Title is an oversimplification of course, but the USSR fell partly because many people east of the Berlin Wall, especially young people, were clamoring to get into the Western side where everything was healthier, prosperous, and freer. Our art and celebrities were setting the standard for the world. Look at how many people showed up to Metallica in Moscow. It's like a scene from Dune.
Popularity is not true value and there were weaknesses running through the West's culture all the way back to postwar and beyond, but just look at today's situation. Our "leaders" tried to apply the same Cold War playbook to current Russia, except they built the Iron Curtain of sanctions themselves. The idea is that the Russian people would pine for the West now that they've been cut off.
But what is a young Russian person supposed to see in the West? Trannies, ugly astroturfed movie stars, mumble rap, obesity, girlbosses, low T men, gay molestation, electric vehicles, declining standards, Indian tech, decadent culture? Who is the modern day Metallica that is supposed to win over millions of Russians? Kendrick Lamar?
What is a Russian middle-aged couple supposed to think when they take a holiday to France and are confronted with Africans and Arabs, Muslim ghettoes, and rapists prowling the Eiffel Tower? In Russia, at least Dagestanis mostly stay in Dagestan.
What is a Russian supposed to make of a Western academic culture that tells people every achievement of the West was a lie built on the bodies of minorities?
Anime is the biggest cross-cultural influence today, and that's from Japan.
I'm shocked the West has any cultural cachet left. I think a lot of it is just foreigners being polite.
I don't agree. Being a bit more humble doesn't hurt.
It's "culture war", not cultural war.
Russia is not the alternative to the West, you have your own problems. Keeping the lid on them doesn't mean they're not hissing underneath. You're defining yourselves lately as the opposite of what the West has to offer, but you don't offer anything palpable. You don't seem to understand the pressure that's coming from China and India combined with their almost 3 billion little dots, you've got nothing comparable, only posturing and hybrid war.
Russia won nothing. Better focus on your latent problems with the islamic world and with China, not with the West. This is your chance to survival and ours too. Trump got it and gave you the chance to brag about winning something, when even from the inside of Russia, Prigojin would have changed the whole premise of your argument.
Take care of your own problems, Russia. Don't worry about the West. Good luck!
I'm American.
What about Russian domestic art, music, goods, or standard of living makes you conclude this?
The US doesn't offer vastly superior consumer goods anymore, btw. Everything is made in China or Korea.
Serguey, sell it to someone else. Why do you guys need to come up with these moronic acts it's beyond me. Learn to think, learn to write, learn to think in writing, learn English, hey, learn better Russian, but stop pretending. You're as American as my Russian vodka. За здоровье!
Listen to him: Russian domestic art! You win the internet today! W h o t h e f u c k c a r e s about anything related to the Russian standard of living? Russian domestic art, homies, we lost the "cultural war".
Oh, it's a NAFO soldier.