That Slouching Disinterested Kid in the Back of the Classroom

Obama recently called Putin this type of person. But, having once been (at times) this slouching disinterested person in the classroom sometimes from Junior High through parts of High School I understand the psychology of someone like this.

It is a role you play if you don't want to be victimized by being an A student. When I grew up A students who always were in the very front of the classroom were also most likely to be put in a trash can and rolled down a hill or have their heads put into the toilet while it was being flushed. So, being (or pretending to be) that disinterested kid in the back of the classroom is also about survival. You didn't mess with slouching guys in the back of the classroom unless you wanted to be beat up or dead (one or the other) especially this was true in High School for me from 1963 until 1966.

So, though I identify with the genius of Obama I also identify with the macho and survivability of Putin. I think the main problem that Obama has with Putin possibly is that it is okay to be racist in Russia and most people still are. So, I think you are dealing with someone (just like many or most people in Russia) who are racist and anti-semetic even though they might believe in complete equality between men and women because that was a part of the Soviet Union(1917 to 1991) where men and women as long as they both were macho were interchangeable often. So, I think the problem that Putin And Obama are having is about a cultural discontinuity more than anything else.

In Putin's culture he would generally be thought bad of if he was nice to Obama. This is just the tragic world we really live in. And this is the rub and the bane of the present relationship or (non-relationship) between Russia and the U.S.

So, though Obama is a triumph for Western civilization this isn't necessarily true in Russia yet (at least in the governing circles of Russia).

Though I knew many people who were racists while growing up in the 1950s racism never made any sense to me so I never became one. So, though I grew up in a town segregated only by the Realtors in California I never had a bad experience in my adult life that changed my mind about this.

I think racism is either a part of isolationism between the races or a conditioned response of unthinking people multi-generationally or both.

Also, there are people who don't want the races to blend and I think that people who believe this can believe in this without being racist because this is about maintaining a culture and not necessarily racism. However, in reality I think there will only be one race around the world within a few hundred years that will look like all races just because of the ease of air travel and communication through the Internet and Skype. Whether this will be good or bad I cannot say, I just think that when most people look pretty much alike it might reduce all the killing and violence we have  seen for thousands of years already.