Russians do not subscribe to political correctness (PC), which is something that either impresses, or more often than not repulses, western foreigners who visit the country.
The “impressed by Russia’s lack of PC speak” crowd is often shocked to find that in Russia they have more freedom to discuss issues like ethnic troubles, immigration, religion, war etc. that they simply cannot do at home. This is truly a great reason to be here in Russia, however the impressed crowd often cannot see that Russia does have its own taboos, they are just different.
The “repulsed by Russia’s lack of PC speak” crowd is generally shocked because they simply cannot imagine that there could be a different set of morals and values other than their own. They as Westerners are completely sure of the universality of their own worldview/history and to them there is no excuse for not adopting PC norms in any country.
But the question is why are Russians not PC? But before we can work on this problem, we must first answer the questions, what is Political Correctness and where it comes from.
So, let’s start by defining PC. Surprisingly the dictionary definition of it is actually very accurate. The Oxford dictionary states that Political Correctness is... “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”
Essentially it states that there are weaker groups in society that the stronger group(s) should be kind towards as compensation. Essentially some have an advantage and at the cost of that advantage they should be careful not to hurt those who are disadvantaged and weaker than they.
So now we have some sort of rule of etiquette, way of behavior, outlook on life (whatever you’d like to call it) but where did this all come from? I would argue that it all began in Ancient Rome.
The Romans saw themselves as the only true civilization surrounded by primitive barbarians. Rome was absolutely convinced of its own superiority and that its expansion was just for it would bring civilization to all those crushed under the sandals of centurions. Although Rome eventually fell, Roman Hubris would carry on down the line in Western society.
If we take a look at the discovery and colonization of the New World and Africa we can see that Western Europe’s view of these outsiders did not differ at all from the Roman view - they were barbarians or worse that would only benefit from the inherently civilized and superior culture of the West.
Later concepts like Manifest Destiny and White Man’s Burden would be extensions of this Roman tradition, ideologically giving self-proclaimed superior Westerners the green light to push across North America by any means necessary be they slavery, germ warfare or good ole cold steel.
Moving forward even farther we can again see this Roman Hubris infesting Nazi Germany giving them the ideological justification to commit all sorts of horrors against inferiors and the uncivilized.
Although around 2000 years have passed by this point, this Roman mentality of civil vs. uncivil with the civil having the duty and right to “civilize” the barbarians had not changed or died in Western civilization. In fact, it remained a cornerstone of it.
However, at some point in the 20th century after two world wars brought Western Civilization to its knees, Roman Hubris shifted.
Yet, rather than rejecting the idea of inherent Western superiority, the West concluded that it was still superior but this was now a bad thing to be atoned for. This shift from Roman Hubris to Cultural Masochism explains many of the tendencies that we see in Europe today like the acceptance of the world’s refugees, Multiculturalism and - Political Correctness.
Now that we understand why there is a PC West, we’ll try to find reasons as to why Russia is not PC.
1) Russia was occupied for generations by Non-Europeans
The Mongol “yoke” was put on Russia and left a lasting mark on society. Russian Hubris has been kept in check by these sorts of historical events. Russia has also been attacked from all sides by people of various races and ethnicities.
2) The West has treated Russia just as badly as Non-Europeans
Russians got put through the same horrors as the Jews during WWII and one of the main motivations of the Nazi’s was to create “living space” (Lebensraum) by slaughtering Slavs to the east to make room for a greater German empire.
The US rebuilt West Germany and Japan after WWII but economically raped Russia and fostered ethnic conflict in former Soviet republics after the USSR capitulated.
Napoleon is quoted (debatably) as saying that “if you scrape a Russian you will find a Tatar” meaning he felt that Russians are actually Asians in European disguise. This sort of rhetoric is often today used by Ukrainian “Nationalists” to convince others that Russia is something foreign, Non-European and inferior.
3) Russia did not have colonies.
Russia expanded absorbing the peoples near them into the fold. Ethnic minority cultures were able to live and survive as part of the Russian Empire.
4) Russia has not had slavery since medieval times and Russians themselves were serfs.
The oppressor vs. oppressed dynamic in Russia has not been racial. While Uzbeks picked cotton under the sun in the USSR Russians did the same with potatoes. However, today in Russia we can see that most exploited male migrant workers come from Central Asia which could lead to some sort of racial dynamic developing. But that is not to say that Ukrainians and Moldovans don’t also jump the border for work.
5) Russians don’t feel like they owe anyone anything, due to having many wars and horrible periods of suffering.
As you can see from the points above the colonial/racial dynamic of West is just not present in Russian history and Russians themselves have had hard times. There is no mythos of Russians being “civilized and superior inherently” which could lead to the forming of PC culture as compensation for said “superiority”. In Russia the foundation necessary for western-style Political Correctness is just - absent.
