Post

Vicenti wrote:

Possibly his point is this, one who focuses so much on social issues will eventually forget about economic issues. You see this in America today. The economy has so many problems but Americans are fighting about what one does in their personal life. We get so engrossed in the “culture wars” that we totally forget the social policy is only one half of the story.

Though I must admit his post came of as kind of…odd to say the least. But if my suspicions prove to be correct I do believe Jishuin is from a different culture than western culture, so bear that in mind that there might be a cultural difference here. In some parts of the world social values never change (take Russia or China for example) but here in western countries our culture constantly evolves with changing times and circumstances. I can’t speak for them specifically, but it should be noted that people are not going to hold a value universally which might explain that post.

We in Russia, fortunately, do not have such acute racial problems. Slavery in Russia existed as the enslavement of some white people by other white people (serfdom). And these white-skinned serfs were separated from their families in the same way when they were sold, punished with whips, etc., like blacks in the USA. This slavery was abolished in Russia around the same period as in the United States, in 1861. Moreover, its cancellation was accompanied by unbearable exactions from the former serfs. The memory of the centuries of serfdom aroused not racial but social hatred. And after the revolution of 1917, the descendants of the serfs for some time achieved the "positive discrimination" that afroamericans are seeking in the United States. Nobles, landlords, whose ancestors owned serfs, were deprived of voting rights ("лишенцы"), and the descendants of serfs were given pre-emptive rights when entering universities. Since 1936, "positive discrimination" was canceled, it fulfilled its mission, was replaced by the principle "the son is not responsible for the father", the legal equality of citizens. Because the oppressors and the oppressed were white, the class struggle between them did not take on a racial connotation. There was discrimination against Jews in the tsarist empire, but after the revolution, the lifting of restrictions and secularization, they quickly assimilated. Perhaps the struggle for the rights of minorities in the United States is perceived in Russia as inflating secondary issues because of this difference in the history of the two countries. And, of course, because of the severity of problems with poverty and alienated labor, with the destruction of the system of social guarantees - these problems in poor countries are perceived as the most important, and other problems fade against their background.