Whenever I see opinion poll maps on :reddit-logo: from Europe with questions like
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Would you be ok with your son/daughter dating a person of a different race?
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Would you be comfortable with your son/daughter dating a member of the same sex?
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My country has too many immigrants, yes or no?
There is always a very noticeable difference between Western and Eastern Europe, with the West (and Scandanavia) being WAY more progressive, and Eastern European / former Soviet states being exceedingly conservative, particularly countries like Czech.
Why is this?
Maybe I’m just naive but I would think that the legacy of the USSR would cause the exact opposite tendency.
I also have no real context as I have never stepped foot in The Old World.
what we consider the foundations of modern liberalism (multiculturalism acceptance of gender and sexual minorities), is seen in Eastern Europe (specifically Russia/former USSR) as a controversial “western import”. It’s like the culture war in America, there are two different general cultural factions: westernizers and slavophiles. The disastrous economic changes the “westernizer” liberals brought to some parts of eastern Europe really soured their reputation. The Soviet Union and nostalgia for it are firmly culturally linked to the slavophiles, which are also consistently socially conservative on other issues (they are strongly tied to the Orthodox Church). In other eastern European countries like Poland the Catholic Church is still very dominant politically.
So I guess the answer to your question is that a lot of eastern Europeans are homophobic and racist because they think these ideas are just more western attempts to destroy their culture. People who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union tend to be anti-western for obvious reasons, and unfortunately cultural conditioning pushes them towards these backwards views.
This is exactly the materialist analysis/explanation I was looking for, thank you comrade :fidel-salute:
I did some very cursory research, I couldn’t really find any satisfying answers, but I think the state sponsored homophobia is tied with nationalism. Conservative politicians use the EU’s support for LGBT rights as the boundary for the ‘decadent’ West vs the ‘traditional’ East
Interesting study
Nationalism and homophobia in Central and Eastern Europe
Abstract:
In terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights, few organizations have done as much to promote the legal equality of sexual minorities as the European Union (EU). Especially since the inclusion of sexual orientation in the equalities agenda through Article 19 of Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU; formerly Article 13 TEC), there has been increased pressure at the European level for existing members and accession states to promote the equal rights of their LGBT citizens (Slootmaeckers and Touquet 2016). Despite similar top-down pressure, however, the degree of legal equality for LGBT individuals—not to mention social attitudes towards homosexuality—differs markedly across the region, with the situation particularly difficult in the states of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that the failure of Europeanization—understood here as the adoption of EU laws and values—to liberalize attitudes towards sexual minorities in Central and Eastern Europe can be explained in large part with reference to the nation. In line with the conclusions of Freyburg and Richter (2010) and Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005) on the need to move beyond rationalist arguments and incorporate ideational factors to explain the relative success or failure of Europeanization, I argue that in many Central and East European member states and accession countries, homosexuality clashes with discourses of national identity, which have greater resonance among the population. This chapter will also demonstrate that EU support for LGBT equality can also have a negative impact on attitudes towards non-heteronormative individuals in states that are neither EU member states nor candidate countries, in that nationalist politicians use the EU’s more liberal position towards LGBT rights to draw a boundary between the ‘decadent West’ and ‘traditional East’ for their own social and political purposes. The analysis will focus in particular on the case studies of Latvia, Serbia and Russia to show that in each case, the marginalization of LGBT individuals is legitimized with calls to ‘the defence of the nation’.
western europeans can claim to be progressive in polls, but their true beliefs can still be very rightwing. It’s probably just superficial “politeness” norms, and eastern europeans are probably being more honest in this regard
E.g. libs claiming to be progressive but actually being yt chauvinists, having mask off moments etc
I mean, the far right is obviously gaining power very rapidly in the west
When everything collapses, many fell to religion and other such nonsense to give their life meaning. The further CIA and Private Corp involvement in privatization and co-option of the governments in the area caused them to become far more right wing.
I honestly think it has more to do with how polling is being conducted than any perceived progressiveness of Western Europeans relative to their eastern counterparts. There’s a very clear motive for these pollings to portray Westerners as civilized and progressive and their mongrel half-civilized half-Asiatic siblings as merely half-civilized, midway between the civilized European West and the barbaric Asiatic East.
