I'm going through notes I made when in Russia in 1995. Some of you may find the following passage interesting, as I did.
Ed -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 13, 1995 - We met with Russian students, all or most of whom are trade union activists and leaders from the independent trade unions. They were being mentored by Prof. Harris Sabirof, who teaches philosophy at the Academy. They are at the Academy to learn how to be union leaders in the new Russia. The idea is that, to set up new unions along the American model, professionals are needed, and to become professionals, the new leadership needs to "brainwash" itself -- i.e. divest itself of the old ways of thinking and doing. Surprisingly (to me), the issue or greatest interest to them, the one they returned to time and again, was values. What they were groping for was how to inculcate positive, hopeful values into their kids (they were all mature people in their thirties and forties - probably all had kids) given the current moral degeneration of Russian society. How could they tell their kids to stick to the straight and narrow when it was obvious that the straight and narrow does not pay nearly as much as the crooked paths of the underground economy? Some of our group tried to tell them about how things are done in North America, about how parents encourage their children to value family, church and country. But we may have misunderstood the seriousness of their question. North Americans still think in terms of expanding horizons, or their kids getting somewhere if they get an education, of at least a continuation of a good standard of living, if not an improvement in that standard. Russians have given up this point of view. They see their country disintegrating. Despite wanting the very best for their kids, they do not see a basis for a good life in the emerging Russia. So the question really boils down to how pessimists teach their kids optimism or cynics teach the power of postive thinking.
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