The price of someone else's life: what is the difference between the Western and Russian squealing

The journalist Mumin Shakirov mentioned in his blog in connection with the case of Mikhail Yefremov, urgency is an urgent problem:

“A few theses about their mores and about the story with Mikhail Yefremov. Often in different companies where they talk about America and Americans (from admiration to contempt), we are talking about the so-called local squealing. Like, the Yankees are a nation of informers: a neighbor didn’t mow the lawn on time, took out the garbage out of schedule, do not believe it, changed the oil in the car in the yard instead of contacting the service. And if screams are heard in the house through the fence, or God forbid violence, a call to the police.

There are many reasons for Americans to recruit 911. But most of all our people are annoyed by the fact that they can stupidly bang on a friend, buddy or work colleague with whom he just drank to the Brudershaft and poured out his soul like a priest. Occurs in the event that a friend went over with alcohol and clearly could not cope with the wheel. Of course, at first they will ask him not to sit at the wheel, they will advise to call a taxi, I don’t know the subtleties, I was not a witness.

But according to their worldview - a friend with an overdose of alcohol driving a car is a potential killer. By the way, they can do the same in some European countries. These are their morals. Ah, if someone had tapped on Mikhail Efremov that unfortunate evening and he would have been stopped by a jeep when leaving the yard. I think today the artist would kiss the legs of this man, alas, the film cannot be rewound. True, not everyone would be delighted with such a snitch-comrade..."

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So, Irina Kafiero, who lives in America, confirmed:

“Yes, we are squealing about and for no reason. Living "carefully" is annoying. I don’t think that would work in Russia. The actor could have been saved earlier by taking away the driving documents, but no one did anything..."

Another “Russian American” Tatyana Fyodorova, however, is not sure that the Americans are so actively squealing:

“As for the direct mentality, it’s hard to say. I surely know that there are Americans, even from among the elderly, who have a negative attitude to petty everyday informing. From what I have encountered and observed so far, there is no sharp difference with Russia. Where I live, it’s quite normal to make a neighbor’s personal comment, I don’t remember the police calling for each sneeze. But this is a lyrical digression...” About driving and attitude to it: to obtain the driving license you need for the first time in your life to take a special course on the effect of substances on the driver. Most receive rights at age of 16, while still in school. These courses are made quite colorful, with real photo and video examples. If a teenager looks at his peers, who knocked down a man in a dope and drunk, and then sat down for many years, listens to their interviews from the prison cell, the stories of the relatives of those killed, then most likely at least something in his head will be kept..."

But Tatyana Chistova doubted the effectiveness of squealing in Russia:

“In theory, in a pure uncomplicated theory - yes, the principle “the neighbors look at you” is correct, but transferred to our soil (purely in theory) even in imagination it blooms with the amazing details: they called the cops and they twisted a drunk person, the person died: he put in his ass (a mop, a bottle, a hole punch (this was also found), put cute things in his pockets - it were seized, described, they received asterisks, etc., etc. etc...”

Eleanora Anoshchenko generally considered squealing a purely Russian phenomenon:

“Squealing is a purely Russian concept, for it has a long history, so transferring local concepts to the rest of the world is pretty stupid. Democracy helps to dispense without the fisticuff and resolve conflicts between neighbors in a completely civilized manner...”

It seems nevertheless that the problem is deeper here. The fact is that “thanks to” informers millions of Soviet citizens were imprisoned and hundreds of thousands of them lost their lives. Soviet squealing was encouraged by the authorities and was of an applied nature - rarely did any snitch squeal according to the principles, the overwhelming majority pursued quite material goals - someone else’s living space, someone else’s property, someone else’s position, even someone else’s wife... Therefore, the attitude of the society to the squealing is extremely negative. But Western squealing - on the contrary, pursues as a rule a completely different goal - the public well-being. And Russia still needs to grow and grow in order to reach this kind of snitching...