Putin: A Deteriorating Narcissistic Mind

[KingCrimson]

People are unwilling to educate themselves on the historical context of what is happening. They are clueless about how geopolitics works. They are not willing to self-reflect and examine their self-bias. They are not willing and/or able to question the information that is presented to them in the media. They are not willing to try to look at the situation objectively. They are not trying to understand different perspectives and the survival agendas of the parties involved. They are easy prey for the propaganda machines both in the West and in Russia.

Most people talking about this subject literally just repeat verbatim what they have read in a news article or heard on the radio. No independent thinking of any sort has occurred. This is true even for people who consider themselves educated, went to university etc. I am not surprised about this, but it is still mind-boggling to me how effectively propaganda is able to shape people's perception and opinions without them even realizing that this is happening.

This whole situation is incredibly complex and an "analysis" of "Putin is Hitler 2.0 who has gone completely off the rails and wants to reestablish the Soviet Union" is laughably shallow, naive and ignorant. To even be able to seriously hold such an opinion you have to be completely ignorant of what is actually going on. I can understand the appeal of it though. Good and evil are clearly separated, you just pick a side, engage in group-think and self-righteously shout together with the mob to bring Putin down. If you think the problem is as shallow as simply getting rid of Putin, you are completely deluded. Even if you could get rid of Putin without escalating the situation even further, what then? Another man like him will seize power, possibly someone even more authoritarian and violent than Putin.

If anything, this sort of unconsciousness and deliberate misunderstanding wiill only lead to more violence, more wars, more escalation, more money spent on weapons and military instead of schools and health care, less understanding and less less peace.

In Germany, we even have a derogatory term "Putinversteher", which translates literally to "Putin understander". Someone who understands, or tries to understand, Putin's perspective. And the people who use this term aggressively act like it's immoral in of itself even just to try to understand his perspective. How absurd is that? How can any form of diplomacy EVER work if I am not trying to understand where my opponent is coming from? How are we EVER to find peaceful solutions to conflicts of interest if we keep up the demonization and Good vs. Evil narrative?

There is a great old episode by Leo called "All criticism is untenable" which I would recommend everybody watch again and apply these lessons to the way in which they judge Putin and the situation in Ukraine as well as how they engage in debates on the issue.

 

[Husseinisdoingfine]

If the west didn’t expand NATO, none of this would have happened.

[DocWatts]

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Haha

Oh the irony...

Be careful that what you consider someone's psychosis is not just your self-bias and ignorance.

Calling Putin a psychopath is so fucking lazy.

Brings to mind bad takes I routinely hear for someone like Hitler, where the analysis stops and ends at calling him Evil, without attempting to understand the socio-ideological context that motivated Hitler to do the things that he did. Jordy P had a really bad take along these lines, if I recall.

I don't understand why it's so hard to grok that people can (and often do) horrific things for sober, rational reasons. Reasons that are defined by the rules of the 'Game' that they're engaged in, which is really just another way of referencing the banality of evil.

To take another example that deserves to be more well known, it explains why someone like King Leopold II of Belgium could sleep soundly at night despite being responsible for 10 million deaths in the Congo. After all he wasn't setting out to commit a genocide bigger than the Holocaust, he just wanted to make boatloads of money under the rules of the game of Capitalism.

Edited March 6, 2022 by DocWatts

[Ulax]

1 hour ago, KingCrimson said:

People are unwilling to educate themselves on the historical context of what is happening. They are clueless about how geopolitics works. They are not willing to self-reflect and examine their self-bias. They are not willing and/or able to question the information that is presented to them in the media. They are not willing to try to look at the situation objectively. They are not trying to understand different perspectives and the survival agendas of the parties involved. They are easy prey for the propaganda machines both in the West and in Russia.

Most people talking about this subject literally just repeat verbatim what they have read in a news article or heard on the radio. No independent thinking of any sort has occurred. This is true even for people who consider themselves educated, went to university etc. I am not surprised about this, but it is still mind-boggling to me how effectively propaganda is able to shape people's perception and opinions without them even realizing that this is happening.

