Of course, the citizens of every state needs must care about their own lives first — biological, familial and otherwise social, financial, emotional, spiritual. Security and stability in those aspects of life are generally part of everyone’s quality of living.
That Putin has been able to sustain and transform many aspects of the defunct Soviet Union tells a story about the kind of political power exercised in relation to malignant narcissism. In effect, he has got Russia revolving around himself, and for the discomforts he has caused, the Russians have channels today for faith and patriotism. The “Communists” are gone but the essence of the old nomenklatura has been transformed into an ultra-nationalist and neo-imperial enterprise.
The public that has wished to take an interest in foreign affairs has plenty of information — responsible, valid, and reliable — for working, but large constituencies may only attend to so much in aggregate. I would not think of such as “ignorant masses” but rather people with families and jobs and struggles and worries of their own. They may find what they need to know WHEN it matters to them, when the dots circle back to their own interests, and they perceive that.
The stimulus for the response made note of the people voting Putin into power.
“As I have repeatedly said, it is not our fault that Russian – American relations are in that poor condition.”
If you’re a BackChannels regular or an enthusiast in political psychology, you know that the “malignant narcissist” — autocrat, bully, or dictator — is never wrong.
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”
Lest any forget, there’s plenty of reading at hand (these days: Amazon One-Click shopping may be the next best thing) for guarding against forgetting.
Posted by The Guardian, November 9, 2016.
BackChannels has framed contemporary conflict in terms of time, i.e., whether confronting Assad or, for a domestic example, the Ku Klux Klan, the modern person is actually rejecting the reappearance of the past in his own path.
For the most part, whether involving the aggressive Muslim Brotherhood aspect in contemporary Islam, the barbarism on display in Syria — and do “thank” Assad, Putin, and Khamenei for choosing that evil path — or the Russian invasion of Crimea, one is actually aiming the finger back at the world of Medieval Political Absolute Power, i.e., AKA the divine right of rule, rule by a presumptuously superior nature, rule by thuggery, and, most certainly, unquestionable authority, or authority beyond criticism and beyond law.
Putin : Medieval Political Absolutism
vs
Trump: Modern Democratic and Checked Distribution of Political Power
Choose.
Posted by VICE News, March 3, 2014.
While “western” political success and related productivity and affluence provide for western humanism and other aspects of idealism, “eastern” barbarism and suffering have left behind a world in which fear and insecurity appear to threaten those who should be in the most confident and secure of internal psychological states. Leadership in tribal cultures and states tend toward a winner-take-all — and loser-lose-all — position in their politics, and it may be that we mistake for a better politics and ennoble with the term “realpolitik”.
Our world pays a high price in general suffering — suffering associated horrors beyond imagining — for the emotional care and feeding of its “malignant narcissists” — its most damaged bad boys, the same that make themselves known as political and war criminals.
So:
Bashar al-Assad: war criminal?
Vladimir Putin: war criminal?
Ali Khamenei: political criminal?
As a class, dictators “exceed limits” — just as Muhammad warned 🙂 — and in doing so free themselves from other normative restraints while at the same time condemning themselves to remaining in political power at any cost (always to others).
In effect, the worlds of despots become worlds of political absolutes, and if for no other reason than the near impossibility of the retreat of their authors.
If over the past five years you had been a Syrian noncombatant, would you wish to see Bashar al-Assad a) remain in power, b) exiled, or c) hung in public?
If you had been swept off the streets of Tehran and dumped in Evin Prison (say for wearing that hijab a little to far to the back — or for being Baha’i or gay or western in outlook) , or if you had had family murdered by the Iranian regime, would you care to see Ali Khamenei’s term in power a) modified, b) truncated, c) “terminated with extreme prejudice”?
Has Putin a graceful retreat today — Syria was al-Assad’s war and armies, flyers especially, make mistakes; and Ukrainian autonomy was Khrushchev’s mistake, which was made with the confidence that Kiev would remain forever bent to Moscow?
Putin may have that.
And Trump may be wise to see that Putin, the Russian State, and the Russian People (of Russia proper) have that “out” — but to horse trade Ukraine, the European Union, the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
“Nyet” to all that!
(Liberal politics have come to mire judgment, unfortunately. Biography.com maintains a page titled “Political Criminals” but begs credulity by placing side-by-side J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon, both of whom may have exceeded some boundaries in power, with Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Fidel Castro, and Idi Amin all of whom plainly represent the most reckless of minds and murderous of despots).
