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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
@kamilkazani
Feb 20, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
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We, the People

During the Ottoman coup of 1913 Enver Bey demanded the Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) Kamil Pasha to write a letter of resignation

- At the suggestion of the military… - Kamil Pasha started
- … and the people, - corrected Enver
- … and the people, - added Kamil Image
“The People” = an abstraction legitimizing the will of an interest group. Enver just can’t walk around giving orders by the name of sweet himself. No, he will be giving orders by someone else’s name

“The People” will suffice Image
Someone else could be speaking on behalf of God...
... Or a dead ancestor (a more Lindy choice, I think). Consider Kadyrov. The current ruler of Chechnya Ramzan is building a massive cult of personality of his father Ahmad, rather than of himself. The posters with Ahmad are everywhere. Everything is named in honour of Ahmad Image
Speaking on your own behalf = weak
Speaking on a dead ancestor's behalf = powerful

The ancestor is dead, won't say or do anything, so he is nothing more than an abstraction legitimising whatever you do

Build an ancestral cult -> Then borrow a symbolic power from it

Very smart Image
Legitimising your rule through the appeal to something larger than yourself is a necessity. Unless you wanna be hated

As Guizot pointed out, the despotic monarchies or theocracies were often popular among their subjects. Whereas the feudal despotism was always universally hated Image
A man exercising power by the name of idea (monarchy/theocracy) can be often acceptable or popular

A man exercising power by the name of himself (feudal) is always hated

Therefore, a rational ruler will find/create an abstraction to speak on its behalf

gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt… Image
I quoted the Enver Bey vs Kamil Pasha dialogue by memory, but it is basically from this book, which I absolutely recommend. Enjoyed it very much Image

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More from @kamilkazani

Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 14
On Trump's birthday

Let's have a look at these four guys. Everything about them seems to be different. Religion. Ideology. Political regime. And yet, there is a common denominator uniting all:

Xi - 71 years old
Putin - 72 years old
Trump - 79 years old
Khamenei - 86 years old Image
Irrespectively of their political, ideological, religious and whatever differences, Russia, China, the United States, Iran are all governed by the old. Whatever regime, whatever government they have, it is the septuagenarians and octogenarians who have the final saying in it.
This fact is more consequential than it seems. To explain why, let me introduce the following idea:

Every society is a multiracial society, for every generation is a new race

Although we tend to imagine them as cohesive, all these countries are multigenerational -> multiracial
Read 7 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 7
In 1927, when Trotsky was being expelled from the Boslhevik Party, the atmosphere was very and very heated. One cavalry commander met Stalin at the stairs and threatened to cut off his ears. He even pretended he is unsheathing he sabre to proceed

Stalin shut up and said nothing
Like obviously, everyone around could see Stalin is super angry. But he still said nothing and did nothing

Which brings us to an important point:

Nobody becomes powerful accidentally
If Joseph Stalin seized the absolute control over the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union, the most plausible explanation is that Joseph Stalin is exercising some extremely rare virtues, that almost nobody on the planet Earth is capable of

Highly virtuous man, almost to the impossible level
Read 7 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 1
Growing up in Russia in the 1990s, I used to put America on a pedestal. It was not so much a conscious decision, as the admission of an objective fact of reality. It was the country of future, the country thinking about the future, and marching into the future. Image
And nothing reflected this better than the seething hatred it got from Russia, a country stuck in the past, whose imagination was fully preoccupied with the injuries of yesterday, and the phantasies of terrible revenge, usually in the form of nuclear strike. Image
Which, of course, projected weakness rather than strength

We will make a huuuuuuge bomb, and drop it onto your heads, and turn you into the radioactive dust, and you will die in agony, and we will be laughing and clapping our hands

An old man yelling at clouds Image
Read 9 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
May 2
Fake jobs are completely normal & totally natural. The reason is: nobody understands what is happening and most certainly does not understand why. Like people, including the upper management have some idea of what is happening in an organisation, and this idea is usually wrong.
As they do not know and cannot know causal relations between the input and output, they just try to increase some sort of input, in a hope for a better output, but they do not really know which input to increase.
Insiders with deep & specific knowledge, on the other hand, may have a more clear & definite idea of what is happening, and even certain, non zero degree of understanding of causal links between the input and output

(what kind of input produces this kind of output)
Read 6 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Apr 12
There is a common argument that due process belongs only to citizens

Citizens deserve it, non citizens don’t

And, therefore, can be dealt with extrajudicially

That is a perfectly logical, internally consistent position

Now let’s think through its implications
IF citizens have the due process, and non-citizens don’t

THEN we have two parallel systems of justice

One slow, cumbersome, subject to open discussion and to appeal (due process)

Another swift, expedient, and subject neither to a discussion nor to an appeal (extrajudicial)
And the second one already encompasses tens of millions of non citizens living in the United States, legal and illegal, residents or not.

Now the question would be:

Which system is more convenient for those in power?

Well, the answer is obvious
Read 10 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Apr 5
I have recently read someone comparing Trump’s tariffs with collectivisation in the USSR. I think it is an interesting comparison. I don’t think it is exactly the same thing of course. But I indeed think that Stalin’s collectivisation offers an interesting metaphor, a perspective to think aboutImage
But let’s make a crash intro first

1. The thing you need to understand about the 1920s USSR is that it was an oligarchic regime. It was not strictly speaking, an autocracy. It was a power of few grandees, of the roughly equal rank.
2. Although Joseph Stalin established himself as the single most influential grandee by 1925, that did not make him a dictator. He was simply the most important guy out there. Otherwise, he was just one of a few. He was not yet the God Emperor he would become later.
Read 30 tweets

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