By and large, nationalists are bound to be disunited when it comes to practical matters, because each one only truly cares about their interests (it’s right there in the name, “national interests” is what nationalist parties call their own interests).

They do seem united when it comes to promoting their “principles”, but that’s because the same propaganda slogans (“us good, them bad”, “less taxes”, etc.) work everywhere and so all nationalists sing the same song.

The only long-lasting relationship between nationalists is where one side is a subject of another, and even those are only stable as long as the power balance doesn’t change.

I read a ton of memes on tiktok - does that count?

Here too (Italy) the education system makes a pretty terrible job at teaching the joys of reading (or those of music, maths, and… pretty much anything to be honest).

Maybe that’s why people love soccer so much… because they have not been properly taught to like other things?

I’ve been told by people who live in the US (California, IDK if it’s the same elsewhere) that kids have reading periods at school where the class is silent and each kid sits by their own and reads whatever book they please.

It made me chuckle at first, but then I started wondering if that could work better than assigning books to read at home and report on like they do here.

That’s very romantic.

When you say reading "reading “sorta activates all parts of your brain” do you mean in the objective MRI sense or a personal romantic/mystical one?

When you say reading is more valuable than sudoku or crossword (I assume, for senile dementia?), do you say that based on your impression or on clinical data?

Where does the line lay, between withdrawing support and enacting sanctions?

IDK why reading books is considered such a worthy activity per se, and nobody ever analyses what people read.

If we are going to be honest, most books are mere entertainment and there are also a lot of titles that actually make the reader a worse human being (I am thinking of books about conspiracies, neo-far-right manifestos, and similar waste of paper).

Putin does want peace. He wants his peace though, which is unacceptable for Ukraine and (I hope!) most people in the EU.

Depicting the issue of how this conflict should be resolved as a binary “peace” vs “war” choice (as some do both among those who support Ukraine and those who’d like to seem them capitulate) is of no use.