Hi Dimitri! I’m from Canada with family roots in Ternopil Ukraine and Great Britain. The descriptions of marriage and family customs you’ve written about I think can apply here in the west with some important differences. In Canada we have the principles of DEI shoved down our throats as official government policy and it generates a lot of conflict between the sexes and among families. Men and women naturally want to get together and make a life, raise a family, send their children out into the world and generally multiply. Of course the state simultaneously enables and hinders this interaction by sending out mixed messages. The result is mass confusion and the misinterpretation of both sexes as to their expected roles. Nevertheless, there are many similarities between the role of family in Russian and the west, by far the most common is the idea of the family itself and the promotion of it as aspirational and normal. The roles played by men and women are much less defined and fuzzy. Some can navigate these complexities and make a good run of it, but many others cannot and the divorce rate is very high. The primacy of the individual is paramount to the extent that even the idea of getting along with others amounts of a capitulation of one’s individuality. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Also, the notion that change is inevitable and therefore good is relentlessly promoted. You end up with people unwilling to commit long term to anything: Jobs, careers, relationships all seem to have been time stamped with a best before date, after which people simply move on. There is no such thing as a secure long term job with a single firm. Employers hire employees with no commitment beyond the next quarter, and employees submit to this precarity by giving as good as they get. This dynamic of economic life and its prerogatives sets the tone for everything else including relationships and family. My impression is that Russians have been able to figure a lot of this out and set things up for everyone’s general satisfaction. A more traditional view of marriage and family life requires a sublimation of the self for the uplift of the common good. Once this is understood you can accept it and try to fit it and make your way OR, resist, maintain your precious independence but you’ll wind up living alone. Pets don’t count as members of the family no matter how often this is proclaimed. I think I have prattled on for too long! I think you get my gist. Cheers Dimitry
Hello David, thank you very much for your comment. You see, when I write my posts, I am thinking of what points of distinction I can bring up to highlight the difference of culture and lifestyle between Russia and other countries. However, there are parts of life that are shared across the world, and family is one of them. I can't tell whether I managed to spotlight what makes a Russian family different to that of, say, Canada. From a cultural point of view, Canadians were always more individualistic compared to Russians, and that definitely is manifested in family life. One thing is certain: Russians adhere to the only two genders we find in all biology books from the 50s. Things like DEI are completely foreign and devoid of any meaning to all Russians. Our government actively supports the traditional family model, although I suspect even without that, Russians would appreciate that model. Now, following your comment, may I ask you: do you think all those changes you mention are cumulative consequences of all the technological, societal, and other developments of the past decades, or are those changes, especially in the family roles and models, being artificially instilled? I mean, perhaps it's a natural course of things and works for one's good, because it's the way society is now with no return, and the fact that you're disagreeing with this is your personal stance? Thank you for your opinion. Cheers, Dmitry.
Hi Dimitry, Thanks for the reply. In answer to your question, yes some cumulative consequences due to technical, societal forces that are bound to occur partially from the passage of time, other changes, like the one that I ragged on, DEI, which in it’s current form I consider to be social engineering. By the way I’m not against DEI, it’s principles are universal and imo worthy of adhering to; embrace all the variety that the human race has to offer, be fair and equitable in all of one’s dealings, and make sure to be generous and inclusive with others. I just hate it imposed from above and especially in what I perceive to be a scolding tone (two recent examples, both now departed from the scene, hurrah, Justin Trudeau and Kamala Harris)… as you say “artificially instilled”. May I add the word “deliberate”? So “deliberately artifically instilled social engineering”. Reflecting upon that phrase it makes me realize that this something that all states do to/with their populations. They have the means and ways to experiment on their people and so they do. Some of their actions could be interpreted as benign and well intentioned such as “family planning”, that is, to prevent unwanted teenage pregnancies. Do Universal Healthcare and Education count as social engineering? What about Hollywood movies? The media sphere is definitely social engineering and boy is it ever evil. There’s so much seduction packed into our phones and devices, it’s hard to imagine life as it was just a few of decades ago before the internet. Somehow we managed! Cheers to you too Dimitry
