Tag Archives: leadership

FTAC: A Note on President Trump and the Prospect of a Feudal Modernity

11 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Syndicate Red Brown Green

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Trump’s support of Israel is about respect for tribal identification and the narcissism related to it. It matches Putin’s views of a renewed and sustained feudal world — a feudal modernity — featuring absolute authority, fated and unquestionable, placed in the future rather than left to history.

Accompanying that vision: a low-intensity war of re-conquest in Crimea, Ukraine and the tragic obscenity that has been made of Syria.

Most of us carry what we value of our pasts with us through life, but we try also to leave our futures open for good things to come.

These “malignarcs” (malignant narcissists), by comparison, wish to force the future forward into the past. Their personal visions — and behavior — have been dreadful, myopic, selfish as have been the habits, in lesser and greater measures, of caliphs, dictators, emperors, and feudal lords through time: for the mafia-type power and wealth, their methods, willful and thuggish, have been more known to history than those of democracy.  However, our Mr. Trump has a powerful employer and a job defining his position, and whether he personally likes it or not, he is duty-bound to promote democracy — the systems of checked and distributed power — against the political absolutism known to dictators.

As has been my habit with BackChannels, the titles promise greater and lengthier articles while format and inclination keep the verbiage down to a paragraph bloc.

Related on this blog —

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/04/04/ftac-reinforcement-reflexive-control-islamic-terrorism-and-perceived-threat-newest-nationalism-and-renewed-feudal-conflict/

With the public focused on the air assault of “9/11” (see the gems placed in reference) and numerous “Allahu Abkar” attacks worldwide across many years, the patriotic reaction has permanently altered the west’s political and security societies — and yet we wish to defend authentic democracies against the potential for the rise of the Orwellian police state and with it, indeed, a “new nobility”, an invisible, unimpeachable, unquestionable (“military-industrial”) aristocracy.

Reference: Related on the Web

http://www.businessinsider.com/exploring-al-qaedas-murky-connection-to-russian-intelligence-2014-6 – 6/10/2014

http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/02/security-brief-russia-providing-arms-to-taliban-chinas-global-kidnapping-campaign/ – 4/2/2018

–33–

From October 2017: Emir of Kano Lamido Sanusi II, Nigeria, on Economic Disparity

12 Saturday May 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, foreign aid, International Development, Nigeria, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Amen!

Conversation welcomed.

–33–

FTAC – From Correspondence – Focusing on the Despotic

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Dictatorships – “Different Talks – Same Walk” — they have nothing to do with any restricted political vision except to exploit language for the eventual attainment of “unlimited narcissistic supply.”

Truly, they flatter themselves, eventually leaving behind pyramids and billion-dollar mansions.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/malignant-narcissism/

Many make themselves living hell for others, unfortunately.

Successful states — plenty of cash across the geopolitical space and plenty to do as regards work — seem to me often well put together combines of public commitments and privately realized opportunities. As all things are worked out between actual persons and organizations, the general rule — public-private compacts, from the provision of infrastructure to area-wide tax policy to real estate development through to public regulation of production (environmental and labor legislation) and trade (controls on distribution and tariffs) — dissolves into improved qualities in living x area-sq.

In good societies, “qualities of living” (economic, physical, psychological, social, spiritual) should produce the benchmarks (casually stated: “are you better off today than you were so many years ago? And how so? And why?) to which constituencies and politicians respond.

The despotic evade popular judgment.

I think we focus too much on the “isms” and not enough on leadership and related social practices, but that feature in cultures need the poets out front. Depending on where one lives, the critics of power, especially despotic power, may be made to suffer in situ or in exile a long time.

Re. education — avoidance of indulging too many in the humanities and social sciences, or doing so through too much of a Far Right / Far Left professoriate, may make a political body too easily disinformed and misled. As I have no relevant power in that realm, or elsewhere, reparative action seems way beyond my reach.

I think generalists among writers have at best subtle influence over time.

A good conversation may be mild and yet moving.

The conversational partner had called for the removal of former communists from Russian politics; however, and President Putin included, the whole have transformed from the Soviet outlook and ditched the CPSU worldview, a process well underway but out of sight in the 1980s when the privileged of the Party had begun work on plans for afterward.  The “afterward” — December 26 of this year will mark 25 years of “afterward”) — has returned to Russians a deeply centralized national security state: FSB | Putin | Oligarchs.

Where the same has run the world into disturbing issues: Syria.

