Analogies Department
Via Jim Henley, an analogy from Jim Lobe:
But to illustrate this obvious fact more sharply, consider the following thought experiment. In 1963, as King delivers his famous speech to the March on Washington, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev delivers a public message of his own to the protesters. “We would like to tell these brave voices of freedom,” Khrushchev says, “that they have the full support and solidarity of the USSR. The Soviet Union and the United States Communist Party are ready and willing to perform any measures within our power to help our American brothers and sisters obtain their rights from this oppressive regime. And although Dr. King pretends that he holds no hostility toward the American capitalist system of government itself, and wishes only to secure the ideals of the American founding for all of its citizens, we all know that he and his supporters really yearn for complete regime change in Washington. We in Moscow will do whatever it takes to help you achieve this goal.”
The analogy is not perfect, but I do think it’s illustrative.
Beyond pure partisanship, I think the characteristic error of conservative thinking on this sort of issue is overlearning from the distinctive experience of Soviet-dominated Eastern European countries. Precisely because the people of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. perceived themselves as not only victimized by repressive government but specifically dominated and exploited by Russians dissidents were relatively well-disposed to collaboration with U.S. geopolitical strategies that were, at the time, primarily anti-Russian in orientation. By contrast, the primary strategic orientation of the United States in the Persian Gulf region is not merely hostile to theocracy or Ahmadenijad but to Iran. Iran would like to be the dominant power in the region, and we want it not to be. A similar situation exists in, say, China where patriotic Chinese people may deplore the human rights conduct of the People Republic, but are going to largely share the PRC’s geopolitical aspirations and be deeply skeptical of becoming (or being seen as) tools of American strategy in East Asia.
To this end, it’s instructive to note the difference between the post-Communist experience in Eastern Europe and the post-Communist experience in Russia. Poles and Lithuanians experience the fall of Communism the way Americans experience it—as a good thing, that unambiguously made the world a better place. For Russians, however, there’s a schizophrenia about the idea that while the end of Communism is in most respects a good thing, it also represented Russia “losing” a geopolitical contest with the United States, which is a bad thing. Consequently, Cold War nostalgia is a real political force in Russia, whereas nobody in Hungary is going to pine for the good old days.
42 Responses to “Analogies Department”
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June 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Nostalgia for the old socialist era is also quite high in Yugoslavia, for obvious reasons. And from what I understand it’s a more powerful force in Russia even than Mr. Yglesias gives it credit for. There was a poll a while back in which most Russians tended to opine that the Brezhnev era was preferable to the present day.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Former Yglesias: “I don’t believe in analogies”
(To explain further: “This, though, is why I don’t believe in analogies. If you make an argument that hinges on an analogy then people fire back by pointing out some respect in which the situation you described isn’t precisely analogous to the thing you’re arguing about. It then becomes a contest to specify the analogy so as to exactly mirror the situation you’re debating. In which case you may as well just debate the situation. Long story short—these analogy fights are stupid.”)
Current Yglesias: “Analogies Department”!
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
“Nostalgia for the old socialist era is also quite high in Yugoslavia, for obvious reasons.”
Obvious reasons? I’m curious as to what they might be. Presumably the violence of the breakup of Yugoslavia. That said, in Serbia, they sure seem to like repressive security tactics as much as their Soviet predecessors. I had a fun two hour experience with their Immigration officials, and I had only tried defend some poor Turkish guy who had accidently handed them the wrong passport (he a was dual citizen with Austria). Suddenly, it became some multinational conspiracy to smuggle Turks into Bulgaria involving me, the Turk, and some Slovenian guy who was translating for us. Those guys were every bit as ruthless and incompetent as the Stazi. I’ll skip Serbia next time.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Nostalgia for socialism is also pretty high in East Germany. Although most people in the GDR were pretty happy to be rid of the Stasi and trade their Trabis in for VWs, they do resent being second class citizens in their new country. People will naturally remain loyal to their social group even when that loyalty would appear to be directly detrimental to their material interests and the group not deserving of loyalty. The fact that there is still a Republican party is evidence of that.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I hate to tell you this Fostert, but I have heard of many very similar stories of people passing through customs in the United States; and even one or two for Canada.
I make it my general rule not to fly via the US when I can possibly avoid it, and I always feel tense when I enter Canadian customs, even though my bags are usually empty, I don’t use illegal drugs, have no strong radical connections, am a Canadian with the right to enter Canada, etc.I guess we are all Serbians now.
