Hate is a bad thing, but pretending you love something you actually dislike is even worse. This post is an attempt to justify actual diversity and to accept it instead of trying to pretend you like everything and support every “current thing”.
The world is big and diverse. There are many nations in it that look and behave differently (ask yourself whether you are scared to utter the word “race” at this point). Do we have to like and appreciate all of them to not be called racists? Actually, no.
There are many people even within my own ethnic group who I find weird for many reasons and at various levels: habits, looks, food choices, lifestyle, sexual preferences, beliefs, etc. Obviously, I don’t seek their company or friendship. Of course, outside my ethnic group even more people seem weird to me for even more reasons. Do I want to know them better? Few, but definitely not all of them.
Does it happen to me to experience this less than commendable sentiment that probably my nation is better in some respects? Of course, it does happen from time to time, I am not a saint, and it’s not a career I seek: they all had miserable lives, most died painful deaths and in Heaven they receive tons of spam miracle requests from believers. Do I try to change my perception? Not really. Does it make me a racist? Not at all. Because the main thing is I totally understand that other nations need no approval, validation or permission, admiration or adoration from an outsider to go on living the way they want in their home countries and lands pursuing their historical choices as free human beings (before you even mentioned Ukraine: being a proxy against Russia doesn’t qualify for a respectable historical choice).
It’s totally ok to hate curry or borscht, it’s not ok to come to a person cooking either of those and tell them, how much you hate those dishes. We have a good saying, “don’t come to an established monastery with your own set of rules”. Am I teaching you hate? No, i keep repeating that patriotism is loving your country without hating the rest of the world. But it’s human to have likes and dislikes, if you hate the sound of the Russian language, don’t go to Russia, but don’t try to declare that the language and its speakers are inferior to you. If Dostoevsky is not at the top of your reading list, fine, but it doesn’t mean you are in a position to cancel Crime and Punishment.
Interesting post. Thanks.
I’ve been thinking about U.S. and Russian culture lately, and have been wondering if Russian culture isn’t superior at the moment. That’s on the border of acceptable thought — Can we see that one culture is superior to another? Certainly cultures go awry due to faulty institutions. The U.S., where I’ve spent most of my 70 years, has a strong culture but is corrupted as the imperial center of power. The wannabe unipolar military intelligence complex reaches into every corner of the world in increasingly Orwellian fashion. Russia is drawing the line and putting Russian lives on the line.
Late to the party, but i can not help linking two texts totalyl anaphemaed on woke sites like StackOverflow.
* http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8609
* http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#not_losing
Time came and he was cancelled: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/fdquta/the_right_to_be_rude_eric_raymond_canceled_from/
Later his ideological enemy Richard Stallman was all but cancelled too.