Barbarism, Corruption, and Cronyism v Rule of Law and Meritocracy

*

Medieval Political Absolutism vs Modern Democratic Distribution of Power

*

State-Based Development and Exploitation of Terrorists (as in the medieval realpolitik theatrical “Assad OR The Terrorists”) v Progressive Humanist Discipline in Military / Paramilitary Assessment and Response (as in modern Israel)

The items presented in “That v This” form need not be black-and-white in reality (or “realpolitik”) as the blend may be more the thing, but what’s on display in Russia- and Iran-enabled Syria is so bad as to make modern invention of the political themes involved very easy.  Stopping at an expanded “Medieval v Modern” three should suffice.

Through President Putin, certain features (like that KGB/FSB thing) of the Soviet Union have enjoyed a period of “Soviet Reunion”.  A number of characteristics associated with the period of dissolve around 1991 have been reversed, and the leader has returned to the people a certain boisterous quality.  However, the ambitious neo-medieval neo-imperial state’s “numbers” — military expenditures, reduced oil revenues, incidence of corruption throughout, capital inflows, reduced reserves — may be keeping internal development comparatively suspended.  That may do Putin’s popularity and reputation some damage over time.

General Reference

. . . the majority of the population sees the Kremlin not as the reason for the current economic recession but as the central power making a relatively successful attempt to consolidate society against external enemies that seek to strangle Russia economically. Somehow, it is not hard for the Kremlin-controlled media to find proof and symptoms—Western sanctions are presented as a major instrument of destruction, causing severe harm to the Russian economy; the oil price decline is declared to be the result of an anti-Russian plot; and even the situation around Ukraine is treated as an attack on Russian foreign trade, on Russia’s ability to cooperate with a neighboring market of 45 million people, and on the traditionally close economic ties between Ukraine and Russia. Over time, economic hardships have become a reason for the increase in public support of the president and his policies, not a reason for protesting.

Movchan, Andrey.  “Avoiding the Blame for Russia’s Economic Woes.”  Carnegie Moscow Center, March 30, 2016.

Oxenstierna, Susanne.  “Russia’s defense spending and the economic decline.”  Journal of Eurasian Studies, January 2016, 7:1, 60-70.

–33–

Hef & Holly – A Note on Malignant and Reparative Narcissism

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

PERHAPS —

The Malignant controls, discourages, manipulates

&

The Reparative liberates, encourages, and grows

_____

Attempt to escape as he may, the editor of BackChannels returns to his themes even while journeying out to Hollywood between the pages of a hardcover, i.e., celebrity Holly Madison’s Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny (New York: Harper Collins, Dey Street imprint, 2015).

As ladies men go, some peacocks appear to have an image both to create and maintain, and not infrequently that at high cost to the cheerleaders seduced into hanging on to their elbows.

Now how different is that from the global politics — and the themes attending those “leaders and their followers in a dangerous world” written about by Jerrold Post (2004)  — visited here by way of the pack of contemporary autocrats?

🙂

I have seen the term “state capitalism” applied to Putin’s medieval revanch in the creation of the post-Soviet neo-feudal Russia now wrapped around his own “vertical of power”.  The idea has its appeal (and many related posts break into a BackChannels’ category ne “21st Century Feudal“).

In the American Wildness, distributed business-borne capitalism, which in North America could not be otherwise, appears to produce in part feudal competitions and related private environs as part of the nature of power arrayed between chairmen and presidents, members of the board, and shareholders and other stakeholders.  The degree to which those at the top embrace their own “vertical of power” and effectively promote their own cultural fascism around and beneath them needs must vary, but overarched by democratic governance, such private feudal behaviors have only the boundaries of a few legal papers (noncompete and nondisclosure agreements, for a start), the discipline of their accounting departments (no workee, no checkee), and their doors for fending off equally private but solitary revolutions: employees belittled, degraded, demeaned, denigrated, enslaved by their environments can, do, will outgrow their my-way-or-the-highway keepers — and walk across the street or do that highway thing and move one big town, state, or country over.

It’s a big world, and life’s too short to tolerate a capricious and irrational subjugation forever.

Of course, with governments operated as private businesses for authoritarian elites, the same problems are much, much greater for those suffering — and not individually: en masse — beneath them.

Additional Reference

BackChannels.  “Malignant Narcissism”.

Odell, Amy.  “The 14 Worst Things About Hugh Hefner, as Revealed in Holly Madison’s New Book: From his incessant mansplaining to the constant infighting he created among girlfriends, Madison describes her life in the mansion as anything but happy.” Cosmopolitan, June 22, 2015. 

