly the highest value then everything else becomes subordinate to this value
39:31
because that's the nature of hierarchy of meaning. If something is on the highest of meaning everything else becomes subordinate. Well, if on the highest point of your hierarchy of
39:40
meaning is truly peace then the quickest path to peace is capitulation. So if you truly like if this like absence of
39:49
conflict is truly the highest like absence of just surrender but nobody wants to do it obviously. So we want peace on our terms and that means
39:57
basically there are values higher than peace that determine our action. So that's just some example of the type of
40:05
analysis I try to do like explaining the decisions.
40:09
That's that's a very very um that's a very good observation and and and a very true one. This is what what you just described is actually the the core of
40:18
absolute pacifism. They will say that yeah an absolute pacifist will be yeah if I'm attacked they surrender because peace is the highest value but that's
40:26
why most people are no pacifists yeah no and and and I would say it would be weird to explain but here it comes problem of hypocrisy that we live in a
40:34
media ethical climate when you need to talk about peace as if you believe it's the highest value but obviously nobody believes in it as a highest value like
40:42
Europe believes as a peace is like liberal peace like let's just say pan European EU or somebody would call it like European empire or etc project like
40:52
of liberal universalist value rule-based order this is the highest value peace within the rule-based order like Russian
40:59
understanding of peace is peace within the let's say historical uh it's kind of still has many contradictions but more
41:07
or less it would be now some combination of historical approach and the sovereign approach so there are sovereign states but they are not coming out of nowhere
41:16
they have deep historical let's say traditions behind them and these traditions must be respected for us to avoid maximum prosperity. So something
41:23
along this line very different from European American is very different from both of these two let's say approaches and you and then it gets complicated.
41:33
Another important part from this theory like is that it puts huge emphasis not
41:40
only on positive sovereignty but on negative sovereignty negative sovereignty as well. So what do I mean?
41:48
Positive so sovereignty is your capacity to do something and negative sovereignty is your capacity to don't let somebody
41:55
do something to break something basically.
41:58
Yeah. Yeah. To to to uh to prevent somebody from joining a club of Yeah.
42:04
Uh no just to break any decision. I I mean it very simple. So let's say this but Anchorage story. So let's let's
42:13
imagine let's say in the story of Anchorage. Uh it's a question of Ukrainian sovereignty. Does Ukraine has
42:20
have any positive sovereignty at the moment? No, not really. It cannot create anything. It's a doomed state. Its power
42:27
like basically it's a suicidal spiral and like you can find it by military losses, territorial losses, economic
42:35
losses, demographic losses. They lost like half of their population post 1991 by now. like it's a clear despar. But
42:42
now they still have negative sovereignty. What do I mean? For example, if Ukrainian government within their worldview doesn't agree to the
42:51
quote unquote peace deal arranged by Trump, Europe, Russia, everybody can agree. But if they don't agree, the deal is no go.
43:01
And that's the true power of negative sovereignty. That's why it's that's why when you have for example conflict where you have let's say six parties all with
43:10
different world views fighting it's sufficient to have one party to disagree with this quote unquote or this decision
43:18
be impossible for this party for decision not to happen that's in my opinion the logic behind what you would call the current spiral of escalation so
43:27
even if uh okay sorry go on no no no I sorry I don't want to interrupt you I would like to ask this question
43:36
because we do sometimes see in international relations moments when genuine uh negotiations between waring
43:43
parties do take place and when an actual um um negotiated u compromise does
43:51
become a a a an end to a war like let's say the way that the Vietnam war between
43:58
the French and and Vietnamese was like negotiated and also the way that it in the end also with the Americans, you
44:05
know, then spiral down is when does that happen? Because we we cannot assume that the two world views converge, but we can
44:14
assume that we would have to assume that something leads to um to to to the inevitability of of of these two to converge.
44:22
I mean here I would say here reality comes into play. So one way or the other you can say that different world world views one of them is closer to reality
44:32
and another is further and eventually the one which is the furthest will pays the ultimate price. So in the story on
44:38
Vietnam like this story had huge losers like again several American administrations effectively lost huge
44:46
political capital and they accepted their defeat. Ultimately America accepted its defeat. That's what happened in Vietnam and the ultimate losers were obviously South Vietnam.