This whole situation is incredibly complex and an "analysis" of "Putin is Hitler 2.0 who has gone completely off the rails and wants to reestablish the Soviet Union" is laughably shallow, naive and ignorant. To even be able to seriously hold such an opinion you have to be completely ignorant of what is actually going on. I can understand the appeal of it though. Good and evil are clearly separated, you just pick a side, engage in group-think and self-righteously shout together with the mob to bring Putin down. If you think the problem is as shallow as simply getting rid of Putin, you are completely deluded. Even if you could get rid of Putin without escalating the situation even further, what then? Another man like him will seize power, possibly someone even more authoritarian and violent than Putin.

If anything, this sort of unconsciousness and deliberate misunderstanding wiill only lead to more violence, more wars, more escalation, more money spent on weapons and military instead of schools and health care, less understanding and less less peace.

In Germany, we even have a derogatory term "Putinversteher", which translates literally to "Putin understander". Someone who understands, or tries to understand, Putin's perspective. And the people who use this term aggressively act like it's immoral in of itself even just to try to understand his perspective. How absurd is that? How can any form of diplomacy EVER work if I am not trying to understand where my opponent is coming from? How are we EVER to find peaceful solutions to conflicts of interest if we keep up the demonization and Good vs. Evil narrative?

There is a great old episode by Leo called "All criticism is untenable" which I would recommend everybody watch again and apply these lessons to the way in which they judge Putin and the situation in Ukraine as well as how they engage in debates on the issue.

 

Bro, your comment is literally full of criticism lmao

[KingCrimson]

55 minutes ago, Ulax said:

Bro, your comment is literally full of criticism lmao

Obviously. What's your point? Did you even watch the video in its entirety? 

[Lyubov]

3 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

If the west didn’t expand NATO, none of this would have happened.

If Russia wasn’t a corrupt security concern for all the smaller countries around it that willfully and freely joined NATO for their own protection none of this would have happened. 

It cuts both ways. The thing is the whole “Russia wouldn’t have invaded if NATO...” was kinda vindicated when Putin set up a narrative in his 45 minute speech where he basically wanted to rebuild the Russian empire, not even the Soviet Union. So whose to say they wouldn’t eventually have had imperialist intentions some 30 odd years later after the Soviet Union and hypothetically, NATO, ended in lockstep. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Lyubov

[PurpleTree]

2 hours ago, Lyubov said:

If Russia wasn’t a corrupt security concern for all the smaller countries around it that willfully and freely joined NATO for their own protection none of this would have happened. 

It cuts both ways. The thing is the whole “Russia wouldn’t have invaded if NATO...” was kinda vindicated when Putin set up a narrative in his 45 minute speech where he basically wanted to rebuild the Russian empire, not even the Soviet Union. So whose to say they wouldn’t eventually have had imperialist intentions some 30 odd years later after the Soviet Union and hypothetically, NATO, ended in lockstep. 

Exactly, it's not like NATO forced these countries to join.

They wanted to join because they don't trust Russia imo

[Ulax]

10 hours ago, Loba said:

@Ulax I know, right?  Talk about a soap box...

Soap box?

[Ulax]

@Loba I seeee

[Ulax]

@Loba You've lost me again lol

[Scholar]

On 6.3.2022 at 6:19 AM, Leo Gura said:

Just because someone has a different survival agenda than you does not make them a psychopath.

You guys are starting to disappoint me with your flagrant self-bias.

This reminds me of a rube who goes to China and calls them psychopaths for eating dogs.

I am also deeply disappointed how you engage with challenges to your view. You simply reassert what you say instead of making any effort to justify it, and you focus on making it look like you hold the truth rather than truly giving insight into your perspective and how it emerged. That to me is a very unconscious way of engaging with these topics. You seem to justify alot of your perspective by making assumptions and judgements of others. So when I ask you to justify things, you will not actually respond and give me an indepth reason for your perspective (which I now think does not even exist), but rather you will find ways to undermine someone else, without even engaging with their ideas.

