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[martinuzz]

Trevor Reed, the American marine veteran that was released in a prisoner exchange with Russia last year (he was exchanged for a Russian jet pilot that was convicted for cocaine smuggling), stepped on a landmine in Ukraine and is being treated in a German hospital.
According to the US government, they did not send him to Ukraine, he went there by himself.

The actual incident happened a few weeks ago, but was just released to the press.

[EuchreJack]

Trevor Reed, the American marine veteran that was released in a prisoner exchange with Russia last year (he was exchanged for a Russian jet pilot that was convicted for cocaine smuggling), stepped on a landmine in Ukraine and is being treated in a German hospital.
According to the US government, they did not send him to Ukraine, he went there by himself.

The actual incident happened a few weeks ago, but was just released to the press.

They probably wanted to make sure he was going to live before they said anything.

[KittyTac]

I hate Dostoevsky so much.

If I was president, I would order my goons to forge some "recently unearthed 19th-century letters" from him, where he admits to being a pedophile with multiple offenses. This "discovery" would then be publicized on live national TV.

I would then make a "shocked" statement about the "unexpectedness" of this, and use the incident as a pretense to ban all his books and confiscate them from all libraries, remove all mention of him from school and college curricula, take down websites dedicated to him and destroy any memorabilia related to him currently residing in museums.

Fuck that cunt. He helped fuck Russia up. He is at fault for what this dogshit country is doing now. Brothers Karamazov is Putin's favorite book for a reason, it's basically his ideology 1 for 1. I would be thorough and put as much effort into the forgery as possible. I would make sure he is remembered hundreds of years in the future as "that Russian writer who was a pedo". I'm not doing this out of spite. I'm doing this because I see how harmful writers like him are to society even after their death. I want things to get better, and sometimes to do that, you know, you need cloak-and-dagger stuff.

[Cathar]

I hate Dostoevsky so much.

You have no idea how much I agree with you. Brother Karamazov made me want to puke until I decided to drop the book. It is a heap of garbage that presents a crew of evil, morally repugnant characters and then you feel the spirit of the author breathing down your neck "aren't we all like that deep down ?".

Hell no. Normal people don't want to kill their father to bang a whore. Becoming a slave is not the pinacle of spiritual enlightenment. Not believing is magic is not a source of morale confusion. There's something deeply wrong with Dostoeivsky and I'm happy I'm not the only one to point it out.

It's even worse when you consider that his "Karamazov brothers" are an essay on the "russian soul".

[KittyTac]

I hate Dostoevsky so much.

You have no idea how much I agree with you. Brother Karamazov made me want to puke until I decided to drop the book. It is a heap of garbage that presents a crew of evil, morally repugnant characters and then you feel the spirit of the author breathing down your neck "aren't we all like that deep down ?".

Hell no. Normal people don't want to kill their father to bang a whore. Becoming a slave is not the pinacle of spiritual enlightenment. Not believing is magic is not a source of morale confusion. There's something deeply wrong with Dostoeivsky and I'm happy I'm not the only one to point it out.

It's even worse when you consider that his "Karamazov brothers" are an essay on the "russian soul".

The messaging in his books is absolutely gross and I say this as an (extremely tenuous, but still) christian. I was mostly focusing on what his effects on Russian society were, but yeah the books themselves are terrible too. War and Peace is boring as shit but every single one of Dostoevsky's books is three times worse. I walked back on hating all classic Russian authors, Tolstoy was an alright person, but the books are overhyped trash. After Pushkin it was only downhill until Bakunin finally wrote ones that aren't monumental obelisks to boredom.

[Cathar]

My point on Dostoievsky's religion is not "religion is bad" but the cartoonesque dishonesty in which he presents atheism. "If god doesn't exist is everything permitted ?" is not a question an atheist asks to himself, pretty much never. We know that we are ruled by secular laws and most of us never even associated god and morality in the first place.
You'd think a world renowed author would have some intellectual honesty in his writing, but in the end, Dostoievsky is 19th century russia's ben shapiro.

It's okay to be christian. Victor Hugo is my boy, his christianism is not obnoxious and pushes his characters to become better persons. Dostoeivsky's christianism makes them slaves and murderers

I do recommend Gorki if you havnt read him though. One of my favourite authors.

