From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Russia

From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Russia

Yale Richmond organized cultural exchange programs between the Soviet Bloc and the US during the cold war. He wrote this book to help Americans understand and do business in Russia. He has also written From Da to Yes to help Americans understand Eastern Europeans. Two additional books of his which I have not read are Understanding the Americans: A Handbook for Visitors to the United States helping people to understand the US and Into Africa: Intercultural Insights helping people understand Africans. From Nyet to Da was the first book of Richmond's that I read and it helped me understand my interactions with Russians.

To begin with one must understand the history of Russia. Russia sees itself as the third Rome; the first was in Italy, the second in Constantinople, and the third in Moscow. The word Czar means Caesar in Russian. Similar to Constantinople/Istanbul the third Rome sees itself as a bridge between the East and the West. The Mongols conquered and ruled Russia for some time (their descendants are the Tartars) giving Russians experience with Asiatic peoples. Russia also borders China and reaches all the way to Alaska which was formerly a part of Russia. Russia has been cut off from the West at times which made it miss the Renaissance. Since Russia lags generally lags behind Western Europe in terms of standard of living and technology it views its Western neighbors with a mixture of envy and contempt.

One helpful way to understand Russia (for me) is to compare and contrast it with the United States. I think in many ways the US is moving towards becoming a "Russia." Russians themselves see the US as a kindred country, so the approach should be mutually agreeable.

• Both countries are large and have dominated world relations for most of the 20th century. Russia has the largest landmass of any country in the world. The US does not have as large of an official territory, but its military empire spans the globe with bases in over 130 countries.
  
• Both countries have a strong German connection and have a love and hate relationship with Germany. Germans are the predominant ethnic group in the US and many American schools were taught in German until the First World War. Many Russians of German ancestry serve in the Russian bureaucracy; because of their efficiency, they help the (disorderly) Russians in their pursuit for order. Both Russia and the US battled Germany during both World Wars and had warm feelings for Germany between the world wars. In Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg describes how America intellectuals fell in love with Hitler. Germany and the Soviet Union formed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact at the beginning of the Second World War. Today Germany companies are the best at dealing with Russian bureaucracy.
  
• The American personality is tends towards individualism while the Russian personality tends toward collectivism. Americans look back on the their history and see a rugged pioneer hacking his way through the wilderness with his family. Russians look back and see the Mir an agricultural collective (almost as communism on a small scale) which allowed its inhabitants to survive the harsh Russian winters. I believe both nations are moving closer together in this regard. America is leaving its capitalistic roots while Russia has dissolved the Soviet Union. Both countries are moving towards the fascistic corporatism where large corporations run the country and operate on a system of public losses and private profits.
  
• Order is a related to individuality. Russians love order but tend to be a very disorderly people. Americans love individualism but end up complaining about how much conformism exists within the United States.
• Countries are usually referred to as a mother or a father. Germany is an obvious fatherland while Russia is a Mother country. The US is a neuter country at the present time; this is because it is moving from its German origins to becoming more of a matriarchal state. In 100 years America will no longer be the "home" land but the "mother" land.
  
• Russians are a very warm and emotional people. It takes a little while to get to know them, but once you do, they are great friends. Americans are a little big different. We are very easy to get to know but we never let our guard down all the way. I wonder if this is related to the different ways thoughts are policed in the USSA and the USSR. In the USSR if you complained about the government, you could get into big trouble. Consequently Russians needed to be careful in case the person they were speaking to was one of the (many) informants. In the US(S)A, we have political correctness. No one cares what you really think, but you can get into big trouble if you make an offensive joke or comment. We will speak with you but never tell you what we really think. Russians are coconuts: hard on the outside, soft on the inside. Americans are peaches: soft on the outside, hard on the inside.
  
• Americans tend to be more flexible and make compromises easily. They try to get a job done quickly and inexpensively. Russians follow instructions strictly so they can be inflexible. They want to get the job done and get the best deal possible.
  
