Can Russia Be More Evil?

CAN RUSSIA BE MORE EVIL?

I want you to imagine Russia, not as it is today—a horrible bastion of all that is evil and wrong with the world—but as it might yet be in the future, a Russia still worse than it is today. I want you to imagine a Russia, in other words, that may very well come to be should we choose to turn a blind eye to what is occurring at this instant under our very noses.

Imagine a Russia that is indifferent to international law and dismissive of the United Nations and the principles of international democracy. I’m talking now of a rogue nation that feels it is free from any obligation other than pursuing its own interests, not too unlike Germany in the 1930’s. Imagine a Russia that feels itself obliged to transform the world according to its own desires.

Imagine a world where Russian oligarchs use brute force combined with clandestine manipulation in order to advance an agenda that not only harms the world but the Russian people themselves. A world where cruelty and harshness are rationalized as a path towards progress.

Imagine if Russia began to throw its weight around, that it supposed itself the chosen nation uniquely qualified to lead all other nations. Suppose Russia came up with a grand design and called it Project For A New Russian Century. How would it make you feel, as an American, if the governments of every other nation were told that they must model their governments on the Russian model? It’s a scary thought, isn’t it?

Now just imagine that Russia had persuaded the world that it needed to invade Iraq because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And imagine what would be the world’s response if after they had invaded Iraq they were forced to admit the very reason for their war was a false one. Keep in mind I’m not saying Russia is this bad yet, but they very well might be if given the chance. (Please remember to note your feelings and reactions to what you are presented with).

Imagine one day turning on your television and seeing images of Russian soldiers smiling as they force Iraqi prisoners naked onto piles so that they can take pictures with them. I know it is hard to believe human beings—even Russians—can behave in such a manner, but I assure you it is possible. Nazi Germany is proof that anything is possible.

If given the chance, Russia might be capable of many horrible things. They might sponsor and arm religious extremists in a country neighboring the United States, let us call it Hondurastan, in order to overthrow a government that is friendly to the U.S. And after overthrowing the Hondurastani government, they would leave it in the hands of religious extremists. Such religious extremists and terrorists would be capable of almost anything, such as blowing up buildings in Russia. At which point Russia would use it as an excuse to invade that country that is in the vicinity of the U.S. And it would not only invade the country, ostensibly to defend itself, but also build a permanent military presence there. Just imagine a fifteen year Russian occupation of a nation halfway across the world! We must never let such a thing happen.

Russians would not be stationed in Hondurastan only but they would build military bases throughout Central America, which they would claim to need in order to deal with the Hondurastan situation. And even these would only be but more links in the chain of military outposts surrounding our country. It’s frightening to think of, isn’t it? It seems only fitting that we would do most anything to prevent such a situation from ever occurring.

I want to remind you that these are purely hypothetical scenarios and should not be provoking emotional responses. If they are, please note them for me.

Imagine if Russia was helping to incite riots in Canada in order to overthrow their Democratically elected government. Such a thing might be possible if Russia is permitted to believe it will not be held accountable. And imagine if Russia felt it was their right to choose who was to be the next Prime Minister of Canada after Justin Trudeau was forced to flee for his very life. Just suppose that the government that took the place of the democratically elected one was filled with fascists and Nazi sympathizers, and that the nation broke apart between French and English speaking Canadians. How would that make you feel?

What other mischief might Russia be up to if we don’t set limits for them? They could form a military alliance that would include virtually every nation in North America, and not let the United States join.

It wouldn’t stop there. Just imagine for a moment Vladimir Putin deciding it was his right to get rid of leaders in other nations. Can you not see the evil smile on his face as he turned to the camera and said something like “We came, we saw, he died.” Doesn’t it just send shivers down your spine?

Ooh, and imagine, just imagine if Putin held an election he was supposed to win but instead Russia voted for a buffoonish oligarch rather than choose such an awful man. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to cling to power by insisting that the United States had influenced the election, as if we would ever do such a thing. Of course, Putin would not offer a scrap of evidence to the American government, such contempt does he have for us. That is the way evil dictators rule, by distracting the masses with imagined threats from foreign enemies.

