Greater domestic oppression synced with the invasion of Ukraine and further augmented the widespread sense that Russia, already the world’s largest country, deserves territory far beyond its gargantuan reach. State-sanctioned support for outbursts of aggression against minorities also increased, with laws legitimising domestic violence against women and attacks on the LGBTQ community. The Putin-Leader propaganda ramped up after his return to the Presidency in 2012, and in the wake of protests that demanded an end to authoritarianism and daily humiliation from officials. With Putin there’s the kitsch, the shirtless photographs… What is interesting is that this doesn’t make him any less dangerous, and in a certain way makes him more so.” “It’s as though all these categories like ego weakness and secondary narcissism resurface today, but with a nudge and wink. “It’s hard not to think of ‘the second time as farce’ when relating this to Putin” says Cohen. Putin is often described approvingly in that way, with his propaganda machine actively elevating him as a father-leader figure above politics, with the whole panoply of macho images that feature the President riding bare-chested on horses. The TV would also often reiterate the well-worn trope of how Russians needed a “strong hand” to guide them, a disciplinarian that protects and punishes. Read More: Navalny Urges Biden to Stand Up to Putin Interestingly Dicks saw the Nazi insistence on a ‘Lebensraum’, the vast territories in Ukraine and Eastern Europe the Nazis claimed as theirs, partly as a compensation for this cycle of frustrated recognition and humiliation: a geopolitical demand born not merely out of ‘rational self interest’, but out of irrational ‘secondary narcissism’ Irrational spurts of aggression were a way to deal with the sense of inadequacy. Deifying impossibly perfect mother figures, and then attacking any women who failed to live up to that, was a common accompaniment. The ensuing weak sense of individual agency lead to a search for strong leaders and identification with an all-encompassing, abstract nation-family. I’ve been pouring over Dick’s archives for a new book on World War II propaganda, and asked the practicing psychoanalyst and University of London Professor of Literature Josh Cohen to help me make sense of them-and their relevance today with Russia.ĭicks found that what dominated among German soldiers, and especially those who liked the Nazis, was a weird relationship with authoritarian, often abusive and frequently absent father figures, with the child simultaneously humiliated by them and yearning for acceptance. Dicks wanted to work out the well-springs of the Nazi mindset, and where it resonated with other Germans. At the end of World War II the British psychiatrist Henry Dicks conducted a series of in-depth interviews with German POWs selected to represent different German social segments. Such constant references to family relations make me think that other motivations could be relevant here: could even a touch of psychoanalysis help inform the geopolitical analysis?
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