Ukrainians don’t need to join Western culture, they are Western culture. They watched American action movies in 80s and their kids watched Disney and Warner Brothers in 90s and read Harry Potter in 2000s and was on Tumblr in 10s. And I do not even mention that Imperial Russian/Soviet cultures were bona fide Western cultures, and national Ukrainian culture is no less Western than Poland or Czech culture.
national Ukrainian culture is no less Western than Poland or Czech culture.
I agree. That was kinda my point.
Imagine a parallel universe where the Soviet empire didn’t fall apart. In that universe, some clever contrarian could also use me as an example of a “psychologically alien person who doesn’t share Western values”. The clever contrarian could use the concept of “revealed preferences” to argue that I live in a communist regime, therefore by definition I must prefer to live in the communist regime (neglecting to mention that my actual choices are either to live in the communist regime, or to commit suicide by secret service). -- From my perspective, this would be obvious nonsense, and that is why I treat such statements with skepticism also when they are made about others.
Ukrainians don’t need to join Western culture, they are Western culture. They watched American action movies in 80s and their kids watched Disney and Warner Brothers in 90s and read Harry Potter in 2000s and was on Tumblr in 10s. And I do not even mention that Imperial Russian/Soviet cultures were bona fide Western cultures, and national Ukrainian culture is no less Western than Poland or Czech culture.
I agree. That was kinda my point.
Imagine a parallel universe where the Soviet empire didn’t fall apart. In that universe, some clever contrarian could also use me as an example of a “psychologically alien person who doesn’t share Western values”. The clever contrarian could use the concept of “revealed preferences” to argue that I live in a communist regime, therefore by definition I must prefer to live in the communist regime (neglecting to mention that my actual choices are either to live in the communist regime, or to commit suicide by secret service). -- From my perspective, this would be obvious nonsense, and that is why I treat such statements with skepticism also when they are made about others.