kravietz 🦇 on Nostr: Overall, I think #Putin’s problems are merely a symptom of something much bigger ...

Overall, I think #Putin’s problems are merely a symptom of something much bigger – we are currently witnessing a convergence of some of the world’s political systems towards chaotic behaviour.

Putin, Trump and the European (including Polish) right-wing parties are making moves that are absurd from the perspective of their countries’ interests and contrary to the political systems they profess to uphold. The absurdity is, however, only apparent, because their actions are driven by forces far more powerful than politics – namely, the personal networks of deals and dependencies they have built up over the years, initially only ‘tactically’, to gain a ‘momentary political advantage’, ‘for a just cause’ and ‘for a short while’.

Now, however, the personal obligations and these hidden debts incurred by each of them towards various powerful interest groups have taken control of their decision-making process, plunging them into a spiral of decisions, every one of which is wrong, because the interests of these groups are by no means consistent with one another.

On top of this come systemic cognitive biases and all manner of other psychological phenomena, which only become apparent once we manage to ‘identify the leaders’ – for one of the hallmarks of impersonal democracy is precisely the systemic elimination of these cognitive biases, which are typical of systems based on specific individuals. There is no point in looking for any logic here or constructing ‘5D chess’ scenarios.

Putin prolonging a war which he is not only failing to win but actually seems to have fallen into some sort of catatonia, making one worse decision after another.
Americans electing Trump only for his approval rating to plummet to 30% after a year… This same President Trump threatens Iceland, instigates trade wars and nearly triggers a civil war in the US, then plays on the EU’s disintegration, tolerating Putin and supporting Orbán… and then starting a war with Iran. This is a fascinating example of an agent of chaos, taken almost straight from the novel ‘Illuminatus!’ (who remembers it?).
President Nawrocki and the DSA, cryptocurrency and SAFE vetoes, which are suicidal for Polish interests. The Polish right publicly supporting the pro-Putin and homophobic Orbán, side by side with the German revisionist Alice Weidel, who lives in a same-sex relationship – all these are fascinating symptoms of a global political system entering a chaotic phase.

And the more the ‘system fails’ (though it is no longer a system at all, but merely personal cliques), the more societies panic and instinctively… seek ‘strong leaders’. And here appears a powerful feedback loops, see above about the cognitive biases.

The consequences of this process are unpredictable precisely because the actions of its actors are not guided by any ideologies or rational considerations, but by forces hidden for decades beneath the surface of global politics, previously suppressed by the system.

Rationalism and the rule of law are just one of many ways of organising human societies – they yield the best results, but they are neither the only nor the easiest. For they require discipline, from us – politicians and voters alike. Without this discipline, a rational state slides merrily into the realm of chaos, the beginnings of which we are currently witnessing, and whose next stage could be mass violence on a 20th-century scale.

Of course, the fact that the entire system is gravitating towards such a chaotic phase transition does not mean it must inevitably descend into it – as in any dynamic system, the state of the system is the result of the complex interactions between its components. In other words, discipline in the application of the principles of rational politics can halt or slow down this process.

P.S. I have not mentioned the Left so far simply because the global Left drifted off into the realm of chaos a long time ago – the very concept of the left defending the religious, authoritarian, oppressive and extremely misogynistic regimes of Hamas and the IGRC is exactly the same level of absurdity as ultraconservative Ordo Iuris ranting about traditional values alongside Alice Weidel or Orbán 😆 The reasons behind this process are exactly the same as those on the right – magical thinking, ‘tactical alliances’ and ‘moral compromises’.