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I hesitate to write about responsibility because I’ll get heck.
I dimly recall a lunch hour volleyball intramural series among boys in their early teens. A few boys were earnestly trying to have proper teamwork; most boys were smacking the ball with their fists, sending it in a random direction, and laughing. I’m sure those jokers would give any earnest boy heck, assuming, that is, that any teen dared to stick his neck out to ask for responsible standards.
A few years later, during the crazy 1960’s and ’70’s, an ex-marine worked with troubled youth. The problem, he noted, was that other social workers thought that delinquency, for juvenile boys and post-juvenile men, came from society, not from the boys: Society was to blame. So the boys needn’t become responsible… If I were to time travel, and argue against the longhaired workers, then just like that idealistic ex-marine, I would be a minority of one. I’d get heck from the equivalent of today’s social justice warriors, especially with my “establishment” short hair.
If responsibility is not the default for teens and young adults, then it could be hard for everyone else too. Yet individual change is possible—call it character training, with an implication, from the word “training,” that growth takes time and purposeful effort.
Groups can vary. I have read of how Alcoholics Anonymous groups may have troubles, perhaps with infighting or being too slack, declining to almost zero members, but then take responsibility to pull up their socks and become one of the bigger healthier AA groups in the city. Apparently this is an oft-repeated scenario.
Cities can vary too. I have read the writings of a political scientist who combined empirical observation with active party membership and running for office: (He didn’t win) Robert Heinlein noted that in some cities people “get involved” in democracy, while in other cities the public is almost proud of their corruption. I guess he meant like a city being almost proud of their huge local mosquitos without organizing to drain the swamp. My take away is that he noted how some cities have reformed. I imagine a vat of liquid oxygen, or frozen farm semen, where the surface is billowing up and down, representing the ongoing rise and decline and rise again of individuals, clubs and cities.
Entire nations can grow too, according to the essays—before he got elected—of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Hence he got Canadians, even as they feared and groaned, to “bring home from London” their constitution (Charter) and rewrite it for themselves.
Here and now, the leftists and the anti-vaxxers and the woke might all give me heck for believing anything “the authorities” say. They might say that at the very most, maybe, I could vote. Adding, “Don’t think you can have any effect on our nation’s environment or climate or the war in Ukraine… Maybe read social media like we do, but don’t watch TV news or read dead tree newspapers.”
I can appreciate, almost agree, that I am just a helpless little guy… but still, I like accepting responsibility. I like crushing my milk cartons, becoming informed about carbon dioxide and writing electronically to my man in the capital. And yes, I accept my fair share of responsibility for the Ukraine. Did you know we are offering housing and jobs to Ukrainians, here in the majestic Rocky Mountains? Less than an hours drive from the wheat fields that would remind refugees of their home.
A short season ago, merely three months past, the social justice warriors and the prim people might have evaded all responsibility, by preventing all discussion, by calling me a “racist.” FULL STOP. This after me saying the Russians, although no longer communist, are not free, that their culture is not equal to ours. But now I could reply to any one eyed woke: If you look at the record of Russian fighter-bomber pilots targeting places with children, the soldiers executing community leaders, the generals encouraging their men to rape… No. Not equal. They are Orcs.
This week print articles have tried to say Russians lie to pollsters about liking Putin. Maybe. But to me those TV interview stories on social media prove otherwise. Besides seeing them supporting Putin, I see how “the person in the street” evades responsibility. For example, one fellow said he must support the troops, regardless. Yet if NATO citizens had refused to oversee their troops and government, then their troops would still be in Afghanistan and South Vietnam.
Many Russians “cop out” by saying that both sides are the same, both sides lie. This from the people who invented Potemkin village.
When they claim to believe their state media, despite all Russian independent media being newly silenced, despite it being a new crime in Russia to say “invasion” or “war,” despite their cultural memory of communist propaganda, I get suspicious. In fact, I read once that Russians have a word for when you are lying and the person you are talking to knows, and you both know you both know, but you keep on lying. That is a different culture.
I’m contemptuous. I see the Russian people believing their state by choosing denial. Like a nation of alcoholics. Irresponsibility at the national level. If Russians complain about sanctions then I won’t shed any tears. Even if I get called a racist.
…
…
Sean Crawford
Amongst the largest “Ukrainian” population outside Russia,
April 25, after February 25 was the start
of the alleged “special military manoeuvre,”
2022
Update: Other formerly-communist nations, after Russia’s partial mobilization, are not letting Russian draft-dodgers across the border. The not-yet-drafted future Orcs are arguing that they are “freedom of conscience refugees.” The contemptuous plain reply is, “You had no conscience while Ukrainian civilians were being tortured, targeted and tossed into mass graves, so don’t claim conscience now.”
Sources
That ex-marine and Vietnam veteran wrote: (link)
Robert Heinlein wrote: (link)
As for cold hearted justice warriors stopping me speaking about Russian culture, FULL STOP, to prevent heresy… Paul Graham’s latest essay is about that: (link)
Over a year ago, two Russian hotel workers in London England told me “Russia is not free.”
Pierre Trudeau’s essays, from before he ran for federal office, are permeated with a belief in national growth, a belief that the Quebec people could grow in self confidence to have a “quiet revolution.” And they did.