Wikipedia.  “Presidency of Vladimir Putin”: About the same time, Vladimir Ryzhkov pointed out that a bill Medvedev had sent to the State Duma in late January 2009, when signed into law, will allow Kremlin-friendly regional legislatures to remove opposition mayors who were elected by popular vote: “It is no coincidence that Medvedev has taken aim at the country’s mayors. Mayoral elections were the last bastion of direct elections after the Duma cancelled the popular vote for governors in 2005. Independent mayors were the only source of political competition against governors who were loyal to the Kremlin and United Russia. Now one of the few remaining checks and balances against the monopoly on executive power in the regions will be removed. After the law is signed by Medvedev, the power vertical will be extended one step further to reach every mayor in the country.

# # #

 

Link – Erdogan and Putin – WaPo

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Links, Political Psychology, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

Yet these underlying differences have rarely turned into public disputes. As a report by the Moscow Carnegie Center put it, Russia and Turkey “have largely managed to compartmentalize their relations.” That’s down to pragmatism and realpolitik. But the similarities between the two countries’ leaders are hard to miss. Here are some reasons why Putin and Erdogan could look to each other, and find a kindred spirit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/02/how-russias-putin-and-turkeys-erdogan-were-made-for-each-other/ – 12/2/2014.

Putin-Assad-Khamenei.

Putin-Orban.

Putin-Erdogan.

It’s a club.

Affinity between dictators constitutes a revanch feudalist theme in contemporary foreign affairs.  Central to each: the rejection of classical liberal values and the embrace of unsavory methods in their political life plus the pursuit of grandiose ambitions perhaps associated with a giantism suited to immortality.

Russia, Syria, Iran, Hungary, and Turkey may not be doing gangbusters as states — from from it — but as gangsters set up in palaces or commanding immense portfolios on top of much unsung suffering, they’re at the top of their game.

# # #

FTAC – Offhand – Sociopathy and Narcissism

11 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Sociopathy — lack of compassion, connection, empathy, feelings integrated with others — may feature in “narcissistic personality disorder” and what I consider its political relative, ‘malignant narcissism”, which are both interwoven with personality. Grandiose messianic delusion, manipulation (gaslighting is symptomatic of that), willful control of others (why it’s so important to own the press, put on a show, destroy rivals, and inhibit critics, educators, and journalists) become features of population- or state-exploiting dictators. The banners above them matter a lot less, lol, than how they’re wired on the inside. Overlooked feature in this area: “narcissistic mortification”. Whatever the injury was, the memory of it is private.

Oh, really?

Yes, really, but, sigh, also for this writer, intuitively.

I’ve no idea what the latest news may be from the psychology and social science sector, and, sans funding for research, I don’t care to look (but will take a glance in a few moments)

Empathy, imagination, and intuition serve this writer as well they may.

I have noticed online that articles showcased of deal with narcissistic personality within the context of intimate relationships, e.g., from the “Grace, Power, Strength” blog, “Is He a Sociopath? – 20 Signs”.

Surprising to me, and I meant nothing malicious by this, the Google search “Putin, narcissist” indeed yields results.  I had cringed with the thought that this blog might come up tops on that — having some ideas Out There is different from having some statement Way Up There 🙂 — but Joseph Burgo’s piece in The Atlantic took the top spot: “Vladimir Putin, Narcissist?”(April 15, 2014).

In second place: Ablow, Keith.  “Inside the Mind of Vladimir Putin — Russian president no simple thug.”  Fox News, March 11, 2014.

Sam Vak’s page comes up third.

And BackChannels, the blog you’re reading: it doesn’t exist.

😉

Putin may do okay.  Transference . . . reparative narcissism . . . maturation — even the leaders of powerful states will grow older and may grow wiser (would that Obama would catch up with the Other Great Leaders in this regard).  Given the descriptions of the possible sources of Putin’s possible “narcissistic mortification”, self-preservation cathected to ethnolinguistic cultural security seems to me a clear good path.

Reparative.

And “reparative narcissism” is also a term of art in this arena.

“Reparative” or “destructive” narcissistic leaders:

“Narcissism,” of course, is not a “bad word” and is as normal in human psychology as are sexual or aggressive desires and natural anxiety about internal conflicts. Indeed, healthy narcissism is necessary for anyone to survive, work, and maintain a solid identity. But narcissism is also subject to frustrations, which may lead to unhealthy weakened or inflated self-love (Weigert, 1967.) It is when people have exaggerated love of self that they exhibit the repeated thought, behavior, and feeling patterns that in combination are called narcissistic personality. Such individuals think that they are unique and grand, which causes them to feel omnipotent and to act as though they are better than anyone else. But people with narcissistic personalities live in a paradox: while they love themselves too much and feel grandiose and omnipotent, they also, in the shadows so to speak, possess an aspect that is devalued and “hungry” for love. Periodically, this hunger asserts itself into awareness and creates anxiety, shame or humiliation in the person. Accordingly, such individuals’ personality organization splits between a grandiose self and a hungry self. The splitting in the personality organization reflects a lack of cohesive identity. The personality characteristics reflecting the grandiose self are overt, while those characteristics reflecting the hungry self are covert (Akhtar, 1992; Kernberg, 1975, and Volkan and Ast, 1994.)