44:58
Vietnam is a very good parallel the the state of like for a western audience what Ukraine is from the perspective uh
45:06
of international theory like not is but is like more more or less is like South Vietnam basically and basically for the
45:14
Vietnam war to be finished South Vietnam had to be disappeared. So South Vietnam had to die and that's kind of what
45:22
happened. So I just want to say that negotiations between two party like for example is um can Russia and the United
45:31
States or Russia uh and Europe in theory agree or to come to certain understanding? Uh well yes but not with
45:40
Ukraine being in in the picture and that's kind of the tragic part of it.
45:44
You notice when when I said that like you in a complex in in a complex story with let's say six parties it's enough
45:52
for one party to uh to break the any possible deal when one way of solving this problem is to limit the number of
46:00
parties parties simply limited especially especially if one of them
46:07
completely dependent proxy I see um but what about what do you make out of uh the example of Japan
46:14
which kind of did something very very very unlikely if I take our conversation and to admit defeat to in the words of
46:24
the Japanese emperor in 1945 to suffer the insufferable um and accept that it is over.
46:32
Well, you do remember sorry bad habit of interrupting. All I
46:39
wanted to say is like there was a very specific context of this um of this decision like two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan before them. They were ready to
46:48
fight until the final until the e uh men. So unfortunately and that's in my opinion basically you're currently
46:56
proving the potential uh truth or sense behind Caraganov's logic of escalation.
47:04
So to make so you you're basically putting somebody in a position to to suffer the insufferable you need to
47:12
create even worse alternative like even worse the thing is the Japanese had the option to continue and there were two factions
47:20
and the war faction said no 100 million martyrs we want to sacrifice everybody we rather have that than give up and th
47:28
those were the the ones the ideologues that I think that were closest to what you described at the very beginning whereas the other group said like know if we want to preserve the the the
47:35
nation then we must surrender now uh in order to to save as much as we can and day on out in the end but that's that's
47:42
a difficult political process I mean it's I think it's not even political process it's kind of that's bordering with heroism with saintthood
47:52
or something like this it's like you cannot make this this rational choice cannot be made upon rational reason you
47:59
need some kind of heroic super national let's say group which would take the ultimate responsibility and in case of
48:06
Japan it was emperor like emperor took ultimately the highest responsibility and uh you can just uh find it sad that
48:14
for example in like the last uh 100 years we had uh absolute depletion of
48:22
political character like none of the modern politician I will I I'm here I'm a huge pessimist I think none of the modern politicians would um be willing
48:31
to accept such responsibility and they would rather see their family house burning than take this ultimate form of
48:40
political suicidal mission. So I think that's a little bit of so again is it theoretically possible? Yes. Should it be theoretical theoretically possible?
48:49
Yes. What it takes it takes true heroism and it takes true sacrifice like absolute true symbolic sacrifice. And do
48:58
you mean do you mean mainly I I would I would agree with your statement if we if we if we apply it to the the political
49:06
west the Europeans and the Americans but I do think that the 20th century showed us I mean at least at least to me that
49:13
also within uh especially within the Soviet Union there were people who are willing to do that and Gorbachov is one of the of these elements who said like
49:21
he did stuff wrong we must change things. Uh well that's actually a bad example if you want to consider it like
49:29
basically the corpor of example is that uh we uh try to change something but as a
49:38
result uh we only suffered war like basically we the consequences of the actions was this
49:46
basically what Vladimir Putin said we suffered the biggest geopolitical tragedy Russian became the biggest separated people and you can say that
49:54
the war which is currently happening is the direct consequences of Mr.