As a Bulgarian Anarchist friend once said to me, Canadians and Americans are also filthy Communists, they are just better at it than the Russians were.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Obvious reasons? I’m curious as to what they might be.
Are you kidding? Life in Bosnia or Macedonia today is still nowhere near as good as it was in 1970s-80s Yugoslavia. Everyone had cushy jobs, good food, lots of vacation time, and the girls were beautiful and friendly. The standard of living was better than that in Greece or Spain, and you didn’t have to try that hard to achieve it. If you weren’t all that ambitious, and weren’t Albanian, you could do pretty well for yourself. It was a great time to be alive. Even in Croatia a lot of people who aren’t virulent nationalists pine for the good old days now and again. In Slovenia probably less so, at least I’ve never heard a Slovenian be nostalgic.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
One would think that the less of Iraq would have seeped into conservatives’ psyches. These people think that Saddam Hussein was the New Hitler, but the Iraqis still took up arms against the foreign army that “liberated” them.
It’s odd: these are the people who quote “Red Dawn,” but they can’t seem to figure out that people don’t like it when foreign countries mess around in your politics.
I guess the problem is their perverse understanding of American exceptionalism that blinds them: “It’s different when we do it, because we’re the good guys.”
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Nostalgia for the old socialist era is also quite high in Yugoslavia, for obvious reasons.
Quite the opposite in Slovenia, the most amazing country nobody ever talks about.
Nostalgia for socialism is also pretty high in East Germany.
I doubt this very much. Any source?
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Current Yglesias: “Analogies Department”!
You do realize, don’t you Al, that the analogy was someone else’s? Matt made a lukewarm one-sentence comment on it and then moved on to make an argument criticizing the misuse of analogies.
You think you’re clever, don’t you? But you really have some reading comprehension problems. I can recommend a remedial tutor in your neighborhood.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Go read Thomas Sugrue’s Sweet Land of Liberty: the major push for civil rights in the 1920s through 1940s was by the American Communist and American Socialist parties. Those were really the only political institutions of any size that had any interest in civil rights.
The American Communist Party, of course, had a certain level of links with Stalin’s USSR. It was probably inevitable that the US as a regime would come into conflict with Stalin: after the defeat of the Third Reich, Japan and the collapse of the British Empire the US and the USSR were going to square off as the global duopoly; Stalin’s USSR was really a horrible regime, one of the worst in history; the US business elite disliked the USSR for their own obvious reasons and so on.
So, as Sugrue details, the close connection between the American Communist Party and the USSR ended up damaging (and nearly derailing for a period) the cause of civil rights when Soviet politicians blathered on about supporting the civil rights movement (which, in fact, they often did in reality throughout the entire 1917-1989 period). The Soviet verbal support did nothing substantive to assist the CP in actually doing anything about civil rights and very likely did much more harm to the civil rights movement than good.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“I hate to tell you this Fostert, but I have heard of many very similar stories of people passing through customs in the United States”
I don’t doubt that. I often say that we are celebrating the demise of the Soviet Union by becoming the Soviet Union. That said, I never have trouble in US Customs. I always fly in from Asia, so I get the “White Guy Treatment.” Customs gets a huge rush of Chinese, Indians, and Arabs, and I’m one of the ten white guys with US citizenship. They just wave me right by.
Interesting about Serbia. I only spent two days there and it was still a mess from the fighting. In fact, there were still some areas under the control of warlords. So I guess it could have been better in the past. It certainly wasn’t pleasant when I was there. I was glad to get to Bulgaria.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Go read Thomas Sugrue’s Sweet Land of Liberty: the major push for civil rights in the 1920s through 1940s was by the American Communist and American Socialist parties. Those were really the only political institutions of any size that had any interest in civil rights.
Yes. Throughout the 40s and 50s the Soviets would “meddle” and critices the US for its racism all the time, playing to the third world colonized gallery. Paul Robeson? And the US got better in response to this criticism. See Truman and Eisenhower. (And of course Hoover believed the civil rights and anti-war movements were drummed up by foreign communists.)
I was surprised to learn this after being a teen in the 80s when the Evil Empire was supposedly ready to nuke us or invade us à la Red Dawn. Wolverines!
I would think Matt would know this, even if Jim and Jim wouldn’t.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
“Poles and Lithuanians experience the fall of Communism the way Americans experience it—as a good thing, that unambiguously made the world a better place. For Russians, however, there’s a schizophrenia about the idea that while the end of Communism is in most respects a good thing, it also represented Russia “losing” a geopolitical contest with the United States, which is a bad thing. Consequently, Cold War nostalgia is a real political force in Russia, whereas nobody in Hungary is going to pine for the good old days.”
