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[Kore Gleason]

Dear SEELANGers,

It has been a pleasure for the long while to read your posts as a tremendous 
supplement to my understanding of all things Slavic, East European, Eurasian 
and otherwise, and I look forward to many more discussions and contributions. 

It has been, however, disheartening reading the accusatory tone behind this 
recent string of comments...   

Sure, we can find it surprising in our particular circles that someone has not 
heard of  Lolita, but that is because we’ve had the privilege of reading it. We 
can find it surprising that a person doesn’t know where the Atlantic Ocean is, 
but we’ve had the privilege of seeing it or being taught where/what it is. 

I would think that History, especially the specific histories of the gulags, 
concentration camps and atrocities that have been mentioned in the same 
breath of this discussion, would have taught us the invaluable need to 
reevaluate what one person’s ignorance means – and why it entitles another 
person to feel better, smarter, greater. 

If you’ve ever taught American adults how to read for the first time, helping 
them string the alphabet soup of the shapes and sounds of letters together, 
or held the hand of a Russian who experiences the ocean for the first time in 
his multiple-decade(d) life, marveling at the smell and feel of seaweed and 
waves, 

then perhaps we’d all understand better that our inequalities in “intelligence” 
make us no less equal in humanity. 

Respectfully,

Kore Gleason

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