I have Ukrainian blood so I feel deeply what’s happening to my people even if I’ve never been to the homeland. I’ve always intended to go but never got around to it. I wish I had.
Just like the trucker convoy, flat earthers, COVID deniers, and anti-maskers, many of us are left scratching our heads with this war in Ukraine. We wonder why this is happening and what could have been done differently.
I personally believe this all comes down to education.
When I was young I didn’t appreciate school but that was largely because they didn’t try and teach me based on anything under that a standardized curriculum. When I entered post-secondary education, I thrived, and that was because I was able to learn what interested me.
High school though … what a nightmare, and I believe that is why all of this is happening.
As government officials kept hacking away at education budgets little-by-little every year, they opened the door for an anti-expert, anti-reason society … and here we are.
There are a lot of people that will believe anything they hear as long as it’s controversial, makes them feel like they have something over the rest of the population, and especially if it gives them permission to act like a selfish asshole.
And here is where we get to Vladimir Putin.
I believe that Mad Vlad sees the lack of education and preys on it. Hell, I believe he’s partially to blame for the quick decline of what I call the Cunty Twenty (the 20% of the population that have lost their damn minds). I know, it’s an ugly word but these are ugly times.
How Uneducation Relates to Russia
There are so many reasons why a lack of education relates to the Ukraine war but none is more prevalent in my mind than the rise of Hitler fans and Holocaust deniers.
The Cunty Twenty often believe COVID was fake, the earth is flat, and yes … that Hilter was either misunderstood or written evil without justification. If you go to any of those anti-reality rallies you’ll always find a few idiots carrying a Confederate flag with sympathy for Hitler.
They’ll tell you the Holocaust didn’t happen, that Hitler was trying to fight tyranny, and that the war in Ukraine is all NATO’s fault.
They say these things because it makes them feel smart despite it being so dumb. They also say these things because they’re willingly uneducated. Well, to be clear they’ll say they are educated but their education comes from the likes of Alex Jones, Chris Sky and Facebook statuses. That’s not an education, that’s cult mentality.
So, with all of this stupidity in the air, is it any wonder why Putin thought he could get away from invading Ukraine with the flimsy drug using Nazi excuse?
Prior to the last invasion in 2014, there was a sizeable far-right collective that pushed a Nazi style agenda, but they went back underground and under Zelensky they’ve all but gone away.
To say that this Jewish leader, whose grandfather fought Nazis is leading a Nazi nation is pure nonsense. But again, Putin thinks that because people are so stupid these days, that he could just lie and it would be enough.
The Flaws in Putin’s Plan
Luckily though, there are a few forces working against Putin. The first is that there are still more educated than non-educated people out there. Even the Russian people see through his lies. Hell, even his own soldiers reportedly see through all of this noise.
Putin also didn’t realize that the smart are also the strong in the Ukrainian people. They’re fighting back and with the help of Starlink, they’re sharing an educated viewpoint and now Putin is the one who looks stupid.
The other big flaw in Putin’s plan was that he was appealing to the lowest common denominator and when you do that, you end up with dumb brutes in positions they can’t handle. I think that’s why you see such failure in the Russian’s first week of war games.
The Problem with the Educated
The biggest problem with the educated is that we fail to act quite often. We rationalize what’s happening, overthink it and then we give the window for things to get worse.
And it’s about to get much, much worse.
That’s because while Putin has dumb brutes in charge that are making mistakes, they are very good at taking blanket style action when they need to.
Basically, they’re gonna shell the shit out of Ukraine at some point because strategy never works for these idiots, so they’ll just use raw force.
While the educated know that Putin is committing crimes against humanity, defying the Geneva convention, and in general, acting like a Bond villain, Putin and his men are planning to act instead of thinking.
The educated will try diplomacy right up until things get so bad they are shell shocked and forced to act. Basically, smart people know how stupid war is and that’s why it’s a last resort.
What we have here is another clear divide between the smart and rational, and the dumb af.
The dumb af allowed Putin to believe that the history books will be kind to his legacy eventually because why not? So many think Hitler is awesome! HITLER! If you’re a ruthless dictator, that’s a bat signal for your crazy.
And you know what? He might be right.
Ladies and gentleman, if this war and the last 2 years have taught us anything, it’s that we need to fully fund our education system, overhaul the curriculum, and get people thinking again.
