Menu
• Publicistics
Yevhen Zakharov, 25 July 2019

Optimism, altruism, and mild insanity

We tested several groups of Ukrainian and Russian human rights defenders with professional psychologists from Kharkiv University twenty years ago and confirmed that our hypothesis was correct.

What is on my mind? Oddly enough, considerations of how politicians differ from human rights defenders. I am inspired by the last election campaign and the participation of many of my colleagues in it. And that’s what I recalled.

In 1996, I was in the United States for a month under the International Visitor Program as part of an international group (22 human rights activists from 20 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America). I then saw that human rights defenders are very similar regardless of race, skin color, ethnic origin, language, etc. I then saw that human rights activists are alike regardless of race, skin color, ethnic origin, language, etc. I decided to test this hypothesis with the help of psychological research, at least in Ukraine. Together with professional psychologists from Kharkiv University, in 1997-1998, we tested several groups of Ukrainian and Russian human rights activists and were convinced that the hypothesis held. We found that human rights activists have certain identical qualities. They are all, firstly, optimists; secondly, altruists; thirdly, they are a little crazy (there was an excellent publication about this at the time). Fourthly, they are keenly aware of and cannot stand lies from politicians; fifth, they have strong nerves; sixth, their increased creativity distinguishes them; seventh, most have a developed sense of humor. I think the first four features are the most significant in identifying human rights activists—optimism, altruism, slight madness, and a keen attitude towards lies from politicians.

I am not aware of other studies of this nature.

share the information

Similar articles

• Publicistics

How do you overcome the negative emotions that get to you every day?

Optimism, altruism, and slight madness: the director of KHPG, Yevhen Zakharov, shares how to protect human rights during the war without burnout.

• Publicistics

A Vision of Victory

Only a free society of responsible citizens in partnership with a robust democratic state can overcome a totalitarian empire that is many times stronger in terms of resources.

• Publicistics

The 80th Anniversary of the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars

80 years ago, on May 18, 1944, in dark predawn hours, the National Tragedy of Crimea had begun. The uniformed soldiers of Soviet KGB troops knocked at the doors of Crimean Tatars houses...

• Publicistics

At a crossroads

We will manage to survive only if our resistance to this sinister Russian gloom remains nationwide. Each of us, tens of millions of Ukrainian citizens, wherever we are, must feel and understand that our victory is impossible without active and selfless personal participation in this struggle.