The Culture of Cynicism

Finally, a Westerner who understands Russia’s greatest problem:

If you watch the whole thing, you get a little taste for how efforts by the West to reform Russia failed. The cynicism is too deep. The ancient culture of Tsarism and serfdom is too strong. Russians are probably the most cynical people on the planet. The idealists leave or are… https://t.co/kcdAOTVKN8
— Robert Kelner (@robkelner) February 22, 2026

It’s absolutely the cynicism and the aggressive mockery of any principle other than blatant and rabid self-interest that are so scary. This is what creates the pathology of the ongoing war. These are people reduced to their natural state, having peeled off the civilizational veneer of religion and morality.

3 thoughts on “The Culture of Cynicism”

One interesting side effect of this is that those ex-Soviet people who are vehemently anti-Soviet often are anti-Soviet from a very caricature-libertarian position.

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mitchellporter says:

February 23, 2026 at 10:38

Can you expand on how this is a side effect? I don’t understand the connection

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1. cliff arroyo says:
  
  February 23, 2026 at 10:56
  
  “I don’t understand the connection”
  
  Let’s just say that Ayn Rand was not an abberation, her thinking is…. very much aligned with a certain strain of russian thought that seems to be older than her and bubbles up at different times and places.
  
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