Actually, the largest party in Hungary is the moderate successor of the old Communist party (there are more hardline successors of the old Communist party, but the MSZP got the vast majority of support, property and infrastructure of the old Commies). Several major figures in the MSZP were ministers in the old Communist government.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I agree with the post, but there is more. Iranians, unlike Eastern Europeans, have a half century plus of perceived and real grievances against the U.S., such as the overthrowing of the elected and popular government to be replaced by the Shah and U.S. support of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. Thus, encouragement from the U.S. is very different in today’s Iran than it was in Cold War Eastern Europe.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Does anyone else remember the old MTV ad, from about 1982, in the Eastern European airport?
“Do you have anything to declare?”
“Inside sock, is other sock?”
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
This is a good post, but I think Matt’s distinction between an analogy and an example is also applicable here.
An argument by analogy would x is true in case 1 because y is true in case 2. It presumes that case 1 and case 2 are sufficiently similar so that proof of the latter is sufficient for proof of the former. An example, on the other hand, is used to illustrate the truth of a general proposition. Whether that general proposition is applicable to any other particular set of facts must be proven, but the example works to clear the ground of misconceptions and clarify the issue.
Here, Lobe’s hypothetical works as an example demonstrating the general proposition that “sometimes a foreign government expressing support for dissident group in another country can be dsadvantageous to the dissident group.” Once all reasonable people acknowledge that the proposition is true, then the debate can shift to whether the proposition is applicable to the particular case that is the subject of the dispute. Here, whether vocal US support is likely to help or harm the protestors.
Matt’s last two paragraphs examine the particular facts of two cases and ovffer a reason why the general proposition mentioned above is applicable to one case and not the other.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
#8. Read any German media for a few days, there’s no shortage of sources. Nostalgia for the GDR is so rampant that it even has its own name – “Ostalgie” (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostalgie), a pun on the German words “Ost” (East) and “Nostalgie”.
It’s really not hard to understand why that would be the case. To this day East Germans are treated with condescension and even outright disdain by the Wessis. And also, unlike the Poles or the Czechs, the East Germans did not gain their independence – as a lot of East Germans see it, they simply got transferred to a more benevolent ruling country.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
You do realize, don’t you Al, that the analogy was someone else’s?
You do realize that Matthew cited it approvingly, saying that it is “illustrative”?
And that the analogy is stupid for exactly the reason that Matthew said analogies are generally stupid?
But even so, what’s your point? That Matthew’s prior statement that he “doesn’t believe in analogies” should be qualified by “except when I do”?
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:31 pm
By contrast, the primary strategic orientation of the United States in the Persian Gulf region is not merely hostile to theocracy or Ahmadenijad but to Iran. Iran would like to be the dominant power in the region, and we want it not to be.
=============================================================
Have you read any history at all? We were perfectly fine with Iran as the dominant power in the region when the Shah was in control prior to 1979. In fact we encouraged his military build-up and sold him all the arms he would take. Iran was our ally on the USSR southern border and was a counterweight in the region to Iraq and Syria who were loosely allied to the Soviets.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/iran-fury.html?c=y&page=1
Matt is completely wrong. We don’t want Iran as a regional power *today* because its government has been unremittingly hostile (for some good reasons)to us since 1979. If there was a US-friendly government in Iran, our “primary strategic orientation” against it would change.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Vanya,
It is possible to find enough people holding pretty much any opinion. Many East Germans are probably really worse off today than 20 years ago. But a quick search led to this poll:
Only 14%.
To this day East Germans are treated with condescension and even outright disdain by the Wessis. And also, unlike the Poles or the Czechs, the East Germans did not gain their independence – as a lot of East Germans see it, they simply got transferred to a more benevolent ruling country.
What would Angela Merkel think of that?
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Oh great, now the wingnuts will use this permalink as documentation that Khruschev was behind the Civil Rights Movement.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
But even so, what’s your point?
That only a wanker of the highest order would spend as much time as you obviously do cataloguing Matt’s every declarative statement in the hope that someday you can find evidence of him — not contradicting one — but merely qualifying one slightly and by implication, and think having done so makes you marvelously clever.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Speaking of Der Stern, there was definitely some DDR nostalgia here, but it was mostly kitsch, and it’s mostly over with now from what I’ve seen, although you still hear loud complaints by political windbags about how the people need to beware Ostalgie (fomented by the Left, natch!).