Volkan, Vamik D.  “Some Psychoanalytic Views on Narcissistic Leaders and Their Roles in Large-Group Processes,” January 12, 2007.

That’s what happens when one noses into academese online.

Blocky text.

The style is much friendlier paper-based and supported by sofas, tables, highlighters, and coffee.

Nonetheless, and to access a Jewish trope, one has always the choice of making things a little bit better — not a great revolution, great war, great “grandiose delusional messianic” (an NPD term of art) image, but a little more fair and just, a little more comfortable and strong.

Much will be written about the Putin’s leadership psychology across the arc of his tenure, but I would suggest today that as rough as his childhood may have been, it had a little bit of magic and warmth somewhere in it, and while Moscow once again chats with terrorists (PFLP), the leader nonetheless promotes before his public education, health care, social security . . . integrity.

Additional Reference

Vamik D. Volkan (website)

Volkan has been practicing political psychoanalysis for over two decades. His first “patients” were high-level delegations from Israel and Palestine, with whom he engaged in “unofficial diplomacy” for six years. He credits the late Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, with opening the field with his 1977 declaration that 70 percent of the problems between Arabs and Israelis are psychological. Ten years later, Volkan established the Center for the Study of the Mind and Human Interaction, the world’s only conflict resolution organization housed in a medical center. Because Volkan’s brand of therapy depends on individual breakthroughs to affect mass behavior, it is difficult to quantify “progress.” The clinical effects of his work, by nature, may never be proven. Such is the persistence of man-made trauma.

Kiem, Elizabeth.  “Putting the War on Terror on the couch: Vamik Volkan’s Blind Trust.”  Review of Blind Trust: Large Groups and Their Leaders in Times of Crisis and Terror by Vamik Volkan.  Charlottesville, VA: Pitchstone Publishing, 2004, pp. 367.  Review published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall 2004.

# # #

Link

Cohen on Putin – “The power of one man: Great men matter — and so do evil ones”

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Cohen on Putin – “The power of one man: Great men matter — and so do evil ones”

. . . but the fact remains that if Princip had hesitated, if he had missed, if he had not wandered to seek a sandwich at Moritz Schiller’s delicatessen when Franz Ferdinand’s driver had taken the wrong turn, the Great War might not have happened.

And neither would have the swift collapse of four empires . . . .

Malala’s Sweet Tough 16th

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Thanks to Al Jazeera:

In less than 20 minutes, Malala Yousafzai has done what few to none of Pakistan’s politicians have ever done: pushed Pakistan to the forefront of ethical and moral progress in the world.

Additional Reference

A World at School.  “The text of Malala Yousafzai’s speech at the United Nations.”  Transcript.  July 12, 2013.

Ellick, Adam B.  “Class Dismissed: Malala’s Story.”  Video.  (Back Story).  The New York Times, October 9, 2012.

Imam, Zainab.  “Malala and the lague of extraordinary Pakistani women.”  The Express Tribune, July 13, 2013:

But on July 12, when a young Pakistani woman wowed the entire world by her simple yet powerful views, I let go of trying to look logically at the other view — I saw the tear that fell out of Malala’s mother’s eye and I felt what had caused it. Malala’s mother, purported to be a CIA agent, was crying because the little girl who she had carried in her womb for nine months and nurtured for 15 years was finally able to speak with her characteristic vigour after surviving a bullet to her head.

Johnston, Ian.  “Malala Yousafzai: Being shot by Taliban made me stronger.”  NBC News, July 12, 2013.

Plank, Elizabeth.  “9 Best Quotes From Malala’s United Nations Speech.” Policymic, July 12, 2013.

Reuters.  “Pakistan’s Malala celebrates 16th birthday with emotional U.N. speech (1:32), July 12, 2013.

Spiegal Online Staff.  “Girl Rising: Malala Fires Up a New Generation.”  Spiegal Online, July 12, 2013.

The Globe and Mail.  “‘They thought that the bullet would silence us’: Malala addresses UN Youth Assembly.”  July 12, 2013.