Thread by @cybersoroka

A recent poll says: Russians support Putin.

I’m stats-savvy enough to understand that stats can be used to prove that a dead salmon🐟 is alive. (Google it, it’s funny)

But this 🧵 is about people’s reaction & psychological defenses that make our communication difficult.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1504537146350350336

I don’t like psychoanalysis because of its unfalsifiability but it’s hard to deny the existence of denial.

A psychiatrist George Vaillant classified defence mechanisms into four levels.

✔️ pathological defences
✔️ immature defences
✔️ neurotic defences
✔️ mature defences

I won’t go into detail about which level contains which defensive reaction - you can look them up on wiki.

I want to denote something: for one - you can distinguish Russian people in the comments on this poll by their defense mechanisms being anything but *mature*.

People in the west try and cope with their emotional distress about war using altruism: “Let’s help Russia too”, “Not all Russian people are bad”

Altruism - is a mature and a rather privileged and egoistic way of keeping yourself feeling good.

About yourself.

By being good.

Altruism doesn’t account for the feelings of the recipient of benevolence.

Not rarely it’s the case of “road to hell paved with good intentions”, because a defense mechanism is still an unconscious, automatic reaction - not a well-reasoned or well-thought response to a problem.

Russians surf between immature and neurotic denial with frequent pathological cases;

Without thinking, they tackle the topic - the poll for example - and try and prove that it’s fake, false, has methodological problems and interpretation bias.

Is any of it fair critique? No.

If Russians in their majority were capable of working with critical analysis of data, we wouldn’t have had the term “Russophobia”

Data is rarely sufficient and always biased. But it’s not a reason to not work with it.

The poll itself - not even its results - is a good example.

A (Russian) person who sits down to actually, critically think about this war in the cultural and historical context of Russia’s policy of the past 100, 30 and 8 years will realize how important it is to let go of imperialistic ambitions to l achieve sustainable peace.

But does anyone do this? Hardly. This poll, much like any anti-propaganda is met with:

🔹denial (sometimes psychotic)“It’s not true”

🔸rationalization “It’s wrong/impossible because XYZ reasons”

🔻passive aggression “It’s all garbage”

🔘 dissociation “It’s not about us/me”

Russian mentality is deeply rooted in supremacist clauses and can’t be uprooted by showing pictures of dead soldiers or sad texts from bomb shelters.

These people are used to put themselves above Ukrainians not because the TV taught them to.

It lasted for generations.

If it’s easier for some people from the western world to understand:

▫️Russians will protect their right to imperialist mentality as hard as westerners will protect their right to be altruistic.▫️

Both are broken and toxic reactions. Both hurt Ukrainians in this war.

Both are going to be a hurdle when this war is won. I see many people starting to delude themselves, that Russia has a future in the Empire shape that it has now.

Understanding that its disbandment is necessary is painful and crashes against a lot of psychological defenses.

I recommend to get aquatinted with the topic of defense mechanisms because almost anything can be called a defense mechanism but not everything is one.

And our ℹ️ info warriors against Kremlin know no rest interrupting Russian narratives, debunking hypocrites & double-standards.

I hope this thread was insightful and useful, and will make it easier for you to talk to some people in the future, as you’ll be able to recognize where they’re coming from.