Imagine if Russia were to accuse the U.S. of interfering in the French election and thereby influencing the French election. And imagine if shortly after the election French authorities were to report there was no evidence of U.S. interference in their election. Ooh, wouldn’t Vladimir Putin have egg on his face then. The U.S. media would have a field day with that, and rightly so.

I could go on, imagining a theoretical Russia that withdrew from international accords on global warming, a Russia where its law enforcement officers killed ethnic minorities with impunity, or a Russia that has more incarcerated citizens than any other nation in the world, but I think you get my point.

You know how our media and our politicians would make hay out of Russia being guilty of any of the above-mentioned scenarios. In short, if we had the goods on the Russians the way we have on our own government, you can sure as hell bet we wouldn’t be relying on anonymous sources from agencies that were involved in all of the crimes I have just asked you to imagine Russia committing. As it is, we have talking heads saying with certainty that Russia is guilty of so much, and yet on those rare occasions where they feel proof needs to be proffered, they can only refer to those agencies guilty of far worse than even they dare pin on Russia.

Did I mention that Russia’s media is nothing more than a subservient tool of their government yet?

Thank you for participating in my little experiment. I would appreciate feedback, as I’d really like to bridge the gap between those who see things differently than I do. I want to know if my observations and my ability to see things from a perspective other than the one dictated by our media (and our secretive governmental agencies that infiltrate our media) can be responded to in a rational manner. I believe myself nothing if not one who is able to be swayed by facts strung together by a compelling narrative. If you can provide such a fact-based narrative, I would be very appreciative. Otherwise, you can still be of service by telling me how reading this has made you feel.

The Id (Capitalism), The Ego (Government) and Superego (Spirituality)

Part 1: Id, Ego, Superego

Note: If you believe yourself quite familiar with Sigmund Freud’s concepts, please skip to Part 2.

Sigmund Freud explained the three guiding aspects of an individual: the id, the ego, and the superego. For those of you unfamiliar or in need of a refresher, allow me to give a brief rundown of what those different aspects of our personalities are all about.

The typical human develops three different aspects of his personality as he grows to adulthood. The id is with us early in our childhood, the ego arises later, and finally, the superego is developed.

The id is the animal aspect of our psyche. The id wants what it wants when it wants it. The id never does without, never contradicts itself, is always looking to satisfy its needs. The id never stops eating just because it feels it’s had enough. It gets out of bed when it damn well pleases, and it doesn’t share its toys with anyone.

The id does not care about anyone else, does not care about another’s feelings or about such nebulous concepts as fairness. There is, perhaps, an element of kindness to the id, and he might be perfectly willing to share, so long as his every need has already been met. If the id cannot conceive of a personal desire it can satisfy in a particular situation, the id might seem like a decent fellow. But if you are standing in the way of what the id desires, watch out.

The id seems like a very horrible person, or aspect of a person, doesn’t he? Nevertheless, he is very real, honest. The id will never lie to you, would never feel the need to. The id is simply not that sophisticated, not capable of being aware of how others might perceive it.

The ego arises out of the realities that the id faces. The id goes full speed ahead, seeking to conquer all that is in its way. But as the id is the only impulse of a child, and a child has limited means to satisfy his urges, the child is quickly taught, often brutally, that the whims of the id must be tempered if he doesn’t want to encounter pain and other harsh responses to his pushiness. The ego, then, realizes there are forces other than itself to contend with. The ego still does not care about others, not in any real sense, but it realizes that other people have wills of their own. The ego keeps the id in check, at least when others are watching. The ego overrides the id in order to save both of them from an ass-whipping.

But while the id acts solely from internal impulses, the ego acts in reaction to what the external world expects of him. The ego does not let id jump of a rooftop because he knows the ground is stronger than the body both id and ego inhabit. The ego restrains you from grabbing the last pork chop because it knows your big brother will make you regret that decision. Ego is no angel, but he knows enough to bow to authority.

Ego is necessary for id to survive. Id exists without ego when a child is quite young because that child is also quite weak. When the child gets to a certain age he is capable of creating a degree of havoc. The older and more powerful that child becomes the more necessary it is for that child to develop an ego to keep id in line so that he does not become a threat to others around him. The greater a threat he becomes, the greater the desire for others to do something in order to feel safe from it. If a child wishes to grow past a certain point, he will have to develop an ego to keep him in balance with the outside world.

