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The New Perestroika

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Clarissa

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The taping went very well. I mentioned neoliberalism at least 63 times which means great success to me. Somebody smart in the comments said that what the US is experiencing has a very perestroika-era vibe. And yes, that’s true. I remember back in Kharkiv in an open-air market I once bought a copy of Nabokov’s Lolita, a beautiful new edition. I walked down the street, pressing it to my chest, incredulous that you could actually buy a book like that. It’s the same feeling as walking today with my new copy of Curtis Yarvin’s Unqualified Reservations that came out as a book this year.

The feeling of freedom, new possibilities is very similar.

7 responses to “The New Perestroika”

  1. Avi Avatar
    Avi

    How did you manage to get a copy? It can’t be had, not for love nor money. Not even on Abebooks! You lucky dog!!!

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Yarvin’s books? I get them on the Passage Publishing website. I think I already bought their entire catalogue.

      Or was the question not for me? I can’t see anything on this app.

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  2. Avi Avatar
    Avi

    I couldn’t find this one, but thanks for the tip. I’ll try the publishers direct, then.

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  3. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “US is experiencing has a very perestroika-era vibe”

    We did perestroika fail from your viewpoint? I’d always assumed it was too little too late (and resistence from the PTB) but a lot of what you’ve written about the USSR (and specifically russians) makes me think there were altogether deeper reasons…

    Also (related question) how did the russians even survive the USSR? Polish people were hustling their butts off and bending rulesand running side hustles right and left to get by (or even do a bit better than just get by at times) and you mentioned your father was similar… but it seems that russians were eerily passive about the soviet system and weren’t into things like side hustles (since they seem a lot more obedient by inclination than Poles or Ukrainians)….. am I missing something?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      In Russia, there’s either a very authoritarian state or complete anarchy. They keep moving between these two extremes. That’s why they are so attached to Putin. It’s either him or dudes with bazookas running around in the streets.

      Perestroika meant a weakening of the state. The moment it wasn’t totalitarian and imposing iron-clad control, there was nothing to keep Russians from sliding into the bandit wars. I honestly don’t know what the solution even is. They need an absolutist monarch who likes to take baths in human blood. If they can’t get that, they go off the rocker and start shooting each other.

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  4. Ed Frey Avatar
    Ed Frey

    I just happen to be reading Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century  that I downloaded as a PDF from the blog site Unqualified Reservations. There is a lot of it that Nick Land had quoted in his book The Dark Enlightenment.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I SO wish I had discovered the blog back in its heyday of 2007-9. So much unnecessary confusion, pain and deep, deep embarrassment would have been spared me. A decade of being a dumbass leftie. Unbelievable.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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