Wagner boss Prigozhin killed in plane crash in Russia - eviltoast
  • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    Can’t speak for anyone else but I may be able to answer this.

    A lib is a liberal, someone who is pro-capital, not an anti-capitalist (very little overlap with how liberal tends to be defined in ordinary language in the US). Optics, relating to how people see the event, is idealism not materialism. Liberalism is idealist, unlike Marxism, which is materialist.

    The dig at liberalism and aesthetics is likely a critique of the implication that what this looks like has much to do with the material reality. That’s an aesthetic argument. It doesn’t matter what this looks like because the optics don’t affect the material relations. Someone who elevates the optics at the expense of the material relations is making an idealist, likely a liberal argument.

    Hence the comment embodying an aesthetic argument of the kind that liberals often make.

    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Ok, thank you, but what in my comment was at the expense of the material relations?

      • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re taking this in the spirit in which it’s intended. When Marxists criticise idealism, the target is the liberal world outlook, not the individual.

        By implication, really. Focusing on what people think of Russia’s/Putin’s trustworthiness rather than on it’s record or the factors that would keep it honest, so to speak. It’s Ukraine that violated Minsk, apparently prompted by France, Germany, and ‘NATO’. Looking at the optics, that seems a little more duplicitous than assassinating someone who attempted a coup (if this was an assassination and if what happened before can be called a coup).

        Would I trust a single person, e.g. Putin to uphold an international agreement? It doesn’t matter. It’s not a one-man show. War is expensive and the longer it goes on for the more expensive it becomes, in support as well as the cost of arms, soldiers, etc.

        Nobody has to trust Putin. An agreement would be maintained because material factors require it to be maintained. What westerners think it’s by-the-by. (I’m assuming you’re not Russian as you were asking about Russian sources—I’m not asking you to confirm or deny as I don’t want you to dox yourself; I’m just trying to give an answer that makes sense from the available evidence.)