49:57
Gorbacho's decision like for example because the only way quote unquote independent Ukraine could have existed
50:04
or like as was in the form of the socialist Ukraine. So being effectively in the same state as in Russia the
50:12
moment these two entities became separate the war became kind of inevitable in the long run. So that's not really like a good case. You can say
50:20
that Russian leadership is more capable of sacrifice but again only when they believe it is right. And that was I think that what the west doesn't
50:27
understand truly like that the biggest asset they lost within the Russian
50:33
mindset is exactly this uh kind of ethical power ethical sovereign so
50:40
sovereignty because in ' 80s and '9s and 2000s there was this huge desire to be right in the eyes of the west there was
50:50
this huge uh desire to um unite. However, now Russia doesn't
50:58
really care about the opinion of the west and it doesn't care about what uh the opinion more of this neighboring
51:06
sorry like basically geod drones or proxies are uh and uh you cannot use
51:14
this as a manipulation because the easiest way to you need to understand that in orthodox ethics there is this like objective it's not weakness it's
51:22
its biggest strength but tactically it can look as a weakness We are prone for self-reflection. We are
51:29
prone to go to confess our sins. That's why if you can persuade me that I'm morally wrong, you can really push me
51:38
into self-destructive suicidal behavior like it happened with Soviet Union, like it happened with Gorbachov. Well, West
51:45
can't do it anymore. Like there is this no moral leverage of the west in Russia anymore. and uh which I think for
51:53
example the western authority doesn't truly understand that's why they honestly believe that that if they promise Russia again we will tell you that you are good just surrender it will
52:03
work and that's why we just need to wait long enough we just need to wait until 40 sanction package you're asking what they are trying to win their winning
52:11
time from their perspective they are winning time that one way or the other one way or the other Russia will still
52:18
be in need of our moral approval and the price of this moral of approval will be Russians capitulation and Russian
52:25
surrender. That's the logic behind an action and why it's possible because we as one quote unquote the west who determine who is good and who is bad.
52:32
That's our main sovereignty. That's our main political capital.
Chapter 6: Enlightenment, globalism, and empire
52:40
Where do you and I know this is going way too far but where do you think it's coming from? Because I I I I agree with
52:47
you. I just wonder where we went. So where we where this superiority complex is
52:56
enlightenment enlightenment it's clearly European enlightenment it's a combination of the rapid technological
53:03
development uh of this from 16th till like 18th uh and 19th century when when objectively Europe was the most power
53:11
this sorry kind of tiny continent which was kind of backwards and not really most important for most part of global
53:19
history because historic Strictly speaking for millennials civilizations was more like in Mediterranean. It was like in what you would call today Greece
53:27
and what what you would call Syria, Palestine, Egypt which were also like you know not Arab like that's the center of this Hellenistic word world. But it's
53:34
not where the west is. You you need to understand that west is very small area. It's basically the Charlemance Empire.
53:41
That's how the borders of the west everything else was never been truly western. And this area experienced under
53:48
the philosophy of enlightenment and the philosophy of rationalism which meant there are no ethical constraints for my uh desires to gain power over matter.
53:59
Like that's what the nature of scientific rationalism is in terms of its political philosophy. And yeah for
54:06
400 years it was absolutely the biggest the most dominant sudden it looked like a miracle. And if you've been winning
54:12
for 400 years, if four if four for for 400 years, sorry, you defeat China with like 20 boats like for example British
54:20
did in 19th century. You colonize continents and Russia in that sense is kind of a thorn r why Russia became
54:28
becomes such a thorn in this story despite the fact that they look like us.
54:32
They want to speak they can speak our language that they're sorry white that they're like on the same continent. They kind of hampered or destroyed every our
54:41
globalistic order. They destroyed Napoleon. They destroyed Hitler. They destroyed many things and they never truly becoming we cannot trust them. And
54:49
that's why it has always been this big thorn in this kind of enlightenment globalist um secularized version you can even say
54:57
of uh basically Charlean Empire combined with some rationalism progressivism ideas.
55:04
Thank you. Um maybe maybe one last thing because I had this I had a couple of Marxist thinkers on my channel uh among
55:12
them and the the the Marxists they they reject the term globalism. Um because to
55:19
them it is a weaker form of what they would call imperialism which they trace
55:26
back to um not not to the desire of creating empire but to the capitalist um logic. the way that the economy is
55:34
built, rent seeking and so on that necessarily needs expansion and they trace it back to this one. Um, is that any is that in any way, shape or form
55:43
important also for your analysis or is your terminology of globalism going back to a more a more moralistic kind of uh uh uh point?
55:52
Uh, good question. I I definitely don't use these words in the Marxist connotation
56:01
just to be clear when I mean globalist it's more referring to a very particular power group like you can rather consider them in my worldview to be like the
56:10
builders of Babylonian tower one way or the other and the fundament can be different it can be progress it can be
56:19
freedom quote unquote it can be rights but the idea is like it's kind of agnostic so I would rather use the the
56:27
word gnostic. So you have like this gnostic understanding that we can make this world in a paradigm on earth
56:34
through a special knowledge and we are the one who are the keeper of this knowledge and that's kind of very enlightenment core enlightenment idea
56:42
which in my opinion is underpinning any form of globalism like in my opinion actually Marxism can be viewed as one
56:50
form of the globalism. We have a true knowledge called the dialectic of history which explains to us how everything works, how the classes works.