As for the condescension and disdain, the GDP in the eastern part of the country still lags that of the western states by 30% or so, despite lots of cash redistribution in the last 20 years. The sentiment is kind of like that thing you get in the states, where certain coastal types think that flyover country is just not pulling their weight. I’ve even read some pundits who claim that we should abolish the Senate because of this inequity …
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
“Yes. Throughout the 40s and 50s the Soviets would “meddle” and critices the US for its racism all the time, playing to the third world colonized gallery. Paul Robeson? And the US got better in response to this criticism. See Truman and Eisenhower. (And of course Hoover believed the civil rights and anti-war movements were drummed up by foreign communists.)”
I would disagree with the conclusion that the US actually responded to the Soviet criticism of the American apartheid regime. The US responded to American criticism of it’s apartheid regime, not to Soviet criticism. When civil rights victories did happen, they were nearly exclusively the result of US community-level organizing and extremely rarely (if ever) a direct result of foreign criticism.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I lived in Hungary in 91-92 and 1995, speak fluently, and have visited friends/family regularly over the years and can attest that nostalgia is substantial and has grown over the years. It was nonexistent in 91, but quite visible by 1995, particularly amongst the older generation who were less able to take advantage of the upside of economic opportunities and most harshly affected by inflation since they were on fixed pensions. For the average 70 year old the trade-off of political and cultural freedom for financial insecurity was a pretty bad trade.
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Fostert,
Yugoslavia was, believe it or not, a relative economic success story. It boasted one of the highest growth rates in the world in the 1950s and 1960s, and enjoyed high health, nutrition, education levels. In the mid 1980s GDP levels in Yugoslavia were, I believe, higher than the poorer West European countries like Greece or Spain. Yugoslavia was a ‘market socialist’ economy, in which most enterprises were managed by their workers and prices were largely set by the market, and thus managed to avoid some of the economic inequality of capitalist countries and the economic inefficiencies of command economies. And while Yugoslavia was of course an authoritarian state, it was less repressive and more tolerant than any of the other Eastern Bloc states, and had a certain measure of tolerance for heterodox opinions. And of course people had the freedom to travel for work or pleasure- many Yugoslavs were guest workers in Germany.
Yugoslavia had many problems, of course, but it’s not a surprise that many people look back fondly on the Socialist era.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Yugoslavia was so successful that it is the only Eastern European country that imploded in nasty civil wars, delaying the entry of many member states into the EU by more than a decade.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:18 pm
…none of which had anything to do with Yugoslavia’s economic performance.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:30 pm
…none of which had anything to do with Yugoslavia’s economic performance.
What about it?
Yugoslavia may have looked good compared to “West European countries like Greece” (who went through a civil war and later a military dictatorship) or Spain (run by fascists), but that’s not saying much.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 pm
“Yugoslavia was, believe it or not, a relative economic success story.”
Yes it was, Hector, but some portions wanted to be on their own anyway. Certainly the Slovenians. And economic success stories are not uncommon in Communist countries. Vietnam grew quickly after we stopped bombing them. As an aside, I wonder how well the economy of Iowa would do if their crops were continually napalmed. I’m guessing not so good. But in the end, I do believe Capitalism is the better approach once the Communists have built the infrastructure. I think Vietnam illustrates that quite well. They’re basically Capitalists now, but with lots of corruption. But they needed the Communists to get their water management and education systems built up, and the South Vietnamese were certainly not going to do that. But when I look at what I’ve seen from the former Yugoslavia, it’s that their infighting kept them unstable enough to invite Russian influence. Instead of the Soviets, they now have Russian mafias, which are even worse. The Soviets could at least build some trolley lines and fund education. Slovenia seems to be the one part of Yugoslavia that’s doing okay, but that’s because they really hate Russians. Sadly, it was out of the way and I didn’t get to see it. But I’ve heard it’s nice, which is somewhat unusual for Eastern Europe. The Czech Republic is nice, too. But again, they weren’t going to tolerate any further Russian influence. They won’t really tolerate American influence, either.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Eastern Europe was turned into a prison house under communism. Unfortunately, before communism, much of Eastern Europe tended towards genocidal behavior towards Jews – like Hungary and Romania – fascist dictatorships, and ethnic cleansers of various kinds. When Croatia was freed from the kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Nazis, the regime plunged with fervor into the mass murder of Serbs. Which the local Croatian priests thought was splendid fun.
