The right to be offended

What is the difference between indignation in a crowd and a personal complaint?

The endless flickering of “news stories” (just appeared - already, you see, “stuck”) leads to the fact that discussions of this very “new” rarely reach something really interesting. Before you had time to think about any event properly, everyone forgot about it. The scandal associated with the conflict between the activist of the femdom movement Bella Rapoport and the representative of a cosmetic company is no exception. Talk about him, although they lasted even longer than usual, but also subsided before reaching.

There, the case was that a well-known blogger offered the company barter: they give her some kind of samples, she talks about them on her Instagram. An employee of the company wrote in response that such an offer was “unfortunately not interesting.” Bella Rapoport considered this reaction to be boorish and published the correspondence on the network, which caused an incredible stream of jokes (sometimes witty) and tons of comments. The overwhelming majority of the comments were misogynistic and anti-Semitic, so - as it always happens - who was right and who was wrong at the very beginning, I didn’t want to figure it out. And I just wanted to somehow shield myself from this stream of learned hatred.

But before I stopped reading all this, I did read something interesting. This is how Bella Rapoport answered those who wrote to her that the refusal is not at all rude and you should not be offended.

“Everyone has the right to complain about what they want, to see rudeness where it seemed to them, to experience it to the extent that it is required.”

This is a directly absolutely accurate manifesto (thanks to the author for the wording) of the “new sensibility” that has captured both the West and Russia, albeit in different forms. Although, no, not so - the content is not the same here, not the form. In our country and in the West, insults and offended people of various kinds are “winning” today. Here they are conservatives and “atomic” Orthodox, whose feelings are mortally hurt by the actions of Pussy Riot or the staged part of the opera Tannhäuser, there are minorities whose rights have been violated for a long time and who, in a huge number of innocent, to the inexperienced eye, manifestations are ready to see the echoes of these insults .

Since I myself am a woman and a Jew, it is natural for me to join those who are offended by chauvinism and nationalism (and, as a result of my resentment, fight against them). But if, striving for objectivity, I move away from my own feelings and look at the state of affairs from a distance, it is quite difficult for me to see the difference between the way the feelings of believers in Russia and, say, the feelings of minorities in America work. Both of them, of course, have the right to be offended, and both of them in their “own” countries have the resources to turn this insult into a weapon. An important note: I am not saying that this difference does not exist, I am saying that for me personally, despite the fact that I looked very carefully, it is difficult to see it.

Recently, I talked about this with the head of the Polk portal, Yuri Saprykin, whose current role is closest to what the West calls a “public intellectual.” He said that, in his opinion,

An important feature of the resentment of domestic vulnerable believers is that it - this resentment - is usually invented in the presidential administration. At first, these words seemed inaccurate to me.

Because I know that dancing on the pulpit can really offend someone for whom this place is sacred. I've met people—certainly not pro-government conservatives—who were really hurt by this action. But then I thought that feelings are an intimate and personal thing, they cannot be felt en masse. Or rather, so - in order to feel them together like this, someone needs to suggest that this needs to be done. And in the current situation in our country, this “someone” is known who.

“Everyone has the right to complain about what they want, to see rudeness where it seemed to them, to experience it to the extent that it is required.” It is impossible to argue with this statement until some continuation is attached to it. That is, when resentment does not become an instrument of influence, intimidation and problem solving. As long as it is not a bargaining chip in the hands of a strong man who uses this offense in his own interests.

Personally, this understanding gives me freedom of certainty. Certainty - if we are talking about feelings - what to feel. I live here in Russia and more or less understand what is going on here. And I understand whose right to be offended here turns out to be the right of the strong, a right appropriated by the strong, and sometimes a right invented by the strong. And whose - no. And until the situation here changes, I will - to the best of my ability - stand up for the opportunity to be offended and demand satisfaction for those whose grievances are real. For women who are "foolish women" and "themselves to blame", for people with disabilities whom society tries not to notice, and for many more. Here, where I live, their grievances - I know for sure - are genuine.