Historian John Bew suggests that much of what stands for modern realpolitik today deviates from the original meaning of the term. Realpolitik emerged in mid-19th century Europe from the collision of the enlightenment with state formation and power politics. The concept, Bew argues, was an early attempt at answering the conundrum of how to achieve liberal enlightened goals in a world that does not follow liberal enlightened rules.
If, as the poet says, America is not the world, then the world is surely owed an apology for the lack of attention paid to what ought to have been, and are, a series of alarming developments throughout Europe and the Middle East. Perhaps appropriately, all have involved or implicated a revanchist authoritarian power for which the incoming commander in chief has repeatedly professed his admiration and which, after having done all it could to facilitate an upset American electoral outcome—“maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks,” as pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov put it Wednesday morning—offers its hearty congratulations on his victory. Meanwhile, Russia’s alleged “wet work” and maneuvering outside the United States in the last two weeks has been even more impressive.
And the other guy. And BackChannels hopes the “other guy” proves an American and very, very cool about it.
Despite the conservative grousing about it, we need our United Nations.
Despite “everything being negotiable” — but is everything really negotiable? — Syria needs peace and a program for detoxifying from old Soviet Era poison (including its famous promotion of anti-Semitism); and Ukraine needs to remain sovereign across all of its designated lands.
And NATO and the United States of America represent a necessary and unified concept for the defense of democracy and freedom in the world — real freedom, not state-approved bunk fashioned out of some idiot’s totalitarian mixture of intimidation and patronage.
As always with dictators, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” applies well to ethically, morally, and spiritually vacuous systems of power.
A fast glance online suggests that Stalin and Hitler hated one another and bought into their own heady non-aggression pact for practical (even if delusional) purposes.
Of course, in the BackChannels way of looking at some politics through the lens of related psychology (see “Malignant Narcissism” and other ideas in “Anthropolitical Psychology” on this blog), one may view Stalin and Hitler as two malignant narcissists explosively engaged with one another. It was not a pretty site, that World War II, but the basis for affinity between the two dictators in shared anti-Semitism, anger with the greater world (it’s always against them, non?), the “paranoid delusional reflection of motivation“, and so on may have less visibly bonded the two just as today Putin, Assad, and Khamenei would seem to have wildly different state interests while yet sharing in the creation of greater chaos, destruction, and injustice in the world (for confirmation, just ask any Syrian refugee you happen to meet).
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.
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.
The question was why mental illness seemed to be taking the murderous mad jihad direction — and answer had to do with the susceptibility of some to messages similar in medieval thought to that represented in this now well-known video featuring imam Farrokh Sekaleshfar and the ability to integrate that with their own problems.
Posted to YouTube by United West on April 6, 2016 in relation to the Orlando “mass casualty” attack by Omar Mateen, who was also known to the FBI.
As “lone wolves” keep turning out to be “known wolves”, it would seem sensible to review three dimensions of law: incitement and sedition — to both dampen the ardor with which some ideas are presented and to get them into discussion before a critical public; and detention of perhaps greater period to provide law enforcement with the time needed to caution or channel a “person of interest” and to investigate what is going on within a person who by way of speech and activity has thrown out a number of caution flags.
Focusing on aberrant medieval thought and extremism without attachment to affiliation allows moderate souls to formulate and choose moderate paths without the burden of defending against an aggressive and unnecessary demonization.
I would not want to make an enemy of someone who really isn’t my enemy _unless made out to be that way_.
Each seduced “Allahu Akbar terrorist” has the effect, of course, of tarring Muslims as a class and driving resident nationalist sentiment toward an extremism of its own.
McVeigh — a very different story — got a mention, but one might and perhaps should focus on the way he handled his grievances associated with the FBI ambush on the Koresh facility at Waco and the other long-argued-about shooting at Ruby Ridge.
Re. McVeigh — I might suggest that dictators and terrorists share this characteristics in their political psychological makeup or expression: “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” (https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/paranoid-delusional-narcissistic-reflection-of-motivation/) — where each takes upon himself a messianic mission to restore something damaged (I would call that “projected externalization of damage” — i.e., in McVeigh’s head, it’s not Timothy who has been damaged but the American Constitution — and he’s the hero who’s going to make the statement that addresses that by summarily engaging in mass murder.
