The Hubris of East Europe's Peasants
Channel: Sam Vaknin's Musings
Date: 2011-09-27

The denizens of the former Soviet and socialist countries are marked by their resistance to learning from others. Now that the West is mired in multiple troubles and failures, they feel that their way of life and their mentality, their choices and their policies have been vindicated and are superior to the West's. Smug hubris is everywhere I look. Add to this access to the Internet, this great equalizer of the stupid, and everyone in these shabby countries - from Macedonia to Russia - holds himself or herself to be a genius and not in need of further edification.

But the truth is that these inhabitants of the wrong side of the iron curtain reject newfangled knowledge and good advice not because they are traditionalists - but because they are craven and because they are pragmatic.