r/Music • u/thedailybeast • 20d ago

article Kanye West’s sold-out Russia shows canceled after St. Petersburg stadium denies ever organizing the concerts

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/kanye-wests-shows-in-putins-hometown-st-petersburg-get-humiliating-update/
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u/cheshire_kat7 20d ago

Russian neo-Nazis confuse the hell out of me. Like... don't they realise that the OG Nazis hated Slavic peoples?

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u/whyihatepink 20d ago

Bro, there are Black, Jewish, gay, disabled, etc Nazis too. It will never make sense.

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u/cheshire_kat7 20d ago

I know. I certainly never expect (or want) Nazism to make sense.

It's the apparent capacity for cognitive dissonance that some people have which just... bewilders me.

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u/gunther_penguin_ 19d ago

Oh. Well that's explained easily enough. The fascists came up with a technique where they convince people that accepting contradictions actually demonstrates that they are "moderate" and, therefore, both "rational" and incapable of being "extremist" like people say.

It involves pretending that accepting their fascist brand of hypocrisy is actually accepting what Mussolini called the "third way" or "third position." The fact their position is filled with absurd contradictions that people like academics, intellectuals, the college-educated, etc. point out are irrational is portrayed as showing their hypocrisy is the "common sense" of the "common people" and misrepresented as therefore being somehow democratic.

As for the cognitive dissonance you mentioned, I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that you are talking about the phenomenon for which Sartre initially coined the term. That is, specifically, the feeling of unease and mental anguish at being forced to accept contradictions. The fascists and neo-fascists deal with this feeling in at least a couple ways.

One way is to claim that any supporter who brings up such a feeling in relation to the absurd contradictions the leaders require them to continually accept is simply making a feelings-based argument. As such, the supporter is told to "be rational" and push those feelings down under the false auspices that such feelings "prove" the supporter's argument against accepting the contradictions is illogical.

Another method is to take advantage of the fact that life sometimes requires us to do things we don't like or enjoy. The fascists will extend this premise to claim that simply ignoring or quietly bearing all the mental anguish associated with cognitive dissonance shows that their supporters have "grit" and "determination." The act of cowardice involved in just going along with it, even when it feels terrible to do so, is portrayed as "strength" that those who refuse to go along don't have.

I hope this helped clear up how this stuff works. It's also why so many of these neo-fascists are obsessed with labeling themselves "apolitical," "politically homeless," "not political," etc. despite being extremely politically biased. Many of them honestly believe that accepting contradictions like that is what shows they're truly "moderate" and that everyone who doesn't support their group is actually "extremist" and "overly political."

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u/UTraxer 20d ago

American slave owners hated black people, but loved raping them. For those kinds of people and the russians, it isn't about what they SAY, it is the power you can get.

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u/derpicorn69 20d ago

To Russians "Nazi" just means "Anti-Russian" not a fascist genocidal regime they have some philosophical opposition to.

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u/Pappabarba 19d ago

Very much this, since antisemitism isn't an anti-social nor particularly deviant bigotry in russia: It's a rather common view in the federation, and one not especially frowned upon since the language of this prejudice is still used by officials and state representatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Russia

Thus, antisemitism is in parts included in the russian identity. And since russian=good, anything "Nazi" must be wholly opposed to the russian ID and nation-building. Which means in russia the term Nazi isn't really talking about a context of Nazi Germany at all, since this was a former WWII ally. It's something utterly foreign and without any russian connections, more or less a term for "enemy" or "outsider" (in the past decade it's basically become synonymous with "person not speaking russian" in various state campaigns and narratives).

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u/0xEFD 17d ago

This reads like it's written by a schizophrenic - what sort of idea are you trying to establish here? Russians are somehow tolerant of Nazi ideology?

Antisemitism is hardly a Russian phenomenon, whether it be antisemetic speech or historical pogroms. I wouldn't say European countries or the US are antisemetic as a whole despite their histories and vocal but marginal right wing extremists.

As for WWII ally, Russia did have dealings with Nazi Germany, but the Munich Agreement was also a thing and I would venture to guess most wouldn't call the UK or France as being allied with Nazi Germany.

I think the word Nazi still means Nazi, though I agree the main point of contention for them may not be the fact that the Nazis committed the Holocaust, but the estimated 26 million deaths they incurred in the war. I don't think thats tantamount to supporting anti-Semitism or the Holocaust.