As I said, the ego is developed in reaction to the outside world and its authority over him. And to a child, the outside world and authority primarily means a child’s parents. Thus, the ego is akin to an internal parental voice telling the child what is and what is not acceptable, what will and will not warrant punishment.

Lastly, as a child develops into a man, the superego arises. Where once the child saw morality as an external force in the form of parents, he now begins to internalize these moral influences, fashioning a morality of his own. From the examples given by his mother, father, older family members, teachers, and others, he synthesizes his own moral perspective. To the degree a child is able to do this, to find rational ways to cope with his ego and separate himself from the influence of others, he becomes an adult. Since humans are imperfect, nobody is ever able to completely make his id behave in socially acceptable ways. Nor are we able to completely rid ourselves of the biases we’ve learned from our parents and others role models. There is no such thing as the perfectly healthy individual, but most of us make that transition from child to adult in a rather successful fashion.

Part 2: The Market, The Government, And Spirituality

Society is not all that different from the individuals that comprise it: how could it be? Human desires and aspirations are merely played out on a larger stage. What drives the individual drives the society in which he finds himself. And what allows the individual to function also allows a society to survive and prosper. The difference being that fatal flaws in a society are easier to spot, and harder to change. And where an immoral person might actually live prosperously his whole life, the moral weaknesses of a society will inevitably lead to its downfall.

So if the society is not that different from the individuals comprising it, might not we view the psyche of a society—if such a thing exists—the same we view a person’s?

Can society be said to have an id? If the id does exist in society it exists in the market, where every need is capable of being satisfied, for a price. It is to the id, after all, to which advertising appeals. Ad men are always working on ways to circumvent the conscious mind in order to appeal to the more deeply rooted, less rational part of your mind. The goal is to get you to desire while suppressing the rational part of you that would find reasons why not to buy what they are selling.

While we mostly think of the market as providing useful goods, let us not forget the dark side of the market, which provides sex slaves, drugs, and murder for hire. The market is the province of the id: pizza, Cheetos, Ho Hos, Twix Bars. All to satisfy the most primitive of urges. Sports cars, widescreen TVs, McMansions: all to feed the insatiable hunger inside you. None of these things are necessary, none are really healthy for the individual let alone the society.

The market is the most primitive means of human interaction, where people go to acquire what they want and need. There are no rules to the market, it is merely every man for himself.

But the market does not work so well in satisfying all of society's needs. Our earliest ancestors must have known that, must have seen that the market was just a sublimated form of violence where the rich took from the poor as the powerful take from the weak. And so they created rules, limiting what could take place in the market. Thus was the societal ego born, a parental voice that sat above the id and made it behave in ways that were conducive to the health of the overall society, and not just those who had economic might. The ego could take the form of either the mother or the father. The father was a government capable of punishing wrongdoers and rewarding those who played by the rules. The mother was a government that helped to care for those who were helpless.

But the government—the ego—was an imperfect tool for directing the id. For one, it often squashed the id’s desire to satisfy itself, making for a very unhappy id and very unhappy people who wished to create wealth through the market. On the other hand, it often took on the more negative aspects of a parent: the father could be quite cruel and demanding in his rule-making and dishing out of justice, the mother could be smothering and unwilling to let her children reach independence.

And thus was born the super-ego, aka, spirituality. I’m talking here about something distinct from primitive religion. While religion was tied to government since its earliest forms, it was a religion whose stress was not on spirituality but on the outer trappings. Religion, as far as it related to government, became just another extension of the ego: a mother god or father god who gave forth a series of rules to be obeyed while threatening punishment for those who transgressed.

No, spirituality was a different aspect of the societal psyche. Spirituality found expression in art and in religious associations that were separate from the government. The superego was capable of viewing society as it could be and was not hampered by the model that ego had created. Ego was most unhappy with the way superego made it feel small, and so tried to suppress it or coopt it, but spirituality has always found a way to show itself.

