Vienna and Paris? Those are western countries. And the Czech republic is Baltic, so that's basically 50/50.
As for the stately buildings, that's true, and what's wrong with that? I think the way liberalism always hides power and governs with subterfuge is cause for suspicion. They got the most powerful armed forces in the world, the most advanced state security networks, the highest body counts, and yet their buildings look like corporate offices. Indistinguishable from mundane distribution centres and the like.
What does that tell you? I think if you have power, you should show it to the people, it's called transparency. A very important principle of democracy.
Moreover, this is Europe, we like architecture. We have had philosophers dedicated to it for centuries. This neoliberal nonsense of building glassy American shoeboxes is a foreign thing to us, brought on by NATO hegemony. And it's not even for any cultural purpose, it's just a way to cut down on government spending so there's more taxes left for the oligarchs and their little private sector contracting schemes.
And as for France, not sure what you're on about. Contemporary French fashion favours muted colours and eclectic hues. If you want saturation you got far better luck with a Tartar, Kazakh, Croat or Albanian.
And it's worth noting that if you wear those kinds of clothes in Paris, even if you're a Christian, you might get mistaken for a Muslim and be attacked on the streets.
So if we're going down that road then I got news for you. I also know people who were part of the French state security mechanism, and they're not exactly getting up to democratic things.
It's all good and well if you're in some ritzy tourist spot, but try your luck as a Carib, and you'll quickly learn how the sausage gets made.
But I also object to the very premise of this line of argument, it's the notion of conquerors. As if there's some kind of science at work here. That just because you've got it in your head that colourful clothing is part of what your culture is doing, then by some magic, it is the superior property of a civilisation.
That's the bread and butter of the British empire. Always looking at such superficial things in order to justify their conquest and misery. My real question is, suppose for the sake of argument that you're right, then so what? Should they all change clothing and act like you and civilise themselves?
I don't think your intentions are particularly nefarious, but truth is that this is the reasoning of empires and ethnic chauvinism.
And like I said, it's not even true. In fact the west can't seem to make their minds up. Back in the cold war, the East was derided for garishness and too much colour, now apparently we're all living in a Humphrey Bogart film. Which one is it? And what does it matter?
In fact I could play the psychologist and say that clothing and superficial consumer habits is a cultural coping mechanism that people use to compensate for the fact that they lack cultural depth.
That where people are supposed to have musical and philosophical consciousness, where you're supposed to have literary and artistic preferences, where you are supposed to find some kind of spiritual aroma within verse, composition, language and thought, people have very little.
One very colourful place in America is the Cheesecake factory. Full to the brim of texture, trim, patterns and decoration. Clad in a sort of gilded extravagance that one might see in a Roman senate. But it's not exactly the Library of Alexandria, now is it? It's not exactly the sort of cultural hub where the best and brightest go to find the big answers to life's questions?
No, instead it's full of miserable people taking photographs of cheesecakes, and telling their friends about how remarkable it all is.
And when you do get the odd western genius, set on representing the virtues and joys of capitalism, then they tap the display counter and say "Look at all these choices." As you see a dozen different cheesecakes.
Completely ignoring the fact that this kind of service industry infantilises people to the point of where they cannot bake anything themselves. Prior to this dystopia, you had an infinite choice of cheesecake, you could conjure whichever one you liked right out of your imagination.
Every single shop on every single corner held within itself what is to the west a great arcane power. These strange and magical reagents that could produce baked goods. These curious and impossible witches known as grandmothers, who could make anything you'd like with their long forgotten alchemy.
But instead we see the great supremacy of commodification, wherein we find ourselves tapping at a glass counter as some underpaid peon in a demeaning paper hat is forced to shuffle cheesecake around for impatient customers who treat them like dogs.
And that's what they do for a living. That's their existence. They don't even get to be bakers, because bakers is skilled labour, and that makes it easier for them to bargain for better wages.
Instead they exist on an assembly line, that is intentionally designed to make people incompetent and disposable to capital. That robs people of experience, knowledge and participation in the world. That turns what was once an artisan craft into little more than yet another string of logistical button pushing.
But hey, the colour swatch checks out so I guess it's all paradise.
And as for governments being self serving, and the knowledge of citizens and so on, I do agree with you. In fact, so does Lenin. He wrote a book about it called "The State and Revolution."
That's why I enjoy democratic centralism, because it fills up the government with ordinary citizens. It builds delegations based on popular votes rather than corporate political parties. It produces mandates based on the counsel of citizens rather than the focus grouping of campaign advisors.
And moreover, if you break that mandate, if you violate your duties to the citizenry, then you go to jail.
I like that too. I think lying politicians belong in jail. If they want to lie for a living, then there's a thousand different jobs they can get where it won't endanger and ruin millions of people in the process.
That's the real reason people in power fear the Soviet system. Instead of putting the poor in jail, they put the powerful people in jail. Their immunity to the law is suspended, and suddenly they cry "Police state!" even though in reality, it's just equal treatment. They get the same end of the billyclub as the ordinary people have had for ages.
And as for the bloody opinion polls: You've forced my hand. I'm going to review a few lectures and books where I think I might be able to find it. It'll take a while however. But it's just as well, I am doing quality control for a literacy programme at the moment, and I need to do this regardless.