That to me is lazy. When I see you engage on this forum I see someone who is fighting for truth, who is fighting to be right, rather than clarifying your perspective and attempting to understand the perspectives of others. You already assume that your position is superior, and then you argue that yours is right because clearly it is superior.

 

I think you don't like to frame things that you believe as perspective because it undermines your perceived monopoly to truth. That is why you focus on judging others rather than exploring their perspectives and clarifying yours. You dismiss others, rather than actually engaging with them and their perspectives.

Another indicator for this is that you cannot walk away and agree to disagree with someone. You don't accept that someone else might have a perspective that is valid even though it is not your own. You insist that they are wrong and then tell them the reasons for why they are wrong which are assumptions you make about, even if you can't really justify your own position. For example you will say "What you are saying is wrong because you are biased", instead of actually explaining to them why you disagree with it.

Notice the language you use. You never say "I disagree with this because of the following reasons, that is my perspective".

You say: "This is stupid, and here is why you are too stupid and biased to see that this is the case."

 

This is a very inflammatory way of going about this imo, and it shows me that you are more interested in establishing your own perspective as truth rather than simply giving us your perspective and exploring others. You want to brute force your perspective on others, by means of dismissal, character attacks and establishing your superiority.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Scholar

[SQAAD]

@Loba

17 hours ago, Loba said:

@SQAAD I used to use that guy's advice when working through PTSD and he's legit, he gives good advice and has a very good understanding of the human mind.  I'll make notes for people on Monday when I have some free time so if they don't go through the vid, they can at least catch an idea of what he was trying to say.

I do believe that Putin has some sort of power-hungry disorder.  You can see it in his eyes; the eyes are the windows to the soul.  There's very little soul in there, it looks closed off  - he looks like someone who uses their mind too much, and doesn't feel enough.  This is however speculation, but I can read eyes pretty well.

How this war plays out will determine a lot in understanding this dude's mental state, we are all, mostly speculating at this point - but it's been a trend, you know... that people who engage in warfare are kinda nuts.  A lot of dictators ended up being mentally not very leveled out.  So it makes sense to predict that he wouldn't be the exception to the rule.  

Putin is definitely Insecure af. It's very easy to tell. Just look at the surgeries on his face. He is 70 but looks 55 from all those plastic surgeries. Also he is not a very happy guy. No amount of money and power can substitute for spiritual development and lack of connection to God. 

He acts all macho and tough but he is deeply terrified of his self image crumbling into pieces. 

He is so delusional that he thinks he is the entire Russia and not just a mere small part of Russia. 

I think this war gives him a meaning in his sad existence. It fuels his ego in twisted ways. 

He has some good intentions but his intentions are based on Delusion. 

He wants to unite Ukraine with Russia but most Ukrainians find him despicable after this invasion. He is not gonna win the hearts of Ukrainians as his delusional mind initially thought. 

This whole narrative that he is saving Ukrainians from neonazis or whatever is just laughable. 

[Scholar]

Also notice how Leo will never just state his position, he will always include some invalidation of other perspectives.

[zurew]

@Scholar I think what he wants to achieve here, is that he doesn't want to take any limited position that has been provided.  I think the reason for that, is that he wants to see this issue from as many sides as possible. If he takes up one position, he will operate from that view, but if he leaves it open, he can search for more.

The "tearing down other people's positions and ideas" has its own purpose, but i can be wrong about that, the purpose could be that he wants to incourage us all, to not be lost in any position and be open to explore more and more, to have a more total view of the happenings. Of course this could maybe done better by attacking the content itself not the structure.

I think you have a point there, where you said something about really engaging with the points and not invalidating the whole structure where the content placed in. The point would be to recognise all the assumptions we operate from to understand this issue, and then switch up the fundamental ones, to see other perspectives.

[SQAAD]

@Epikur

23 hours ago, Epikur said:

Maybe people calling Putin some labels are projecting.

Most guys here are not educated in history and it shows. 

Putin is a function of the deep state. They do not bring people 
against their interests. If Putin would be soft on Ukraine he would
probably be taken down.