It isn’t like this area of the world could look back on enlightened governments that the Soviet Union crushed.
It was one of the great misfortunes of WWI that it broke up the Austro-Hungarian empire. If only that empire had been kept and made more democratic, everything would have been different.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
“West European countries like Greece” (who went through a civil war and later a military dictatorship) or Spain (run by fascists), but that’s not saying much.
No, it’s saying a lot if you were a Yugoslav in 1978. Yugoslavia happens to be right next door to Greece. The point is that Yugoslavia was richer than both its Communist and Capitalist neighbors. And you are ignoring the fact that people could enjoy that lifestyle while working like Communists, i.e. not very hard. The point is not whether that system was sustainable, it’s whether there’s nostalgia for that life, and there definitely is. And Fostert, the Serbs and Croatians are quite good at home grown corruption. They don’t need “Russian mafias.” And Slovenians don’t really “hate the Russians” – Slovenia has never been under Russian rule. They hate Serbs, and love Austrians.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
But in the end, I do believe Capitalism is the better approach once the Communists have built the infrastructure.
Funny, Lenin would have said exactly the opposite. Maybe it’s a balancing act?
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 pm
“When Croatia was freed from the kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Nazis, the regime plunged with fervor into the mass murder of Serbs.”
Freed by the Nazis? Yeah they cheered at the beginning, but it didn’t work out so well for the Croatians. Although they obviously liked the slaughter of the Serbs.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:56 pm
“Funny, Lenin would have said exactly the opposite. Maybe it’s a balancing act?”
No, it’s a balancing act. I’ve just seen countries that had to go through Communism to get from Colonial Feudalism to Capitalism.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Could be something to do with “Shock Therapy” killing over a million Russians during the first winter after the SU’s collapse as well, just possibly…
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:07 pm
“Eastern Europe was turned into a prison house under communism.”
Depends on where you were. I’ve seen a bit of Eastern Europe, and it was obviously brutal. But it was still fairy prosperous. And the ones that are prosperous now are the ones that were prosperous before the Communists. The Czcechs were exceptional, and they still are. The Slovaks, not so much. The Bulgarians can do what has to be done, but don’t trust them. The Hungarians are aliens, and the Polish are really smart. And the Balkans can’t get along with each other. Ever. Same as it’s always been. Just without the Soviet tanks.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 pm
“Funny, Lenin would have said exactly the opposite. Maybe it’s a balancing act?”
Uh…You might be getting Lenin confused with Marx. Lenin thought he had struck the capitalist chain at its weakest chink.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:22 pm
“But it was still fairy prosperous.”
I meant ‘fairly’, but the double entendre works well. In Eastern Europe, everyone thinks I’m gay. And gay Eastern Europeans get quite angry when they find out otherwise. Especially at a gay bar. Once again, another situation that I should not have lived through, but did. I have no right to be alive. I should have been killed many times before. And no, I cannot explain why I am still alive. And no doctor can either.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:34 pm
“And no, I cannot explain why I am still alive. And no doctor can either.”
Maybe I have a little Crazy Horse in me. Genetics would prove otherwise, but that can’t look into Karma. I’m not even remotely genetically related to the last person I was.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Let me confirm that nostalgia for communism is rather big in east Germany.
Russia did not only loose her power position after the fall of communism but also did very bad in economic and individual freedom terms after the fall of communism. I am not even sure they are back at 1990 level today. At least the first 10 years after the fall were definitly worse, not better. That also explains communism nostaligia rather good besides the social psychology element of declining relative power. In general, the transation from central planned to market did not work out that great almost everywhere.
Comeing back to east Germany, that is a rather sad case, hardly explainable by an objective bad situation today. A study testing the knowlege of 16 year olds about east Germany confirmed that students were in general rather clueless, with east Germans being worst, all largely overestimating the plus sides and underestimating the bad sides of the communist regime. Only arch conversvative left of any kind hater Bavarians had a realistic picture. The oppressive stasi espionage system was largely unknown, just like inequalities that did exist east Germany. Many students (i think even a majority in the east) even thaught life expectancy was higher in the east than in west Germany.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:02 am
“The oppressive stasi espionage system was largely unknown”
No surprise, who wants to admit to it? The Stasi were extensive enough that that a few people you were friends with were in it. Someone in your extended family was in it, if not your sister. Nobody wants to talk about that. Sometimes, there really are secrets better left untold.