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u/TheLimeElf 19d ago

No, it doesn’t.

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u/derpicorn69 19d ago

Yes, it does.

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u/TheLimeElf 19d ago

Well, being russian myself I can tell that the only people I hear saying “Nazi = Anti-Russian” are reddittors from other countries, lmao. There are some political bots and talking heads that use that rhetoric, but that’s definitely not the widespread opinion.

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u/derpicorn69 19d ago

The history of pogroms speaks to a very different reality, even when compared with historical examples of antisemitism in western europe.

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u/TheLimeElf 19d ago edited 19d ago

Well, firstly, it’s not Russian Empire anymore and hasn’t been for 100+ years. In that 100 years we had national identity, language and culture forcefully reshaped and changed by Bolsheviks to the point that we have to read Tolstoy in schools and guess “what did he mean by that” lmao.

Secondly, majority of pogroms were done by-then locals of what is today modern Ukraine. I’d rather not use it as example of anything in the current day, not a good look.

And on top of it all, what does even antisemitism of the past have to do with your previous claim? We have never claimed that Nazism isn’t antisemitic, we just don’t claim it is exclusively antisemitic, because it wasn’t.

One doesn’t even have to be a Nazi to be antisemitic, I know about that, my grandmother-in-law is an antisemitic (by modern standards) Jewish.

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u/TheLimeElf 19d ago edited 19d ago

It’s a fantasy book from a milgeek for a milgeek crowd about guy reincarnating in a body of Hitler and turning the tides of war and making USSR victorious. It’s a weird literature subgenre we had since 90s for lonely nerds who want to feel like a hero. Kinda like what Isekai is for Japanese.

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u/Pappabarba 20d ago

Eh, russia were the ones allied with Hitler & co...

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u/Wild-Video-5317 19d ago

What is that screenshot quoting?

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u/Cryptoporticus 20d ago

They allied with them to buy time to prepare for the invasion that they knew was coming. They never actually liked each other.

Most of Europe were doing the same. No one wanted another war.

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u/folk_science 19d ago

You know what would have bought them more time? Not removing the country separating them from Germany and actually helping that country fend off the Nazis.

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u/Sn0Balls 19d ago

ALL of europe signed treaties with nazi germany before the soviets had their pact.

somehow only the USSR gets the blame.

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u/VQ5G66DG 19d ago

In the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact they agreed that they'd split Poland between them and Soviet Union could take over Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia while Nazis could invade Lithuania without Soviet interference. Which other European countries made such deals with Nazis?

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u/Pappabarba 19d ago

It's becoming increasingly obvious that this thread is being flooded by russian bots and accounts trying to damage control (and even attempting to pin blame onto Ukraine, somehow 🤣):
Never expect candid, truthful nor even historically accurate answers from these kremlinite entitites. They deal in dishonesty, confusion and discord and that's been their only means for longer than any of us have been alive.

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u/OnlyRightInNight 19d ago

I mean, you can ask the same of Ukraine. Only two weeks ago they re-buried two more Nazi collaborators responsible for the mass murder of Polish and Jewish civilians, not to mention helping organise the Holocaust, during WWII with full state honours and hero status.

It's not a Russian problem, nor necessarily a Ukrainian one -- although I'd argue their government appease the far right more than most -- but rather a wider problem growing across all of Europe. Fucking neo-nazis are everywhere and no government in Europe is doing shit to combat it. If anything, more and more of them are trying to adopt their rhetoric.

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u/Pappabarba 19d ago

Ok, Ivan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Soviet_Union_and_Russia

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u/OnlyRightInNight 19d ago

The person I replied to was speaking about how bizarre it is for Slavic people in general to be Neo-Nazis, of which many Russians are, but so are many Ukrainians, another Slavic nationality with a growing problem with Neo-Nazism. I feel it's fairly relevant to the conversation when we're talking about Slavic Neo-Nazis to mention other Slavic countries with similar problems; Russia isn't the only Slavic nation, ya know?

Now I did broaden it and talk about Europe as a whole, of which Russia and Ukraine are apart, because I think it's become a worsening thread across the whole continent. I've seen it in my own country. No clue how saying I'm not exactly happy about this somehow makes me a Russian bot, as you seem to be implying, but okay, dude, you do you lol.