Russian President Vladimir Putin issued some typically frank and devastating comments on woke culture afflicting the West and particularly the United States, in particular going after new emerging ‘norms’ on gender discussions, race relations, as well as ‘cancel culture’.
His wide-ranging assessment was given during the annual Valdai Discussion Club event held in the Black Sea city of Sochi on Thursday, during Q&A interactions with the audience. As we previously described, some of his harshest words were in condemnation of NATO’s attempts to expand its military infrastructure and presence in Ukraine, which he said is “already underway” and poses a “real threat” – but later he additionally called out the cultural threat to traditional Russian values posed by the modern West.
Some his most interesting commentary in this area focused on transgenderism and so-called gender fluidity pushed by the Left, and accompanying cancelation of any public figure who dares speak against it… “Those who risk saying that men and women still exist, and that this is a biological fact, are virtually ostracized” in the US and West in general, Putin said. He likened what’s going on to “a total phantasmagoria” – or dreamlike fantasy – according to a translation of his words featured in Russian media.
Outside the US Embassy in Moscow, Getty Images
Putin perhaps had the ongoing Dave Chappelle/Netflix controversy in mind, given the comedian’s widely watched latest act focused on dismantling transgenderism and advocates’ attempts to shut him down.
The Russian leader further called the inability of otherwise rational people to recognize simple biological fact of two genders, male and female, and to go so far as push this viewpoint on children a “monstrous” subversion of timeless self-evident truth:
“This is not to mention things that are simply monstrous,” he added, “like when children are taught from an early age that a boy can easily become a girl and vice versa. In fact, they are indoctrinating them into the alleged choices that are supposedly available to everyone – removing parents from the equation and forcing the child to make decisions that can ruin their lives.”
This is borderline crime against humanity – all under the guise of ‘progress’
He likened it to the “newspeak” of “Soviet culture warriors” in the early 20th century who wanted to propagandize the masses.
Relatedly Putin took on ‘cancel culture’ – also likening it ironically enough to what existed under Soviet times. The historical reference the Russian president made is interesting especially given it’s Washington leaders and pundits that tend to describe him as wanting to somehow resurrect expansionist Soviet Russia. Putin told the Valdai audience the following:
“The fight against racism is a necessary and noble cause, but in the modern ‘cancel culture’, it turns into reverse discrimination, reverse racism,” Putin said. “We see with bemusement the process unfolding in countries that have grown accustomed to viewing themselves as flagships of progress.”
It is with puzzlement that in the West today we see practices that Russia has left in the distant past.
That’s when he offered a contrary viewpoint, defining what it means to preserve culture in Russia over and against the ‘pseudo-progressivism’ of the West: “Conservatism is not something that prevents you from going up and forward, but something that prevents you from going back and down into chaos.”
In other news Putin names Dave Chappelle entertainment minister. https://t.co/BbaIRPjplJ
— Jafpro (@Jafpro_16) October 22, 2021
Meanwhile the West has long accused Moscow of cracking down on “LGBTQ+ rights” – especially after the banning of gay parades in city streets of the past years, also following a series of Russian constitutional amendments passed this year in April which outlawed same-sex marriage and makes it illegal to allow self-identifying trans people to adopt. The Kremlin has justified its general ban on certain public displays as toward preventing the propagandizing of youth on sexual and gender matters.
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has also recently come under fire for promoting laws geared toward protecting children. Russia, Hungary, Poland and some other east European and Balkan countries have of late further accused West-backed NGOs of seeking to subvert traditional morality in their countries.
Cancel culture results in reverse discrimination – Putin pic.twitter.com/H4BgRl9v9k
— RT (@RT_com) October 21, 2021
Within the past year, US embassies and consulates across the globe and especially in Russia have begun more frequently flying the rainbow ‘pride’ flag under the Biden administration, especially in the month June.