• Russians do not equate time and money. For an American time equals money although many Americans decry this outlook. As an American I have to plan out my visits to Russians carefully. I think of my day in terms of spending a half hour on this and forty-five minutes on that. When I stop by to see a Russian friend, I will end up sitting, talking, and eating until late into the night.
  
• Alcohol is an important societal issue in both Russia and America. The traditional Russian drink is Vodka and apparently Russians drink a lot of it. A couple of Russians I have met thought this was an incorrect or old stereotype, but most have agreed with it. Russians seem to be open about and enjoy alcohol. Americans have a schizophrenic relationship with alcohol. During the 1920s alcohol was banned entirely. Many Americans feel alcohol is bad, but Americans still drink, mostly binge drinking. Americans are repressed and guilty about alcohol.
  

Sugar Blues by William Dufty

Sugar Blues

I agree with the main premise of Sugar Blues--that Sugar is the most harmful food in our diet today--but I think the book is a little bit over the top. Several threads run through this book. William Dufty traces the history of sugar from the ancient India to the modern day. He tells his personal story of sugar addiction, explains the health problems caused by sugar, and describes how corporate interests keep the dangers of sugar hidden.

Dufty's history is where I had the most disagreements. He does not cite many sources and makes strong allegations. I know some of the points that he made such as those about witch burning are incorrect, but my history is not strong enough to critique his overall accuracy. My guess is that his general historical narrative is correct but many of the minor points are wrong. Throughout history sugar has migrated throughout the world causing health problems and weakening civilizations; however, it is addictive so everyone uses it anyway. When a strong people or army discovers sugar, they instantly take it up and become lazy and weak leading to their downfall.

The history historical narrative ties into the problem of corporate interests. It may seem odd for me, an anarcho-capitalist, to decry big corporations, but this book illustrates the libertarian critique of corporatism. Big food companies have always wanted to use sugar because it allowed them to make their products less expensively unfortunately the sugar also greatly reduced quality. Consumers have generally revolted against being forced to eat these sugar laced products, so corporations have called upon the government to "regulate" them. One example of this occurred in England. Brewers discovered how to use sugar to brew beer less expensively, but this cheap beer had an inferior taste. Anyone who sold people beer made using sugar would be run out of town when people learned of the fraud. Eventually the government created an agency to monitor beer production and prevent the beer brewers using sugar during fermentation. Shortly after the founding of this agency, the agency changed its opinion and allowed beer manufacturers to use sugar. The consumers were helpless against the power of the government. This type of tale has repeated itself over and over during sugar's history.

Dufty discusses many dangers from sugar which I had not thought about before reading the book. I have written about these issues in more depth on my Complete Body blog. First, he describes how the health problems from smoking cigarettes may largely stem from drying the tobacco leaves too quickly causing sugar to form. A second anecdote is that many driving accidents may be caused by sugar. We all know that you get drowsy after a sugar high. Sugary products are sold along the highway everywhere. A driver will eat some sugary food, experience a sugar high, and then following low--at this point he is more vulnerable to getting in an accident. One crash will lead to another. Third, sugar makes you taste better to mosquitoes and increases your chance of getting bitten.

I would recommend reading Sugar Blues, but read it with a grain of salt. I think Dufty goes overboard in many sections of this polemic, but his central point is true. If you get a little too scared of sugar, it will not do you any harm.

Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change
Liberal Fascism was the subject of the third Voxiversity. I read through this book as I have during the other courses. I learned a lot which is par for the course during this experience. There were a few major questions of mine that this book cleared up:

1. What is fascism?
2. How are Stalinists, Nazis, and liberals are related?
   
3. Why do Americans love the government so much?

I will briefly answer these questions and give a the Liberal Fascism Voxiversity links.

1. What is fascism?
Basically, fascism is a state religion. The state plays god and everything is directed by it to achieve some great goal. Every culture is different, so each country's goal is different. Each society has different faults which politicians can use to stir up national fervor. For Germany, it was utopia as a master race and with restored national greatness. For America, it's "leaving no child behind," letting no knee be skinned, and letting no one go without health care.

