Russia and China believe we are doomed: can we prove them wrong?(The New European)

[bronxiteforever]

This is achievable. However, it will take an effort which seems alien to those in public life
The New European
December 21,2022 by Paul Mason

“Ordinary people like you and me know something better than all the fussy old politicians put together,” says the protagonist of Noel Coward’s 1939 play This Happy Breed…Written on the eve of the second world war, it contains a theatrical premonition of Britain’s “finest hour”. In the final scene, the hero – a veteran of the first world war – tells his grandson: “We ’aven’t lived and died and struggled all these hundreds of years to get decency and justice and freedom for ourselves without being prepared to fight 50 wars if need be – to keep ’em.”

…The one point of light this year for me has been the way in which Britain proactively supported, armed and aided Ukraine…But let’s see whether solidarity with Ukraine lasts until the end of a winter of potential power blackouts, freezing homes and overwhelmed food banks.

For Vladimir Putin also watches the telly. He understands the difference between the Britain of Noel Coward and the Britain of Matt Hancock. In 2022, Russia and China combined to declare themselves our cultural and geopolitical adversaries. They understand our weaknesses better than we do.

They believe our democratic society is doomed, and the only way to achieve the national self-belief evidenced in Coward’s 1939 play is through dictatorship. Maybe in 2023 we can prove them wrong – but it will take an effort that many people in business and public life seem not to possess.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/russia-and-china-believe-we-are-doomed-can-we-prove-them-wrong/

[Hortensis]

1. They really don't. Vast numbers worry their nations could fail

in spite of bombastic rhetoric by their leaders. They're not doing well.

Let's remember what happened last time western liberal democracies lined up against authoritarian states, both socialist and fascist:

Liberal democracies went on to create unprecedented freedom and prosperity. Authoritarian states either outright destroyed themselves, failed over time while hundreds of millions died, or at best adopted hybrid western systems in order to survive as less developed states.

The claim that authoritarianism is the future and liberal democracies must fail is blatantly false.

[bronxiteforever]

2. I think this article has a point that is more nuanced

and remember it is a UK writer. They had 3 PM’s in 2022, Brexit failure, corruption, strikes for living wages and 15 years of Tory austerity. The author wrote:

How we achieved this spectacular disunity, this tolerance for incompetence and racism will be clear to historians. Three decades of freemarket economics gave the home-owning, pension-earning part of the population a stake in the exploitation of those obliged to rent and pay off their student loans.

I think the comparison to the 1940s is certainly optimistic given our present state of affairs even here. The amount of pro Putin tuft hunters in United States politics has been bracing for me. I also feel something very important has been lost in the political dynamic of the Country. In a generation past at least the GOP tried to win every vote with some sort of attempt at moving to the center. That model has long since vanished from that party. We are spectacularly divided through operations of law in an electoral college that is a major impediment to consensus elections.

Here is where I agree with you, Our democratic crises do not mean that the authoritarian states are guaranteed to surpass us. I agree that China and Russia (esp Russia) have glaring long term problems. Those systems and Iran don’t seem very successful and are in fact failing. I hope sooner rather than later.

In the final analysis our strength will lie in the sacrifices that leaders and citizens are willing to make to continue the trend of liberal democratic values. The American democratic voter held the line in 2020 and against all odds in 2022. Let’s hope that courage continues because anything less will certainly undermine values that we hold dear.

[Hortensis]

5. Good response, essentially agree, though not to underestimate

the desperate dangers of the 1940s. Change is so fast and dramatic that every decade we're where we've never been before, facing new problems most of us never foresaw and didn't head off when we did. And new opportunities often far too big to grasp.

Reminds me that if we go back just three or four centuries, decades in some parts of the world, most humans lived lives more like than different from those of the preceding 10,000 years. How astonishing that we're not just still standing but enormously, unimaginably advanced... As we define it, of course.

[bronxiteforever]

6. +1 excellent points

[SheltieLover]

3. Kicking for visibility

[bronxiteforever]

4. Love the Santa hat emoji!