Comment by przemub
19 hours ago
Soviet imagery in countries that have been conquered by or subject to Soviet imperialism is seen extremely poorly. USSR loved its ethnic cleansing and purges, with several declared as genocide. Try, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Lentil_(Caucasus) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD Soviet imagery has also been widely used by Russian propaganda in its current war against Ukraine, so it’s not only a historical matter.
Sure. But there are also a significant number of people who are nostalgic for it and might be offended by this use for that reason, hence why I asked.
Given the existence of both groups I think just the claim that it’s offensive, without explaining why, is ambiguous and just reacting defensively doesn’t address that.
Given all we know about the USSR, I don't think anyone needs to explain why. This plus your other comment suggest you're replying in bad faith.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
Nope. I just evidently know people with more varied opinions on the USSR than you do. (Including people who grew up there.)
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> Given the existence of both groups
This is a false equivalence between those who suffered from USSR and those who are ignorant of the suffering of others. I don't think we should care about feelings of a group who are for whatever reason nostalgic about a genocidal oppressive regime.
Would you treat an image of the US House of Representatives the same way? The United States has caused an enormous amount of suffering in the world and has in the past had an explicit policy of genocide and oppression against a number of groups (including my wife’s ancestors), as well as a number of other horrific policies. If you would not treat an image of the US House of Representatives the same way as you treat an image of the Supreme Soviet, it’s worthwhile to interrogate why.
Peoples’ feelings about the nations they are born into and told to love from birth are complex and multifaceted. The people I know who grew up in the USSR have both good and bad things to say about it, just like the people I know who grew up in the USA (like me) at the same time (the 1970s-1990s) have both good and bad things to say about it. And that isn’t just about our own experiences growing up in these respective nations, but about learning our birth nations’ true histories, and how closely (or not) the ideals espoused by their founders and politicians and important figures in their histories were reflected in their actions.
Thus I really, truly do believe it’s ambiguous for someone to say, without any further context, that they find an image of a legislature with some screen shots of an IDE placed into it offensive. Is it offensive because it’s referencing a body they consider evil or is it offensive because it’s trivializing a body they consider good? Without context it’s impossible to know, and acting like everyone shares the same context about this is just refusal to engage with the world as it is rather than the world as you’d like it to be.
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Some people use My Little Pony characters as avatars, some use history books characters and propaganda poster characters. It means nothing in itself, people rarely stick to what they preach.
If you think that dumb nostalgia about “good old times” and complete ignorance/acceptance of any murders if they are considered state-sanctioned is somehow different in your own country (any country at any time), you must come to conclusion that some people inherently have lesser “quality” than others based on papers that they are given at birth by this or that organisation calling itself a state. Problematic, as they say.
> Soviet imagery has also been widely used by Russian propaganda in its current war against Ukraine
That alone makes it very bad taste to use any of the Soviet imagery. I'm not sure why it's even a debatable topic at this point.
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