> right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, ...
It's not even that the Russians who think this are especially evil people, or irrational people, or people who are unlike us in any fundamental way.
The reason they think this way, and that you do not, is because they believe different myths than you do.
Let's say your worldview is defined by Ivan Ilyin [0]. You don't consider other people or ethics at all. The only thing that matters in the world is God. And God is displeased that the perfect Russia that He created has been spoiled.
The only way to heal the world and make God happy is to restore a certain kind of utopian Russia. That pure and perfect Russia is united in territory and belief, so it can't tolerate any division or fragmentation within itself.
Agents of the devil in the West are deviously dismantling and disintegrating that pure and perfect Russia, piece by piece. Westerners are carving off pieces of territory like Ukraine, and dividing Russian people with seditious Western ideas like democracy and gender fluidity and a free press.
So it's a supernatural struggle between good and evil. An existential battle like that means there's no room for this messy business of parliaments and voting, or compromising with different perspectives.
We need one strong leader, a true and pure leader, to inherit the mantle of past great leaders like Stalin and Peter the Great. He will be God's instrument to make the hard decisions and lead the nation in glorious struggle. This divinely inspired leader will create unity in the world by restoring and reuniting Russia itself.
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Where do you even begin to have a conversation when you don't share the most basic of beliefs or values? There is no common ground in wanting a safer, fairer, more just world. We have our own foundational myths that we rarely acknowledge or interrogate, and our myths don't intersect with Russia's myths at all.
"Where do you even begin to have a conversation when you don't share the most basic of beliefs or values?"
We can share it with the tens of thousands of educated Russian opposing the 'special operation', with the thousands of Russians in jail for protesting. Even with the silent millions who doubt all the bullshit they hear but perhaps aren't going to die on a hill over it. They all grew up with the same foundational myths as the irredentists, they just chose to look further.
It's a mistake to essentialise a country as diverse as Russia but we can agree that it's also a mistake to assume almost everyone wants the best for everyone else.
It's not even that the Russians who think this are especially evil people, or irrational people, or people who are unlike us in any fundamental way.
The reason they think this way, and that you do not, is because they believe different myths than you do.
Let's say your worldview is defined by Ivan Ilyin [0]. You don't consider other people or ethics at all. The only thing that matters in the world is God. And God is displeased that the perfect Russia that He created has been spoiled.
The only way to heal the world and make God happy is to restore a certain kind of utopian Russia. That pure and perfect Russia is united in territory and belief, so it can't tolerate any division or fragmentation within itself.
Agents of the devil in the West are deviously dismantling and disintegrating that pure and perfect Russia, piece by piece. Westerners are carving off pieces of territory like Ukraine, and dividing Russian people with seditious Western ideas like democracy and gender fluidity and a free press.
So it's a supernatural struggle between good and evil. An existential battle like that means there's no room for this messy business of parliaments and voting, or compromising with different perspectives.
We need one strong leader, a true and pure leader, to inherit the mantle of past great leaders like Stalin and Peter the Great. He will be God's instrument to make the hard decisions and lead the nation in glorious struggle. This divinely inspired leader will create unity in the world by restoring and reuniting Russia itself.
----
Where do you even begin to have a conversation when you don't share the most basic of beliefs or values? There is no common ground in wanting a safer, fairer, more just world. We have our own foundational myths that we rarely acknowledge or interrogate, and our myths don't intersect with Russia's myths at all.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Ilyin