The taxi driver, after asking rhetoric question about “the end of this nation” and the “situation of this country” and presenting the traditional complaints, began bringing argument about why he wants to move to the United States. One of the substantiations was the following: “Well, why should I deceive you and charge 4 thousand drams instead of 3 thousand.” It reminded me of episode from the “Ordinary Miracle” movie, when Yevgeny Leonov’s embodied king complains that he is cruel and insidious, but the reason is not him, but his fierce and wily ancestors’ “genes.”
The psychological mechanism is the same: actually, deep in my soul, I am a good person, but the circumstances (“the situation of the country” or bad heredity) make me be bad. If “they” (“those sitting on the top”) deceive, let’s say, by one million dollars, then I, within my available opportunities, cheat by thousand drams by using “driving tricks” (the expression used by my interlocutor). The problem, accordingly, is to evade making a choice, better to say, to conceal the choice. Allegedly, the behavior that I have adopted is not my choice, it turned so as a result of circumstances, let’s say, my parents were not careful to me, they have not put me at the chamber pot on time, my boss does not give me a promotion, the geographic location of my country is not convenient, the government is bad and so on. Actually, the person’s adopted conduct is his rather than anyone’s choice.
If a person makes a choice and realizes it (event the choice of being a sly), he, in my opinion, deserves far more respect than he who casts the entire blame onto the “circumstances”. “Making a choice raises the man’s soul, – writes the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, urges him a restrained satisfaction, sense of own dignity, which will never abandon him completely … The problem is not possessing this-or-that thing in the world but preserving your own face. And it depends on the will of the man.”
When people of full age ask me for advice, I usually say, you are free in your choice. Why do I hesitate giving advice? Because it you’re asking for my advice, not Poghos’s or Petros’s, then you have already made your choice because you at least know my opinion approximately.
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For example, I, as a citizen, voted against the constitutional amendments. There are probably people in “Aravot,” who will vote for it, but it never makes us be enemies. Importantly that “Aravot”, as a means of information, does not advocate neither in favor of “yes” nor in favor of “no” by presenting “yes” and “no” possibly proportionate. This is our choice. But if there are media who are willing to advocate “yes” or “no”, it is also their free choice.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
