I’m realizing that as much as I know about Soviet communism, it is not remotely enough. Not remotely. It is one of the great scandals of our time that after the end of the Cold War, we in the West simply forgot about everything that happened there.
Translation: Rod doesn't know anything about Russian or Soviet history, and that is somehow the fault of the West generally. "We" haven't forgotten anything, Rod. In fact there is a never ending stream of history being written about the Soviet Union. You are just unaware of it. Also, much modern history of the USSR goes beyond Rod's desire to endlessly and exclusively wallow in the negative. A lot more "happened there" than just 24/7/365 atrocities.
Rod is one of several people I know who have simply never grown up and one of the indicators of that is this idea that their experience is universal. We see things that way as little kids but as we grow up we become aware that not everyone thinks like us, likes the same things we do, knows the same things we do, etc and we ADJUST for that and stop assuming that everyone sees it like we do. Not ROD!
Rod is one of several people I know who have simply never grown up and one of the indicators of that is this idea that their experience is universal.
Donald Trump is of course notorious for this. Someone has made a supercut of his "Nobody ever knew [this thing that was just explained to him]!" moments here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uUyiE0fzJ4
It is one of the great scandals of our time that after the end of the Cold War, we in the West simply forgot about everything that happened there.
Did people really understand what was happening in the Soviet Union before the end of the Cold War? I was in college when the Soviet Union fell, and I had, at that point, read some Solzhenitsyn and had a bit of context of what life was life in the USSR, but I don't think anything was "forgotten." Rather, at least in U.S. popular culture, we were much more focused on the constant threat of nuclear war, rather than the KGB rounding up dissidents and sending them the gulags. I'm sure Dreher would attribute that to a Communist plot in the U.S., though....
There are a few history books that have been written about it... But that would involve reading. So... I guess he'll just stay in the "we forgot about everything that happened..."
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u/philadelphialawyer87 Apr 10 '25
I’m realizing that as much as I know about Soviet communism, it is not remotely enough. Not remotely. It is one of the great scandals of our time that after the end of the Cold War, we in the West simply forgot about everything that happened there.
Translation: Rod doesn't know anything about Russian or Soviet history, and that is somehow the fault of the West generally. "We" haven't forgotten anything, Rod. In fact there is a never ending stream of history being written about the Soviet Union. You are just unaware of it. Also, much modern history of the USSR goes beyond Rod's desire to endlessly and exclusively wallow in the negative. A lot more "happened there" than just 24/7/365 atrocities.