What distinguishes victims from those who say they are victims is that they never engage in victimhood. Neither the victim shamelessly displays her condition nor does the hero, the heroine, display her courage.

John le Carré said that you need to think like a hero to act with some decency in daily life. Perhaps when heroism is most necessary is when what is faced is not a tyrannical political power, but the vast majority of the community in which one lives. In Russia, in the days following the invasion of Ukraine, when using the word “war” to name war was suddenly reason enough to get you sent to jail, a young activist and her girlfriend pointed out.