In our finest examples of civilization, the communal superego was able to express itself in all aspects of society. While the cathedrals of Europe might have been testaments to the authority of the church, there was much more to it than that. The very beauty and even fragility of them spoke to a love of something beyond power. Stained glass windows exist for beauty’s sake alone, not as an expression of power.

When the superego is allowed to develop in a healthy manner, the arts blossom, justice encompasses a larger portion of the population, and wealth is spread around more equitably. The more we are capable of developing a societal superego, spirituality, the more stable and healthy a society we will have.

Spirituality is nowhere to be seen nowadays. As for government, it exists only to serve the market. Where once we built great edifices that bore the names of statesmen or religious leaders, what we build now bear the names of corporations. The id (the market), has not only bubbled up to encompass the government, which has become nothing more than the market’s serving boy, but has drowned the spirit. The arts are dead. Superficially they may appear to be bursting out in many directions but their ability to reflect the times we are living in, let alone direct them, put the lie to appearances. Churches have been largely abandoned by a population that longs for distraction rather than reflection or immersion. The churches today that are thriving seem mainly to preach the gospel of the market.

And of course, the government is now firmly in the hands of the wealthiest, those who view profit as the greatest gift society can bestow upon an individual. Those who are elected to office themselves often rail against government in favor of the free market. It would seem that the government’s central purpose is to clear the way of all impediments to the markets. What passes for morality is something akin to Aleister Crowley’s tenant “Do what thou wilt.”

This is the answer we’re given, that the id should be the driving force, that we only need obey the id’s desires and we shall live in the best of all possible worlds. This is the story we are told because there is no institution of ego or superego with a powerful enough voice to make itself be heard over the voices of the market. Turn on your television and see who speaks through it. Programming is something that exists only as a delivery system for advertisers. TV programs are the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.

Society has always been based upon a three-legged foundation, each leg needing to be strong in order to keep it propped up. But now we have the one leg doing its best to whittle away at the other two, fearing the limiting power they possess. Balance has been lost.

Tell me if I am wrong. Point out to me where art nowadays speaks to our deepest yearnings. Tell me that money worship is not rampant in popular music. Show me religious leaders who hold sway among the general population, philosophers of note, or social critics who don’t pander to the all-powerful id. Point out to me where President Trump is something more than a man-child, an overgrown id. While he may have his moments of tough-talk like an authoritarian father figure, I can’t help thinking he does this merely to get attention as a young child might act up in order to get mommy and daddy to notice him. I truly believe that he lacks even a well-functioning ego, for that at least would force him to become aware of how he is perceived by the outside world.

And as for the leader of our nation possessing a superego, please point out a single instance where Trump has shown even a hint of it. Have you ever seen Trump and a book in the same picture? Any pictures of him at the symphony? Have you ever heard him quote a philosopher, author or religious leader? Wouldn’t you like to think that the leader of the most powerful nation in the world might ruminate over ideas from Mahatma Gandhi, William Shakespeare, or Ralph Waldo Emerson, so that they might occasionally intermingle with events of today and pop out of his mouth instead of words like bigly?

It is impossible today to say anything bad about the capitalist system we have without being attacked by all sides. Do so, and you will be said to be a supporter of Stalin. The same tired tropes will be hauled out: socialism has failed, big government is bad, etc. All such arguments are founded on an absolute perspective and do not address the issue of balance. This is the point I bring up, that one aspect of our society, the crudest and basest of the three, reigns supreme. It has ridden a wave of immense prosperity that was the result of a rather balanced mixture of id, ego, and superego. The mere existence of a competing economic and political system, The Soviet Union, forced us to check our most animalistic impulses. But prosperity and now a loss of a threat have allowed us to regress into an infantile state. Issues requiring intelligent thought now receive no more than childish answers.

We as a society have lost the finest attributes that have made societies throughout history powerful and successful. This is no adult society we are in but one like a child sucking its thumb and demanding its wants be met. The problem is, there is no mother or father around to cater to us, a sad reality we must soon wake up to. Very soon we will realize that there is more to life than satisfying our most base desires. If we as a society wish to survive, to live in a healthy and well-adjusted manner, we will need to grow beyond our simplistic perspective of the id.