56:57
We know what is the final state of history, the union of all proletarian and this is the vision encompassing the
57:05
whole world. So you can say the technical and technical term it's also globalist. So imperial like yeah so the
57:13
concept of empire deserves as a whole another long conversation because it's deeply misunderstood in my opinion. So
57:23
fact is fascinating. Thank you very much. I mean we didn't even we didn't even get close to any kind complete but it it was it's really fascinating to me
57:30
to pick your to pick your brain and and see how you how you conceptualize uh the core of the issue. Do you think that we
Chapter 7: Russia's security goals and Ukraine
57:37
we covered the the big picture or is there something that we left out that you would like to still share and say like look this is also like really
57:45
really essential. I just want to bring one example for your audience um in terms of like because you ask your
57:52
guests often this uh question like how it will end, how it will go and like what is happening and I just wanted to
58:00
for them to explain in my opinion the story which is happening within the Russian decision making. So might might be helpful and we might see it like who
58:09
knows maybe next time we speak we can look whether it worked or not. In my opinion, the purpose of the Russian decision maker actually didn't change uh based from the beginning of 2022.
58:21
Uh they wanted uh the what they would call a security on their western borders. They wanted to that from the
58:29
territory of Ukraine there will never be the then there would never come a danger for the territory of Russia of Russian
58:38
people and they still want it. What is changing is that if in 2022 they naively thought that this is possible through an
58:46
agreement with Ukraine or an agreement with the west then now more and more of them begrudgingly and maybe with a
58:56
certain kind of resentment accept the only way to achieve this initial goal is to solve the Ukrainian
59:04
problem. Basically, unfortunately, the only way for Russia to make sure that there will be no danger from uh the ter
59:12
this territory is to have control over it one way or the other. But that's how you can see why it's important to understand the symbolic basically where
59:21
it's coming from. So you for you it might look like oh they always wanted to take it and you can even say like for example one of your guests you know I
59:29
told you 20 years ago that's you see they took it that's that's what they always wanted and the same uh decision
59:37
or the same outcome can actually uh be the result of a very different symbolic
59:44
picture. So that's a trick and that's I think is the true tragedy of international affairs for those people who would want it to be more peaceful.
59:52
So self-fulfilling prophecy exactly what is happening it's the story of self-fulfilling prophecy and to understand that why this scenario is
59:59
still the most likely just today you can look into the list of supposed alter alternatives to zanski which are popular
1:00:06
in Ukraine guys like ferorov zanov draatski zalni and none of them none of
1:00:13
them is ready like even within their imaginary picture for none of them there
1:00:21
is a place for Ukraine from which there is no threat to Russia no from none of them it simply doesn't exist and that's why they will never agree to it and if
1:00:29
they never agree to it then in order to achieve this initial both very simultaneously could be very limited but
1:00:38
also potentially huge goal of establishing your own security the way let's say you understand it you will
1:00:45
move further and further and further until you will reach a certain limit and that's what I think we are happening.
1:00:52
That's why I think all of the quote unquote quote unquote attempts to freeze or to achieve peace uh will fail because
1:01:01
they simply don't address the core Russian concern. And the problem is like to address the core it's impossible to
1:01:08
address the core Russian concern without like this control of a territory one way or the other. Uh and if you look at what
1:01:16
Europe says, what Ukraine says, you seem it very clear like is just very clear and it's impossible uh to uh have this
1:01:24
very initial desire of Russian Federation fulfilled. That's all.
1:01:28
No, it's to me it's quite it's it's really relatively simple. As long as the West thinks security in terms of
1:01:36
deterrence, you will not achieve that because you constantly have to threaten Russia and the one thing that Russia doesn't want is to be threatened.