2. How are Stalinists, Nazis, and liberals related?
I knew that fascism and communism being opposite ends of the spectrum was poppycock before reading this book, but I was unclear about their connections. The Nazis are National-Socialists; the Communists are International-Socialists. The Nazis realized nationalism was a great motivator, so they added this into their socialist routine; in fact many of the Nazis were actually converted communists. The communists would send thugs to start fights at Nazi rallies, but all the thugs would be converted to Nazism before they could get the brawl started. Fascists are pragmatic socialists, so they simply took the nationalism and incorporated it into their socialist ideas.

The ideas which fermented in pre-World War II Italy and Germany were also popular in the US. They were also popular in England as well but this was not the topic of the book. American intelligentsia and politicians were enamored with and fawned over Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin. Wilson hatched many of fascist ideas which were incorporated by Mussolini and Hitler. Roosevelt permanently reinstated Wilson' s ideas into American governance.

3. Why do Americans love the government so much?
For a nation which claims to love liberty, Americans seem sycophantically in love with the government. An American's only complaint is that the government should redistribute wealth to different people or that the army is being sent to invade the wrong country. I have long thought that this was almost a religious fervor, but now I realize that it is actually a real religion. Americans worship the government in the same way that ancients worshiped god: they sacrifice to it (taxes), pray that it gives them a good economy (economic stimuli), consider it the true source of knowledge (public schools), and entrust it with their health (medical regulations).

The Germans and Italians during the Second World War were not "bad people." They were normal people just like you and me who happened to be serving a government that did abominable things. Americans have swallowed the same clap-trap as the Germans. Modern Americans will follow their dear leader (whether it be Obama or Bush) into whatever calamity he leads them.

Information

• Wikipedia article on the book
• Wikipedia article on Jonah Goldberg

Classes

• Announcement
• Introduction
• Introduction Review
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Afterward
• Final Quiz

Eat Fat and Grow Slim

Eat Fat and Grow Slim by Richard Mackarness, M.B.,B.S.

In the past I had always thought that the low carb craze just stemmed from some poor graduate student who needed to finish his dissertation or from a poorly designed dietary study that got researchers started off on the wrong track. I guessed that as time went on "Science" would come around to what tradition had been saying all along that animal fat was the basis for a healthy diet. When I read Eat Fat and Grow Slim I realized that this will not be the case.

This book was published in 1958 and 50 years later the medical establishment is still barking up the wrong tree. Now that I think about it, Weston Price's work was published in the 1930s and is still being ignored. As described in the first chapter William Harvey and William Banting who advocated a the high fat diet in the 1850s and were run out of town by the medical establishment. Although the benefits of high fat diets have long been known, mankind remains willfully ignorant.

Mackarness addresses some objections to a high fat diet in the third chapter which sound very familiar:

1. High-fat diets are nauseating and make you bilious. No one could stick to such a diet for long enough to lose weight.
2. High-fat diets cause ketosis and make you ill.
3. High-fat diets may be all right in cold weather but they are too heating in hot weather.
4. High-fat diets are unbalanced and cause deficiency diseases.
5. High-fat diets cause heart disease.

One of the most interesting points in the book came during the third section of this chapter where he describes the Eskimos and how they lived. Eskimos were not slightly fat to keep themselves warm; they were actually very thin and only their fur clothes gave them the impression of being portly. An Eskimo actually had very little need to generate body heat: their warm clothing kept them warmer than a New Yorker would be during the middle of winter and their houses varied between 60 and 90 degrees depending on how close to the ceiling you were.

The book goes on to give sample diets, recommend foods, and address further concerns that a person might have about a high fat diet. I agree with most of these points although the book does not stress the importance of =organ meats. This is most likely due to the fact that organ meats were eaten more commonly at this time and that the book seems to be based on the first hand experience of western medical doctors who had discovered their textbooks were incorrect instead of a survey of indigenous cultures.