You have that also in the USA. If the President would become communist
or too soft in foreign affairs he would probably be taken down.

 

I think you are conflating some things which are not the same. 

Of course for Putin to remain in power he has to play a certain game. 

But I don't think he had to invade Ukraine. Noone would Punish him for not invading Ukraine. Noone was forcing him to do that. 

Maybe he fears NATO forces greatly but this fear is delusional. 

NATO is too conscious to attack Russia for no good reason. 

Putin will be taken down because he began this whole  non sensical war. He made the biggest mistake of his life. 

Watch how this war backfires on him the over next few years. 

 

[Scholar]

53 minutes ago, zurew said:

@Scholar I think what he wants to achieve here, is that he doesn't want to take any limited position that has been provided.  I think the reason for that, is that he wants to see this issue from as many sides as possible. If he takes up one position, he will operate from that view, but if he leaves it open, he can search for more.

The "tearing down other people's positions and ideas" has its own purpose, but i can be wrong about that, the purpose could be that he wants to incourage us all, to not be lost in any position and be open to explore more and more, to have a more total view of the happenings. Of course this could maybe done better by attacking the content itself not the structure.

I think you have a point there, where you said something about really engaging with the points and not invalidating the whole structure where the content placed in. The point would be to recognise all the assumptions we operate from to understand this issue, and then switch up the fundamental ones, to see other perspectives.

I disagree with that, I think he is not very open-minded to the possibility that Putin's character is a causal factor for this conflict. He dismissed that possibility because he views it as a "low consciousness and lazy" way of looking at things. That is in a certain sense fair, but someone can come to that conclusion for other reasons than laziness and low consciousness. He doesn't actually engage in that, and he is not even interested in hearing perspectives of others. He is creating his own narrative imo, and then he dismisses others based on that narrative.

In a way I think you are far too charitable to Leo, my interactions with him give me a very different sense and perception of what he is doing.

Whenever I engage with him he doesn't really engage with my ideas, explore my perspective or explain his perspective. Rather he just finds ways to dismiss it and leave the conversation.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Scholar

[hello1234]

@Scholar Leo is incredibly abusive and bullying towards the people on this forum. Most people’s relationship with actualized.org is similar to that of an abusive relationship - in an abusive relationship usually the abuser also brings something “good” to the table. The victim then excuses abusive behaviour due to those “good” things about the abuser.

Perhaps that is why he is so anti psychology, because if you study psychology and mental disorders, you can see straight through his abuse and narcissistic traits.

Majority of the followers here are also traumatized. They are used to being abused so this is not unusual for them.  Many also display various sadistic traits so if anything, they admire Leo’s bullying behaviour and even praise it.

[hello1234]

22 hours ago, Scholar said:

I think he is not very open-minded to the possibility that Putin's character is a causal factor for this conflict

He didn’t watch the videos and I asked him 3 times whether he knows anything about personality disorders and he just dodged the questions. How can you dismiss something you have no clue about? What does it say about the person who does this?

The stance he is taking on the russia invading Ukraine situation, blaming NATO, might feel “unique” to people here, but it’s just a classic russian propaganda. 

I saw some of the videos Leo recommends and it just made me see he is completely clueless himself - I remember watching a documentary on putin a few years ago, it was filmed so well, that even I started feeling sorry for him and like he was a good guy - with all the assassinations attempts on him and how he “helped a friend”. But I am not a gullible idiot and I understand that with the right spin you can even portray Hitler as a good guy and a “victim”.

Again, it all boils down to him not understanding stage red and how evil and vicious it will be in hiding the truth. You should never believe anything putin says, he is a great actor and very good at hiding his emotions, many gullible people will get fooled by that - putin definitely has fooled millions.

Conscious people who live in post Soviet countries are very skeptical of everything their politicians say in an “it’s all lies anyways” way. People in the west are more privileged in that politicians are a lot more honest and less corrupt. The problem is you can’t take that naive big eyed western approach when judging russian politics, it’s just laughable.

Edited March 8, 2022 by hello1234