Tsarnaev Brothers — same thing. In fact, we could probably go down a pretty good roster (let’s not leave out Brevik) and find out the key is less what we imagined as a class or division issue and much more a personal issue shared by very different individuals.
If I type as an apologist, it may be to keep the spotlight on the extremism and shared psychology but not necessarily to give each culture or subculture coughing up terrorists a free pass as strident ideas (‘this is what the book says . . . killing them now would be a mercy’) incite and apparently obligate that “narcissistic paranoid delusional” class of messianic murderers.
Moscow — post-Soviet, neo-feudal, neo-imperial — has invested its politics in a medieval view of the world with commensurate criminality and authoritarian state leadership. Some have in eastern Europe referred to Putin as “Putler”. Notably, Moscow will not designate either Hezbollah or Hamas as terrorists organizations to this day. In the Syrian theater, I believe ISIS was incubated deliberately to assault, bribe, and goad the west while also serving now and then for “target practice” using Russia’s latest war fighting technology.
In Turkey, Erdogan refuse to apologize to Putin for the downing of an aggressive Russian jet, but a few weeks ago, he turned around, issued his apology, then conducted a countercoup against a coup I believe he helped draw into action, and, not least, he has reengaged Moscow over a powerful energy project, “Turkish Stream”.
Using terrorism as a tool, and doing so by indirect manipulation — e.g., if one knows what ISIS wants to do, why not let it have its way and take advantage of its program? — Putin, no less than ISIS and others, has pushed the liberal democracies toward authoritarian nationalism, the natural reaction to assault by an alien force. Our problem is that while we have been focused on Islam or “islamist Islam” another monster — sometimes I call it the “Phantom of the Soviet” — has gotten to its feet.
Inspiration for the post:
Posted to YouTube 7/15/2016.
Continuation
I often feel I could do with a roundtable of Islamic and Russian Studies experts, conservative side, of course, to has the data and the conclusions I’ve drawn. Indeed, Putin knows that in the face of perceived (!) assaults from Islam, the traditional patriots of nations must rise to meet that threat. What he hides — or perhaps not so much as I write about it — is the effect that has on global politics as regards reinstalling a medieval and divisive mentality in modern states.
I do not wish to be at war with Muslim who have no desire to be at war with me. Most who are modern have now to demonize and repudiate al-Qaeda, Baghdadi, Hezbollah, Hamas and others as belonging to another and long gone age, and they have to find there way into a future that is not their past.
In place of that barbarism? — all those good RFE/RL values: classical liberalism for individuals; democracies that work; and fairness, responsiveness, and responsibility through all the mechanisms of government.
Putin has kept the architecture of the Soviet in place but changed its meaning (very Orwellian, that), but the end remains what is was for the Party: absolute power.
Moscow – Putin | Putin, Assad, Khamenei | Putin, Orban | Putin, Erdogan (never mind the superficial enmity and differences in “talk”) — supports political absolutism in relation to the malignant narcissism evident in the personalities of related leaders (like Orban, like Erdogan). For this reason, Putin has encourage both Far Left and Far Right political organizations and personalities; it is why his government has hosted PFLP (2014) and continues to refuse to condemn Hezbollah and Hamas. The form of power wanted by dictators — different talks: same walk — is the power to visit suffering on others with impunity. On the cheerful side of that 🙂 — the acquisition of unlimited narcissistic supply. Whatever the west’s own issues may be with business, corruption, and crime, the power-distributing and power-checking political systems threaten the “malignant narcissist” — the autocrat, the absolutist — and that’s really what their battles are about. The power of the special sovereign / great leader has its place in Russian history but is by no means confined to Russia. In fact, I think feudal despotism more the way of the world, even if one hopes not its only future, than checked-and-distributed political power, and that at least two NATO states feature illiberal autocrats as heads of state — Hungary and Turkey — tells what the argument is really about: i.e., Medieval Absolute Power vs Modern Checked and Distributed Power.
The paragraphs may grow shorter as I retype and recast BackChannels’ main themes.
Why do dictators do what they do?
Ah, pride — but pride that compensates and covers psychic injury. Terms of art may include the following:
Narcissistic mortification
Malignant and Reparative Narcissism — I would refer to this as “narcissistic pathing” or channeling.
Narcissistic Supply — that approving roar of the crowd.
Unlimited Narcissistic Supply — Ah, glorious, unless you have found yourself on the Great Leader’s wrong side, i.e., somewhere in the opposition.
BackChannels 