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Whoever finds a bad enemy finds treasure. The marauder in question, in these dramatic moments in Europe bordering on the war, is obviously Vladimir Putin, the Russian autocrat who is unleashing a hell of pain, death and oppression in Ukraine and at home. In these situations, after overcoming the bewilderment and the natural empathetic emotion towards those involved in the tragedy, our mind goes to try to understand that of the person responsible for this catastrophe.
I can imagine, putting together the historical data of Putin's political career, that he is suffering from a common, in such contexts, a condition of narcissistic suffering. This situation normally leads to compensating with a powerful false self a reality of fragility and mortified feeling of the real self. In general, significant narcissistic suffering stems from early experiences of poor care on the part of one or both parents or those who take their place. And so far there is not much new: such psychological characteristics are common to almost all characters fighting for dominance.
This suffering can be compensated by the exercise of power, which, acted with ever greater absolutism, guarantees the reverence of the submissive as a restorative meaning of the original narcissistic wound. Under such conditions, the psychic balance can remain stable for a certain period until something internal or external causes the house of cards painstakingly held together to collapse. And since this balance is always precarious, it is susceptible to well-aimed requests from those who aim to bring out the monster with all its wickedness.
Let's imagine that Putin, while not completely losing contact with reality, is projecting unconscious feelings of internal danger onto the Russian geopolitical situation. These may be related to a recurrence of the anguish of mental annihilation, a frequent condition in pathological narcissism, given by the fragility of the compensatory artificial self, which must be constantly punctuated by ever stronger meanings related to fiercely seized power. In this evocative dimension, we see a Putin left alone, abandoned to himself by those very representatives of Western power that he admires. And these, in addition to snubbing his throne as the new tsar of the boundless but marginal Russia, constantly threaten him with encirclement.
The Russian leader reveals a passion for nationalist and sovereign rhetoric. In fact, he has always been pleasantly accompanied by sleazy figures of the international right. The fascination of the strong man attracts because it compensates for an ineffective fatherly reference figure, unable to assume responsibility for ethical choices, often violent due to lack of authority. All fascisms and authoritarianism cultivate the myth of the strong man, which is obviously a projection of the real weakness of the male figure that we have experienced. It is from the desperate denial of the erotic attraction to the father figure in the Oedipal period, that the homophobic fury common to all conservative and fascist doctrines is realized.
What happens when the perfidious despot of what was the land of the October Revolution desperately tries to get noticed with bombs, missiles and tanks that attack the free state of Ukraine, is that all members of the Western world come together united under the banner of the good guys. The Americans, who for their part have done everything against the freedoms of others, invasion of sovereign states, overthrow of democratically elected political regimes that they did not like, support for fascist puppet governments that supported their political-economic interests, remote summary executions and much more, not caring highly about international law, have now become champions of the fight against Russian violence in Ukraine. Paradoxical in this regard is the entrustment of diplomatic negotiations between Russians and Ukrainians to the Turkish despot Erdogan, or to the Israelis, unable to resolve, except with violence and the violation of human rights, their eternal conflict with the Palestinians.
The tragedy of the war, paradoxically, is good for many, such as those Poles and Hungarians who have left thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and the suffering of the Middle Eastern world to die of hunger and cold in their neighboring forests, and who today dress as charitable and enthusiastic guests of Ukrainian refugees. It seems to be doing well even in the rooms of power of European countries, where right and fake left allied against warring Russians, no longer hesitate to flirt unconsciously, now clearly united in the sacred bond of heritage.
Putin is a criminal dictator, but he has been there for several years and has received the honors of many Western politicians. With Putin's Russia, commercial agreements have been made, collaborative initiatives have been taken in the political and cultural spheres, without ever placing the emphasis on the issue of the increasingly critical situation regarding the freedoms denied in the post-Soviet regime. What has made Westerners comfortable with the modern Russian situation is that the doors of liberal exploitation of resources had finally opened. For Western capitalism, a dictator has always been better, and many have been supported or packaged by the way, than a government that respects freedom and therefore attentive to the interests of the people.
Now, amidst the fumes of war and heated condemnations seasoned by increasingly harsh Western economic sanctions, perhaps we need to become aware of everyone's responsibilities, including Russian citizens who have repeatedly expressed their appreciation for the chauvinist, homophobic, misogynistic and anti-libertarian positions of their leader. No Stalin, Hitler or Putin could have done the disasters they did without the support, at least in part and at least for a period of their rise to power, of many who instead let themselves be fascinated by these profoundly dysfunctional characters.
For the reduction of damage, recognizing that the problem has never been addressed in the right measure, perhaps it would be useful to stop the war to comply with some Russian requests regarding the expansionist activities of NATO, an organization that would no longer have a reason to exist after the end of the counterpart that was the Warsaw Pact, if not as a military arm of Western capitalism.
For the defense of sovereign states and for peace, rather than creating an army of the European Union, again favoring the interests of part of the self-proclaimed good, an international organization of States that is truly equal, unlike the UN, would suffice, which can guarantee, even with force when necessary, respect for the rights of peoples, opposing any form of aggression or invasion.
But even more important, I think, is everyone working for the expansion of an ethic of power as an expression of true popular sovereignty, where it is not enough to be able to elect your dictator to define yourself as a democracy, as Western pseudo liberal democracies do.
There is an urgent need to develop an antimilitarist, tolerant and inclusive culture, favorable to dialogue and collaboration between peoples, the equitable distribution of resources and respect for the ecological needs of the planet that hosts us. A vision of the human condition that rejects the exploitation of man over man, the indiscriminate exploitation of common resources in favor of the wealth and power of increasingly greedy hoarders. We must have the courage to question the fundamental values of capitalism, used to determine the positive meaning of the self by more and more people manipulated by the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon Calvinist culture.
It is essential that there be awareness of the danger of concentrations of power over a few or individuals often affected by pathological narcissism. Characters who are particularly fascinating in their delusion of omnipotence, going to replace the damaged parental figure in their acclamators, but who in reality are highly destructive creatures, capable of sowing suffering and death as they go through history.
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