An American Virtue

In Russia, tattletaling was a big vice. It was unconditionally despised. Snitches could be even beaten up starting from an early age, and nobody would feel sorry for them. I think the rationale was that we were all feeling oppressed by the system, and any actions which helped the system and harmed the position of individual members were frowned upon. Actually, gloomy, frowned faces are what any American who goes to Russia sees a lot on the Russian streets - Russians do not have a habit of smiling unless something amuses them.

Russians who come to the US are struck by the opposite things: lots of smiles, and the fact that people are not ashamed to tell on you. Russian forums often discuss this seeming discrepancy - how your coworkers can be smiling to you cheerfully one minute, and reporting you to the boss for being 2 minutes late the next minute. That is the main reason why many Russians condemn American smiles as fake and insincere. (Personally, I prefer a fake smile to sincere scorn, but I will acknowledge that I do not attribute any feeling of a benevolence towards me to any person who smiles to me.) A couple of things happened this week which I wanted to mention as an example of what I am talking about.

My Russian friend sends her daughter to a nice private school in our area. Two days ago, her daughter came home with the news that the principal chastised the teachers for displaying pictures of their drunk behavior at a party on Facebook pages where they could be easily seen by the students with whom many teachers are Facebook "friends." An act of stupidity - no doubt! But the most shocking part is not what those teachers did, but how the students found out about this email. It turns out one of the teachers - who did not go to the party - read that email out loud to the students. Simply for the pleasure of reporting the bad behavior of others. Personally, I would fire that teacher on the spot, but I am afraid my American readers would mostly disagree.

Another story on the same day. A Russian friend manages a furniture wholesale company. Recently, a few of the sales reps of another large furniture company have asked her if they could sell her company's furniture to their retail clients. She does not have a policy of exclusive representation, so she had no problem with that. The sales reps are hurting in this downturn because their income is strictly based on commission, and their orders are down (whereas mortgages remain the same, and need to be paid every month). So these reps were selling her furniture for a few months until someone reported them to the original company for which they have worked. It turns out, that the other company did expect them to represent only their furniture, even if they could not maintain their living doing that. And some well-meaning company adherent felt it proper to report his brethren who have strayed off the path of righteousness.

I don't know about you, but cases like this make me disgusted. I think all too often people here do not make a difference between reporting somebody with a simple goal of getting them into trouble as opposed to telling whith the purpose of preventing someone from getting hurt.