Hi Dimitri! I’m from Canada with family roots in Ternopil Ukraine and Great Britain. The descriptions of marriage and family customs you’ve written about I think can apply here in the west with some important differences. In Canada we have the principles of DEI shoved down our throats as official government policy and it generates a lot of conflict between the sexes and among families. Men and women naturally want to get together and make a life, raise a family, send their children out into the world and generally multiply. Of course the state simultaneously enables and hinders this interaction by sending out mixed messages. The result is mass confusion and the misinterpretation of both sexes as to their expected roles. Nevertheless, there are many similarities between the role of family in Russian and the west, by far the most common is the idea of the family itself and the promotion of it as aspirational and normal. The roles played by men and women are much less defined and fuzzy. Some can navigate these complexities and make a good run of it, but many others cannot and the divorce rate is very high. The primacy of the individual is paramount to the extent that even the idea of getting along with others amounts of a capitulation of one’s individuality. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Also, the notion that change is inevitable and therefore good is relentlessly promoted. You end up with people unwilling to commit long term to anything: Jobs, careers, relationships all seem to have been time stamped with a best before date, after which people simply move on. There is no such thing as a secure long term job with a single firm. Employers hire employees with no commitment beyond the next quarter, and employees submit to this precarity by giving as good as they get. This dynamic of economic life and its prerogatives sets the tone for everything else including relationships and family. My impression is that Russians have been able to figure a lot of this out and set things up for everyone’s general satisfaction. A more traditional view of marriage and family life requires a sublimation of the self for the uplift of the common good. Once this is understood you can accept it and try to fit it and make your way OR, resist, maintain your precious independence but you’ll wind up living alone. Pets don’t count as members of the family no matter how often this is proclaimed. I think I have prattled on for too long! I think you get my gist. Cheers Dimitry
Hello David, thank you very much for your comment. You see, when I write my posts, I am thinking of what points of distinction I can bring up to highlight the difference of culture and lifestyle between Russia and other countries. However, there are parts of life that are shared across the world, and family is one of them. I can't tell whether I managed to spotlight what makes a Russian family different to that of, say, Canada. From a cultural point of view, Canadians were always more individualistic compared to Russians, and that definitely is manifested in family life. One thing is certain: Russians adhere to the only two genders we find in all biology books from the 50s. Things like DEI are completely foreign and devoid of any meaning to all Russians. Our government actively supports the traditional family model, although I suspect even without that, Russians would appreciate that model. Now, following your comment, may I ask you: do you think all those changes you mention are cumulative consequences of all the technological, societal, and other developments of the past decades, or are those changes, especially in the family roles and models, being artificially instilled? I mean, perhaps it's a natural course of things and works for one's good, because it's the way society is now with no return, and the fact that you're disagreeing with this is your personal stance? Thank you for your opinion. Cheers, Dmitry.
Hi Dimitry, Thanks for the reply. In answer to your question, yes some cumulative consequences due to technical, societal forces that are bound to occur partially from the passage of time, other changes, like the one that I ragged on, DEI, which in it’s current form I consider to be social engineering. By the way I’m not against DEI, it’s principles are universal and imo worthy of adhering to; embrace all the variety that the human race has to offer, be fair and equitable in all of one’s dealings, and make sure to be generous and inclusive with others. I just hate it imposed from above and especially in what I perceive to be a scolding tone (two recent examples, both now departed from the scene, hurrah, Justin Trudeau and Kamala Harris)… as you say “artificially instilled”. May I add the word “deliberate”? So “deliberately artifically instilled social engineering”. Reflecting upon that phrase it makes me realize that this something that all states do to/with their populations. They have the means and ways to experiment on their people and so they do. Some of their actions could be interpreted as benign and well intentioned such as “family planning”, that is, to prevent unwanted teenage pregnancies. Do Universal Healthcare and Education count as social engineering? What about Hollywood movies? The media sphere is definitely social engineering and boy is it ever evil. There’s so much seduction packed into our phones and devices, it’s hard to imagine life as it was just a few of decades ago before the internet. Somehow we managed! Cheers to you too Dimitry
Thanks for writing this. Very insightful.