When professor Emanuel Todd predicted the fall of communism (1989) 13 years before this happened, he was the "Chosen One" of the Western media. Today he talks about the defeat of the West and the victory of Russia, in general and not only in Ukraine, and is characterized as a Putinophile.
Todd admits that the war in Ukraine is not over, but that "the West has emerged from the illusion of a possible Ukrainian victory." He further explains:
"It was not yet clear to everyone when I wrote, but today, after the failure of the counterattack this summer and the inability of the United States and other NATO countries to provide enough weapons to Ukraine, the Pentagon would agree with me."
As he notes, his observation stems from three factors.
Three factors that "point" to the defeat of the West, according to Todd
"My observation of the defeat of the West is based on three factors.
First, American industrial backwardness by exposing the fictitious nature of American GDP. in my book, I reduce this GDP and show the root causes of industrial decline: lagging in engineer training and a general decline in educational achievement since 1965. in the US“ " Todd said before adding:
"The deeper it goes, the disappearance of American Protestantism is another factor in the decline of the West.
My book is basically a sequel to Max Weber's book Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism. He thought, on the eve of the war of 1914, that the rise of the West was at the very heart of the Protestant world — England, the United States, Germany united by Prussia, Scandinavia. France was fortunate to be geographically stuck in the first group. Protestantism created a high level of Education, unprecedented in human history, abolishing illiteracy, because it required that every believer could read the Scriptures himself. In addition, the fear of condemnation and the need to feel chosen by God have produced a work ethic, a strong individual and collective ethic. With, negative, some of the worst racisms that existed – against blacks in the U.S. or against Jews in Germany – because Protestantism, with its elect and its curses, renounced universal equality of people. Educational Progress and work ethics have produced significant economic and industrial progress.“
"Today, symmetrically, the recent collapse of Protestantism has triggered a spiritual decline, the disappearance of the work ethic and mass greed (official name: neoliberalism): the rise is turning into the fall of the West. This analysis of the religious element in me does not suggest any nostalgia or moralistic misery: it is a historical observation. In addition, the racism associated with Protestantism disappeared and the United States had its first black President, Obama. We can't help but welcome it,“ Todd says.
Todd is also the third factor.
"The third factor in the defeat of the West is that the rest of the world has sided with Russia. She discovered discreet financial allies everywhere.
A new mildly conservative (anti-LGBT) Russian Soft Power took action as it became clear that Russia was dealing with an economic shock. Our cultural modernity actually seems pretty crazy to the outside world, an observation made by an anthropologist, not a retro moralist. Moreover, as we live off the underpaid labor of former third world men, women and children, our ethics are unreliable.
In this latest book, I want to avoid the emotionality and enduring moral judgment that surrounds us and offer an unbiased analysis of the geopolitical situation. Attention, access to the intellectual: in my book I am interested in the deeper and long-term causes of the Ukrainian War, I mourn the disappearance of my spiritual father in the history of Emmanuel Le Roy Arthur and confess everything: I am not an agent of the Kremlin, I am the last representative of the French School of history Annales!", says Todd.
Did Russia really win?
Todd predicts that " Americans will really seek the status quo that would allow them to hide their defeat. The Russians will not accept it. They are aware not only of their industrial and military superiority today, but also of their future demographic weakness.“
The French thinker emphasizes that "Putin definitely wants to achieve his war goals by saving people and not wasting time. He wants to preserve the achievements of the stabilization of Russian society. He does not want to remilitarize Russia and wants to continue its economic development.
But he also knows that demographic gaps are coming and that employment will be more difficult in a few years (three, four, five?). Therefore, the Russians must now defeat Ukraine and NATO, without giving them respite. Let's not have illusions. Russian efforts will intensify."
He also notes that "the West's refusal to reflect on Russian strategy in its logic, with its reasons, its powers, its borders, leads to general blindness. Words float in the fog."
"At the military level , "he continues," the worst is yet to come for Ukrainians and the West. Russia undoubtedly wants to regain 40% of Ukrainian territory and the neutral status of Kiev. And on our television, as Putin confirms that Odessa is a Russian city, we continue to say that the front is stabilizing.“
Russia is an authoritarian democracy.
The French thinker admits that "Russia is certainly an authoritarian democracy (which does not protect its minorities) with a conservative ideology, but its society is moving, it is becoming very technological with more and more elements that work perfectly".
"Describing this reality defines me as a serious historian, not a Putinophile. Every responsible Putinophobe should have weighed his opponent. I also constantly emphasize that Russia, just like this West that he thought was decadent, has a demographic problem. Russia's anti-LGBT legislation, while it probably charms the rest of the world, does not lead to Russians having more children than us. Russia is not immune to the global crisis of modernity. There is no Russian antimodel,“ Todd said.
"However, it is possible that the general hostility of the West is structuring and arming the Russian system, causing mass patriotism.
The sanctions have allowed the Russian regime to launch a policy of protectionist substitution on a massive scale, which it could never impose on the Russians, and which will give their economy a significant advantage over the EU economy. The war has strengthened their social stability, but they too have an individualistic crisis, with the remnants of the "patriarchal" family structure only calming down. Individualism completely mutated into narcissism develops only in nuclear-family countries, especially in the Anglo-American world. Let's get into neologism: Russia is a society of controlled individualism, like Japan or Germany. “
"My book presents an account of Russian stability, then, moving to the West, analyzes the riddle of the disintegrating Ukrainian society that found meaning for its life in the war, then moves on to the paradoxical nature of the new Russophobia of the former People's democracies, then in the crisis of the EU and finally in the crisis of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries. This March to the West takes us step by step into the heart of world instability. It's immersion in a black hole. Anglo-American Protestantism reached the zero phase of religion, beyond the zombie phase, and created this black hole. In the United States, at the beginning of the third millennium, the fear of emptiness mutates into the deification of nothingness, into nihilism,“ Todd said.
When asked if he was talking about authoritarian democracy "flattering" Russia, Todd commented:
"We must move away from the opposition of liberal democracy against Mad autocracy. The first are the more liberal oligarchies, with elites cut off from the population – no one outside the media cares about the transformation of power. For the other side, we should also use another concept to replace the concept of authoritarianism or neo-Stalinism.
In Russia, the majority of the population supports the regime, but minorities – whether gay, ethnic or oligarchs – are not protected: it is an authoritarian democracy, fed by the remnants of the Russian communal temperament created by communism. The term "authoritarian "has the same weight to me as the term"democracy".
Emmanuel Todd is a French historian, anthropologist, demographer, sociologist and political scientist at the National Institute for Demographic Studies in Paris.
Source: In the words of French philosopher Emmanuel Todt,"Russia wins, the West loses the war."
Photo by James Bond (thearticle.com)
4. January 2024.
