The Lull of Summer
A strangely calm Europe vacations in anticipation of a Winter of Discontent
The best advice that I have ever received regarding how to approach females as a man was from my Italian friend Stevie way back shortly after we graduated from high school. “Just ask them questions, bro. Repeatedly.”
Stevie is a short guy, yet he did incredibly well with girls in high school and with women well into his 30s when he finally settled down and got married. By bombarding them with questions, it suggests that you are actually interested in what they have to say, particularly about themselves. People love to talk about themselves due to the fact that man is inherently a narcissistic creature.
This narcissism is what leads many of us to offer up opinions even when not canvassed. Everyone wants to be viewed as smart. However, by allowing others to speak instead, one can sit back and note just how much information they will volunteer all on their own. This is a lesson that we all learn eventually, yet old habits (formed at a young age), die hard. It takes a strong effort for most of us, myself especially, to just shut up and let others do the talking and not try and show off in front of them. It’s a learned discipline.
Like most of you, I don’t believe in most polling. They are often ordered by design to manufacture results beforehand for the purpose of a business goal or political aim. I have long found it superior to let people tell you what they think in person and then try and deduce how sincere they are in their words based on the various factors at play (strength of relationship, toxicity of subject, etc.). This approach has its natural limits too, but it has led me to strengthen my distrust of polling and of media as well.
Here in sunny Dalmatia, the tourist season is firing on all cylinders. This is the first post-COVID one, and it’s going to be a record-breaker even without the Koreans, Chinese and Japanese who have yet to show up. Being on vacation in the Mediterranean, people will let their guard down and are more open to telling you what they think, even when unprompted to do so. This is the perfect environment for me to gauge the temperature of what Europeans are feeling this summer as war grinds on in Ukraine.
Sleepwalking Into War?
On the 100th anniversary of the First World War, Christopher Clark wrote “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914”, a book that has been incredibly well-received, and solidified the notion that the catastrophe had a slow, yet powerful, momentum all its own. When reading other accounts of that fateful summer, readers will come across repeated references as to how royals and government ministers across Europe were all vacationing, leaving the serious work on the desk waiting for their return.
Since then, the leisure activity of the “vacation” has been democratized. Mass tourism is now simply the norm, with only COVID-19 serving as a short interruption. Everyone has paid time off now, and everyone in Europe will hit the beach at some point this summer. Here at the moment, the roads are dominated by the Czechs, the Poles, the Germans, the Austrians, the Slovaks, and others. Next month is Ferragosto, which means that the Italians will flood in (with many already here). Almost all of Europe is represented here (with many North Americans and Australians as well), allowing the observer a nice cross-section from which to extract a possible bigger picture of the general attitudes across the continent.
Thus far, I have not detected any fear of a widening war on the European continent. Contrary to the hysteria emanating from certain segments of western media, people by and large view the conflict as highly localized. By dismissing the notion of an expanded conflict, the general sentiment therefore views Russia as a rational actor, and not at all “crazed”. Sensationalists will argue that this mood reminds one of Summer 1914 in that “they don’t know what’s coming”. From this vantage point, people aren’t buying what the media is selling in regards to that, including those supporting Ukraine. It’s just another case of Peter crying “wolf!” to them.
Geographical Variances
The Balts are few here, but those that managed to get here are rather militant, insistent on the need to “deal with Russia once and for all”. The Poles are much more numerous, and display the same attitude. As I’ve written before, these peoples are passing through an inevitable historical process of unwinding their few remaining threads to their former Russian occupiers centuries’ old neighbours.
Once you get beyond these countries, the attitudes shift. The Czechs have still not forgiven the Russians for removing them from the heart of Central Europe culturally and socially due to Soviet occupation, yet they show little willingness to sacrifice like the Poles and the Balts. To them, the war is far away and they hope the Ukes give the Russians a ‘deserved’ bloody nose.
The Magyars and the Slovaks that I’ve spoken to are much more neutral, with their worries and concerns entirely parochial and wholly economic.
As you make your way west from the former Iron Curtain, the volume of resentment gets noticeably louder. Majority sympathy still lies with Ukraine, whether for historical reasons or simply to cheer on the underdog, among these peoples, but there is a growing chorus of frustration with the Ukrainians’ undiplomatic outbursts towards the rest of Europe, particularly their demands that Europeans sacrifice their economies on Kiev’s behalf. In parallel with this is an anger being directed towards their own leaders for blindly rushing into sanctions regimes against Russia (that are now starting to pinch Europeans), and a dawning realization that the USA does not have Europe’s best interests at heart and is more than happy to see European economies set themselves alight.
The fear of a general conflagration is entirely absent minus Balts and Poles using “PUTIN CRAZY” as a rhetorical device. Yet at the same time, there is a feeling of helplessness as people are distanced from their political elites, with all major parties still united (at present) and still pursuing the same belligerent course. Fatigue has set in, and it sits atop the fatigue of the COVID-era. The European peoples did not want this conflict, even if some of their leaders did.
As tourists explore Diocletian’s Palace, swim in the Adriatic, enjoy a glass of wine on a hilltop overlooking the sea, they sense hardship coming later this year. For the moment, they want to enjoy their first real summer vacation in three years, knowing full well that their leaders have fucked them again.
This piece is just a collection of thoughts from the random sampling that I've been doing this past month and a half here in Dalmatia.
Leave a comment if the mood strikes you, and let's please avoid shitting on any nation/ethnic group, please and thank you.
I have been in transit since last week and will be all over the map for the next little bit, but will squeeze in posting when I get the chance to do so.
😂