THE PERILS OF DECEIVED EXPECTATIONS

Nations are comprised of men, women, and children, and, because it is so, the National Soul also possesses the elements of each, deep inside it. The macho virility of a man always ready to defend his own, no matter what, and the gentle sensitivity of a woman, wife and mother, are complemented by the naïve innocence and rosy idealism of a child.

(By the same token, it can be said that any person’s soul, being a microcosm of the National Soul, contains the same three elements: the strength and simplistic reasoning of a man, the soft civility, intuition and instinct of a woman, and the idealistic vulnerability of a child. In both cases, here is a Trinity of sorts: three distinct persons in the oneness of one whole, whether an individual or a nation.)

Limiting our discussion to nations, in the context of this Collective entry, that has been a very important observation, as it is precisely the inability to discern these three elements, and particularly the child, within the soul of another nation, that constitutes the greatest obstacle to “us” understanding “them,” and, not surprisingly, the other way around.

While a more elaborate psycho-sociology of this phenomenon is yet to be developed, there is one aspect of it, which I intend to draw the reader’s attention to, in this entry.

The sweet dreams that a child nurtures in its soul about an otherwise bleak and inhospitable world reveal its lack of experience; the situation becoming somewhat “corrected” as our child reaches adulthood. But in the nation’s soul, that child never reaches adulthood, as the persons of man, woman, and child are permanently and immutably fixed there; and so, whatever happens in the history of any nation is nothing but a new experience viewed through the multiple prism of its composite personalities.

Any child learns how to deal with the disappointments of his childhood fantasies, in the process of growing up, but in this case he never grows up, and so, his disappointments have to be dealt with by his protective mother and a warily watchful father. That is why such deep disappointments that a child might have and be offended by, are not countered by any kind of palliative process, but are calling to be avenged by his enraged parents.

“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones…” (Luke 17:2.)

At this point, the time has come to provide an example, and where else would I take it from than from one of my favorite topics, which is the superpower theme? I am obviously reflecting on America’s unconscionably brutish geopolitical behavior throughout the post-Soviet era, starting with the Clinton Administration, and still in evidence in our day.

…Following the collapse of the USSR, the secret, rather childish admiration from a distance, which used to characterize not just the Soviet liberals’, but also the Soviet political elite’s attitude toward America, subsequently exploded in a bitter disappointment, as every patriotic Russian realized then and there that America was rudely trying to take advantage of the perceived Russian vulnerability.

It is so much better to have an enemy who respects and even secretly loves you, than to have an enemy who was once your admirer, but now feels offended as a child, and scorned as a woman, which elements are both applicable to our case.

Too bad that America has been so woefully deficient even in elementary psychology. I suspect that the trillions of misspent and misappropriated, yet carelessly printed and reprinted ad infinitum, dollars, have developed an unbelievable arrogance in the superpower brain, the arrogance of a bully, who flippantly and often mockingly throws around some highfalutin slogans, like freedom and democracy, as some universal pseudo-antibiotic, to which the patient has long developed a full-proof immunity.

Yet the terrible grudge that I have called the perils of deceived expectations is unstoppably and malignantly growing, and the only possible cure for its lethal metastasis can no longer be empty words, nor dollars, nor bombs, but a sincere national humility and a heartfelt penitence.