1:01:42
So as long Yeah. But the problem you see but but you can't but the key problem is not even the west like honestly even west
1:01:48
can say absolutely no like that's a more tragic part let's say Russian could potentially agree freeze with the west
1:01:56
that's actually the true tragedy it cannot achieve freeze with Ukraine that's the key part like it's ultimately
1:02:02
what I mean so no Ukrainian politician would be ready to uh stop persecuting uh to accept the
1:02:12
neutrality of Ukrainian state to demilitarize to uh restore the rights of Russian church to restore the rights of Russian people to restore the rights of
1:02:20
Russian speakers and Ukrainian nationalists are very open about it and you need to understand it from their perspective too from their story and this story is very simple if we do all
1:02:30
of this then how we're different from Russians then there are no Ukrainians if Ukraine is not hostile to Russia it will
1:02:38
be be it will become effectively part of Russia and they are correct Because historically speaking it is the same people. Belgarot and harkov are built
1:02:46
under the same tar under the same process like all these territories built within the same historical unity. So unless you constantly from Ukrainian
1:02:54
nationalism perspective are fighting against Russia. That's the only way to preserve to preserve the spirit of Ukraine. That's very important part of
1:03:02
the story which very few people talk about. And it took Russian leadership sorry I was just finished. it took Russian leadership huge and still it's
1:03:11
there is huge process I think it's still in a transition to understand uh that uh there cannot be such thing as peaceful
1:03:18
neutral Ukraine friendly to Russia it's just simply not possible because the inherent logic of the state of this
1:03:25
ideology is anti-Russian for Ukrainian for Ukrainians for Ukrainian nationalism to stop being anti-Russian means to die
1:03:33
means to stop being Ukrainian nationalism that's kind of But okay and we we we must stop it
1:03:41
because we've we've reached an hour but we have to talk about this again because there are there are these these examples Georgia for instance Georgia stepped
1:03:49
away from that one but you never very this a quick difference Georgia has its own church and it's very clear you
1:03:58
you you have no trouble distinguishing Georgian from Russian with Ukrainians the only thing that differ them is
1:04:04
ideology like there is Oh, like it's the same language. Sorry, historically speaking, it's the same histo the same
1:04:12
historical fate for most part of the territory. Again, all of the southern and eastern Ukraine there until 18th
1:04:19
century until Russian people um you can say colonized it. Nobody lived there. It was a wild field like steps and tatars
1:04:27
and there were no such thing as Ukrainian statethood. There was no such thing as Ukrainian identity. And you can go deep into like history to see it's
1:04:35
the problem that that's the difference with Georgians. They have their own essence if you want to put it go to this way which they can fall back and for
1:04:43
them yes it's the choice to be hostile or not to be hostile but for them there is it's not killing Georgian to say like uh that you are not Russian yes he's
1:04:52
clearly Georgian and there is no problem for Ukrainians this option simply doesn't exist because the moment uh because uh you know what is the most the
1:05:01
title of the first Ukrainian president Kuchma uh book Ukraine is not Russia the problem is its identity exactly it's not
1:05:09
Russia there is no positive in this identity but but that's kind of the Russian idea is like and the Russian demand to Ukraine is effectively we
1:05:17
demand from you to stop being anti-Russia and that's we demand you to stop your claim to
1:05:25
existence effectively that's how it sounds to Ukrainian yeah because my only claim to existence is to be not you well you can
1:05:34
see how this is doomed effectively historically speaking.
1:05:39
Thank you, Pubble. I mean, uh I'm always
1:05:41
[laughter]
1:05:42
glad when we end up in in in the inevitability of the tragedy. No, I mean, I wish I I I always grasp for straws and grasp something positive, but
1:05:50
sometimes it's more important to be realist than um than um than than hopeless optimist. Um Pavl, people who
1:05:58
want to find your work, where should they go? Especially in English. People who listen to us. Well, in English we recently started a channel in English.
1:06:06
So you can find it in the links below.
1:06:09
It's less on geopolitics. It's uh more on symbolism. So if you're interested in the questions of symbolism, symbolic reality like please go and join it and
1:06:18
join there like many like more is to come like I'm recording several inter several series of interviews right now.
1:06:26
And uh if you are following Russia, yeah, you can just Google my name in Russian and you will have a find a telegram channel. YouTube channels like
1:06:33
that's not that's not really hard like that's where I mostly am.
1:06:38
And you will you will send me the links that I shouldn't put into the description via I will post them below and then you can you can find them and
1:06:46
click them. And with that out of the way um Pav Shayen, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much.
Sync to video time