[KittyTac]

I do recommend Gorki if you havnt read him though. One of my favourite authors.

I just, don't really read my country's classic stuff anymore. Can't see myself spending time on it when I am chewing through other countries and other genres I like more.

[WealthyRadish]

Brothers Karamazov is Putin's favorite book for a reason, it's basically his ideology 1 for 1.

In concrete terms I can sort of see a connection between "western satanism" and Ivan's Inquisitor poem, but that's about it.

I consider Dostoevsky's spiritualism to be completely invalidated by history and reality, but it isn't the current Russian government's cynical use of religion as political pretext that invalidates it. (Tangentially I think the ideological significance of his work is rescued from irrelevance somewhat by his interesting perspective as a former radical rather than a simple reactionary, even if the ideological content itself is pretty worthless.)

The connection between Dostoevsky's rejection of foreign influence and the modern regime is stronger, but again, it's just the government cynically finding something external to justify their position after the decision has already been made (one particular clique of oligarchs/bureaucrats or another didn't decide that Russia needs to be opposed to American hegemony based on anything Dostoevsky wrote).

[KittyTac]

Here's the thing: not-really-coherent reactionary rhetoric is his ideology. And the book is propaganda for it.

[WealthyRadish]

Here's the thing: not-really-coherent reactionary rhetoric is his ideology. And the book is propaganda for it.

I agree on both counts (regardless of which "he" we're talking about), and that does reflect badly on the work itself. I think Dostoevsky sincerely believed in what he outlined in his books, but what he outlined happened to reduce to incoherent reactionary rhetoric that contemporary and future oligarchs would find politically useful to distract from their ongoing crimes.

My main point of disagreement is that Putin himself, his lifestyle, his actions, and the grab-bag of other rhetoric he employs are definitely not compatible in substance with the monastic mysticism Dostoevsky always seemed to be pushing (or at least Dostoevsky himself likely wouldn't think they are compatible if he saw what's happened, even if in practice this ideology just ends up being another misdirection useful to the wealthy and powerful).

Calling it a "one-to-one" ideological mapping thus seems wrong to me in this sense. There's just no way the Yeltsin clique read Dostoevsky and thought "yes, finally, this is the ideological blueprint for our future Russian kleptocracy". It was just pulled out of a cupboard after the fact when it was found useful.

[KittyTac]

Yeah the oligarchs do not honestly believe it, but they sure use that exact rhetoric, and the Zombies in the lower rungs of the social ladder who are still well-read enough earnestly buy into it. And that is Dostoevsky's crime in my eyes.

[Strongpoint]

Today a Ukrainian fencer was disqualified from the world championship after not shaking hands with a Russian she defeated.

It is a very minor event but I can't express how disgusted I feel.

[hector13]

That’s a rule of the International Fencing Federation, the participants need to shake hands or the bout doesn’t finish, and a black card is given resulting in the DQ.

The Russian staying on the strip for an hour attempting to get the result reversed was quite the dick move though.

[Maximum Spin]

That’s a rule of the International Fencing Federation, the participants need to shake hands or the bout doesn’t finish, and a black card is given resulting in the DQ.

The Russian staying on the strip for an hour attempting to get the result reversed was quite the dick move though.

The rules also clearly state that, in the event a player is disqualified for breaking the rules, the rule-abiding opponent will be advanced, so it's not unreasonable. I think they just didn't really have a plan for what would happen if someone is disqualified after winning.

[hector13]

I think it’s more they don’t know what to do in situations like this. Ukrainian athletes have been refusing to shake hands with opponents from Belarus and Russia for a long time, when they’ve been allowed to compete against them at all, and in this instance the Ukrainian fencer announced weeks prior they wouldn’t shake hands with them either.

It didn’t come out of the blue, so organizers could and should have considered doing something about it long before the bout happened.

Edit: BBC article on the matter. The Russian opponent, at least according to an adviser to Zelensky, was pictured with a Russian soldier.

Another Ukrainian in the tournament evidently refused to fight his Russian opponent by not showing up for the start of the bout.