Several complementary pillars, of the russian phenomenon, continuously recreate the kind of societal dysfunction, that gives us its genocidal tendencies, its intolerance, its corruption, its imperialism and much more. One among them, is that russia has a dishonour culture. 🧵1/
The corrosive effect of russia's dishonour culture can't be overstated. Its presence is felt in literature, history, government and individual alike. It's a culture saturated with a cynical value which all by itself, renders it functionally unfixable in any simple sense. 2/
Not to be misunderstood though this cynical value is not all by itself responsible for the other dysfunctions; rather, it helps to provide a stable foundation on which the others can grow and operate. These pillars are mutually reinforcing of the phenomenon as a whole. 3/
The sociological nightmare of a dishonour culture is just barely spared the title of being completely irredeemably insane, by the feature that it at least treats one's own immediate narrow and short-term needs and fears with some consideration. 4/
To define a dishonour culture more narrowly, it is not merely some culture of a low trust society, though low trust is an ingredient of it. The defining characteristic is the culture's relationship to accountability for transgressions against trust. 5/
Specifically, in a dishonour culture, impunity is either to be aspired to, or to be treated with reverence, submissiveness and caution. The perception of being unbound by consequences, rules, morals or laws, confirms one's legitimacy, in the social hierarchy. 6/
To give a trivial explanatory example, two people make an agreement and shake hands on it. One holds up their end of the agreement, the other doesn't. How is this interpreted in a dishonour culture? 7/
If the one that lied is in a position to get away with it, whether through cunning, raw strength or connectionst, they are entitled to put their impunity on display. They are viewed as powerful, clever and respectable. In a sense this is even a corruption of the word respect. 8/
If the one that lied can't get away with it, they are viewed as weak, shameful and incompetent. They are viewed as not knowing their place and as someone that chose to recklessly take a stupid gamble. 9/
If the one that was lied to can exact retribution for this transgression against them and "win" this confrontation, they can be viewed as powerful, clever and respectable. If they can't however, then they are viewed as outright laughable, frail and/or stupid. 10/
One can immediately see a couple noteworthy things in this dynamic of interpretations: accountability goes to the loser, not the agent responsible for a transgression. Behaviour is not moderated by trust or civility, but rather, only by the potential raw consequences. 11/
In this dynamic, it doesn't matter who's right, only who's left. Truth is redefined into an entirely utilitarian concept, a concept whereby one appeases their "superiors" by humoring their "truth", and a means of demonstrating group loyalty. 12/
In this dynamic, respect is redefined into simply showing a sufficient amount of submissiveness to one's "superiors". To publicly oppose their "superior's" vision, is itself regarded as either pathetic, pedantic or outrageous. 13/
The two small forms of consolation this dynamic "provides" to its very bottom rung are a completely vicarious pride through their "superior" (for being included in their "vision") and a total abdication from any sense of personal accountability. 14/
Note as well that this dynamic doesn't just require low trust in a population, but positively creates and maintains distrust. Once established, it actually creates a foundation for it to repeat itself, as it repeatedly has for generations. 15/
The very guiding principles of the social dynamics in this dishonour culture prevent the success of any attempt to "simply fix it". Attempting so earns one the contempt of not only the "tsar" and state, but the society and culture as a whole. 16/
All social and political actors in this society, to a geater or lesser extent, have to participate and conform to this dynamic. Insofar as they don't, they earn the ire of the people, society, the culture, the state and its elites. Rendering them irrelevant to "fixing" it. 17/
This thread itself is only a broad overview of the dynamic, the finer details of which are worth exploring in greater depth in future threads themselves. This dynamic has many downstream cultural manifestations. 18/
As an example, it helps to dispel some of the mystery of how anyone could be morally deranged enough to regard this as a sensible statement to make. 19/
It helps to explain why russian talk shows routinely show such psychopathic deep concern regarding whether russia is still feared or not. 20/
It helps to explain why russian soldiers do things like this. Callously punishing and displaying the corpses of those that show any inclination towards traits such as sincere loyalty. 21/
This is a culture that views acting in good faith as merely the last resort of "psychologically weak" people. It respects only consequences, personal consequences. 22/
As long as it has captured ethnic minorities to send, to do the dying for its imperial ambitions, it sees no contradiction in simultaneously having the burden of the sin be carried just by that captured nation, while still indulging in the high of having committed the crime. 23/
Note that it was not the fact that their state was committing a genocide that managed to mobilize the russian liberal elite. What mobilized it to become very active was the fear of personal consequences, such as the prospect of the tourist visa ban. 24/
Lastly, I'll lightly touch on an important final note, regarding russian dishonour culture.
The alleged russian opposition, is fundamentally opposed to one thing only: russian accountability. 25/25
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