Apparently, this is what the Apostle Paul and Immanuel Kant were urging us to do
A few days ago, I posted a short video titled “How to Respond to Nikol Pashinyan Supporters’ Aggression.” In it, I tried to argue that responding to the insults and abuse of Pashinyan supporters in the same manner is foolish. More importantly, there is little point in discussing anything with such people in the first place. Suppose they claim that the executive branch, the prime minister (that is, the man who has usurped that office), has the right to remove the Catholicos of All Armenians from office or to call him “Ktrich Nersisyan.” What arguments can you offer in response, other than invoking the most basic principles of law?
Or suppose Pashinyan supporters say that Azerbaijanis had the right to carry out ethnic cleansing in Artsakh in 2023. People who think this way exist, as they say, in an entirely different moral paradigm. In my view, dialogue with them is impossible.
Nevertheless, some users believe that “you have to speak to these people in their own language,” citing Vardan Ghukasyan, who lives in the United States, and his corresponding vocabulary as an example. Incidentally, Mr. Ghukasyan’s party failed in the most recent elections because, as one might put it, Pashinyan is “more Dog than Dog himself.”
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But the question of countering evil with evil also has a deeper political and philosophical dimension.
Suppose all three million citizens of Armenia believe that profanity is perfectly acceptable in public speech, while I am the only person who finds it unacceptable. If I am not a politician and have no intention, as they say, of “leading the masses,” then there is no problem: I remain alone, while everyone else swears or calls the Catholicos “Ktrich Nersisyan,” which, in my view, amounts to the same insult, because addressing the Catholicos of All Armenians by his given name rather than by his ecclesiastical title is unacceptable for a Christian.
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”-Chesterton wrote. In this particular case, he was speaking not so much about an individual as about the Church itself: if it is alive, it can resist the modernist currents of the 20th century. But this perfectly valid observation can also be applied to individuals. An ordinary person, therefore, can find himself alone against millions. But what if he is a politician? Then the problem becomes more complicated. Political activity implies competition, and when your political opponent says something, you have to respond. But in whose vocabulary — theirs or your own?
Ideally, of course, it would be possible to agree on certain rules of the game, a common language, or, as people like to say nowadays, “civility.” But with Civil Contract supporters, this is once again utterly pointless. You cannot make an agreement with a hopeless drug addict or alcoholic that they will stop drinking or using drugs. A chronic liar and demagogue will not suddenly start telling the truth because of some agreement.
You cannot make a pact about civility with a thug. Especially when bullying, insults and personal slander are an integral part of the Civil Contract’s political culture — their principal political weapon and their main instrument for remaining in power. Is it not the case that their “nuclear electorate” occupies the very lowest level when it comes to both civility and intellect?
In short, I am extremely skeptical about the “civility” of Pashinyan supporters. But that absolutely does not mean that we should enter the Civil Contract’s “paradigm” and adopt its standards of conduct.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans. He certainly did not mean that evil should not be resisted. He meant something entirely different: do not become a liar because you are dealing with a liar; do not become a thug because you are dealing with a thug; do not become a blasphemer because you are dealing with a blasphemer. In confronting evil, preserve your own principles.
That principle must remain the same under all circumstances and in all interactions. Immanuel Kant expressed a similar idea beautifully: if your moral principle depends on how another person behaves, then, in fact, you have no moral principle.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
Aravot Daily
25.08.2026
