About extremes

The other day, Zelensky proposed sending all Russians back to Russia. The proposal is, of course, bad both from an ethical and practical point of view. On the one hand, this contradicts those European values that Ukraine wants to join and that do not accept the principle of collective guilt. On the other hand, this looks like a proposal to increase the enemy's manpower in a conflict. However, Zelensky's emotions are understandable. He spoke in March. that Russians should flee the country in order not to support the dictatorship with the ruble. But months have passed since then, a series of high-profile events have happened, for the mere mention of which in Russia they put people in jail for 100,500 years. In general, some disappointment of the Ukrainian president by the Russian people is to be expected. Very high demands are being made on Ukraine now. Ukrainians must defeat the "second army of the world" in the field, but they must do this in white gloves (hello Amnesty International), while not deviating from European values. The requirements are contradictory: if you fight, you will inevitably plunge into the abyss of tribal emotions, into the worldview of the "friend or foe" format. So war inevitably leaves scars on society. I hope that the Ukrainians will have the strength to resist this process, but this is still a Ukrainian problem, not ours.

What are our problems? These are the problems of Russian society and its future. And lately there has been too much talk that everyone offended the Russians. the tyrant Putin offended the Russians, the West offended the Russians by buying gas from the tyrant, the West once again offended the Russians by imposing indiscriminate sanctions, the evil Ukrainians offended the Russians who do not want to distinguish halftones while bombs and missiles are flying at them. At the same time, Western leaders have repeatedly stated that there will be no collective guilt for all Russians. But for those who want to comb their grievances, it turns out to be easy to engage in cherry picking, collecting statements from Ukrainians, as well as populists from other countries historically traumatized by Russia (the Baltic countries, Finland, Poland). It is significant that even those news that are ultimately refuted - for example, about the ban on Russians to take the TOEFL - manage to go through three circles in social networks, giving rise to many offended reactions. There are separate stupid statements, there are separate harmful sanctions. But in general, there is no "persecution of Russians" in the West.

However, it is clear where the resentment grows. For half a year now, a fucked up thing has been going on, with which we can do nothing. It is unpleasant to experience your total powerlessness. But to feel like a victim, deceived by everyone is much more pleasant. This, as it were, relieves us of responsibility and raises our moral status. However, the question is: how will this combing of grievances for the whole world affect us? Here I see only a touch on the future resentment and another theory of "knife in the back" - only in this case they stuck a knife in the back of already "anti-war Russians". The problem is that if we want to build a "beautiful Russia of the future" in the future, then resentment for this is a very poor foundation. Today, ressentiment conserves our acquired helplessness (“everyone betrayed us, we are powerless”), and in the future it will still produce a fruitless desire to avenge the past grievances.

Thus, talk about the collective guilt of the Russians is one harmful extreme. Talk about the fact that Russians are now offended and betrayed by everyone is another harmful extreme. Both of these extremes should be avoided whenever possible. Mihail Pojarsky 10/08/2022