Since we're just telling random gypsy stories, I got mobbed by a gang of about 12 kids when in St. Petersberg. I was able to fend them off (I now know for a fact that I can beat up about a dozen undernourished 10-year-old kids) and the only thing they managed to steal was a case containing my glasses. When they saw that they were prescription glasses that would be pretty much worthless to them, they just dropped them and took off.
A Russian later explained it to me in this way: the Roma system of morality consists basically of the belief that everyone should do what's in their own best interests... an extreme ethical egoism. Robbing you is in their best interests, but you defending yourself is in your best interests and equally acceptable to them. In my situation there was no reason for them to run off with my glasses or toss them into the river because there's no self-interest justification in doing so. It would have been done out of spite, which is a concept they don't really have.
This Russian fellow (who may have been making it all up) went on to say that gyspies are typically amused by the sense of altruism other culturals have, but their own sense of ethics allows or even encourages them to take advantage of it.
|