People who are guided by stereotypes and condemn any deviation from those dominate to those who favor freedom and diversity in our society. Do you remember the blue-haired girl? Seems everything is simple, and the person dyes her hair with the color she wants. However, it became a story with political and even local (“Armenian-Karabakh”) tones. Let us suppose I have seen only black and white hair in my life, and another hair color is a cultural shock for me. But this problem has two solutions: 1/ I become furious if life is limited to those two colors for me, 2/ at least theoretically I admit that hair can have different colors and overcome the cultural shock, adding blue color into my “mental palette”.
With this primitive example, I want to show that any lifestyle, any action, and any idea can be “digested”, even if you do not like that lifestyle, that action or idea. (Of course, this refers to actions permitted by law only). If my brain has room not only for “black” and “white”, “good” and “bad”, “ours” and “not ours”, then a person different from me may be “unexpected” and “shocking” for me, but will not cause anger, rage, or dissatisfaction in me.
There are “black and white” stereotypes in our society: “oppositionists can behave only this way”, “political position can be manifested only that way”, “patriotism is this”, “courage is that”, “this is the right religion”, etc. If something is beyond our ideology formed and fixed within many years and does not fit into our brains, we get the desire to condemn it. Karpis Pashoyan’s case is about this.
Of course, the state has its own rules. Statesmen, especially the press secretary, are limited in their right to voice their opinion. One must be free from the state hierarchy in order to speak freely. I also say this from my own experience, as I have been a press secretary in “old Armenia” too. But who said that you can contribute to the state only by holding an office? That is a stereotype too, after all.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
