Is Putin Based?
'Millions of people in the West realise that they are being led to a spiritual disaster'.
Vladimir Putin’s Presidential Address
On 21 February 2023, Mr Vladimir Putin made his annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly in Gostiny Dvor, Moscow.1 The entire speech is over 1.5 hours long and contains questionable rhetoric in relation to the war in Ukraine. I want to focus on a short segment of the speech in which Mr Putin described his perception of the ideological aspect of the proxy war being fought between Russia and the West. In this portion of the speech, Mr Putin attacked the West and highlighted fact that the institutions which have traditionally formed its foundations have been eroded. He said:
Look what they are doing to their own people. It is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life. They are forcing the priests to bless same-sex marriages. Bless their hearts, let them do as they please. Here is what I would like to say in this regard. Adult people can do as they please. We in Russia have always seen it that way and always will: no one is going to intrude into other people’s private lives, and we are not going to do it, either.
But here is what I would like to tell them: look at the holy scripture and the main books of other world religions. They say it all, including that family is the union of a man and a woman, but these sacred texts are now being questioned. Reportedly, the Anglican Church is planning, just planning, to explore the idea of a gender-neutral god. What is there to say? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Millions of people in the West realise that they are being led to a spiritual disaster. Frankly, the elite appear to have gone crazy, and it looks like there is no cure for that. But like I said, these are their problems, while we must protect our children, which we will do. We will protect our children from degradation and degeneration.
Truth?
This portion of the speech is not factually inaccurate. It seems to me that:
the traditional institution of marriage has been destroyed;
in the West there is widespread confusion and shame around our cultural and national identities; and
a significant portion of the population in the West believes the erosion of these foundational values has caused the very structure of Western society to become unsound.
But what does it mean when you agree with part of a speech from the leader of ‘the enemy’?
In the West we are force-fed a media narrative that in all wars we are the good guys and those we are fighting against are evil. The ideology of the enemy is so perverse that it is entirely incompatible with our way of life. In relation to the current war, we are expected to believe that the risk posed by an unchecked Russia is so great that we must risk nuclear warfare.
Could it be that the narrative we are given is propagandistic and reality not so clear-cut? I think that most people would agree that the answer to this question is, to at least some extent, yes. But I think the bigger question is: why are our traditional institutions being eroded? And why is a dictator (in all but name) from Russia the one to point this out to us?
Let’s look at marriage as an example. Statistics clearly show that adults and children are typically better off within the traditional nuclear family unit of monogamous parents with children.2 Yet modernist thought leaders have ruthlessly attacked the institution and, as a result, it has been decreasing in popularity since the early 1970s.3 Today, significantly fewer people are getting married or cohabitating, and a significantly higher proportion of children are being raised in single parent or divorced homes. Is it a coincidence that people in the West are increasingly experiencing depression and using anti-depressant medication?
Next, let’s consider our cultural identity. Western democracies are condemning their national identities and history. Philosophies such as critical race theory and anti-colonial sentiment have painted our entire history in a hue of racism and domination, of patriarchy and enslavement. This is not entirely untrue. But to think that we modern humans are so far superior to those who came before us is hubristic. To think that those who built the Western world were motivated purely by domination is reductionist and unsophisticated. To an extent we need to express gratitude to those who, through trial, error, and hard work, created the systems of law, governance, town planning, education, thought, and philosophy that spawned the greatest empires of the last 500 years. But we do not express this gratitude. Instead our collective shame has led to a desecration of our cultural icons including flags, statues and books.4 In some parts of the West, governments are attempting to take money from those who have done no harm to give to those who have suffered no damage in an attempt to assuage this guilt.5 The West is self-immolating.
Finally, let’s consider Putin’s claims of the normalisation of pedophilia. I do not want to write much about this. Suffice it to say that there appears to be credence to the claim that there is an attempt to destigmatise it in the West.6
Destruction of Empire
Is Mr Putin’s opinion that the West is ‘being led to a spiritual disaster’ unreasonable? Again, I think probably not. In addition, it is common for individuals in the West to consider that we are witnessing the dying days of our Empire.
Ms Gerardine Hoogland, who is an ancient Roman historian, articulated the current stage of Western society much more eloquently than I ever could, stating that:7
[t]he West is not falling.
No, we are now stumbling about among the debris in our hope to salvage something, anything, that can aid in our restoration.
We are now where the Roman Republic was at the beginning of the first century BC.
Sulla became consul and then handed a dictatorship in an attempt to restore the “mos maiorum” - the foundation to the Republic’s order.
The seeds were planted long before, just as they have been for the modern west.
No, we have long fallen.
Popular culture also seems to have accepted that we are witnessing the dying days of the West. In the below video, comedian Tim Dillon offers a prophetic oration on how he envisages the end of the American Empire.
Some might discount the above video as ‘just comedy’. But to perceive stand-up comedy as an art form which is simply the telling of jokes is imperceptive. In 2015, The Atlantic published an article entitled ‘How Comedians Became Public Intellectuals’ which stated:8
Comedians are acting not just as joke-tellers, but as truth-tellers—as guides through our cultural debates… comedians are doing their work not just in sweaty clubs or network variety shows or cable sitcoms, but also on the Internet. Wherever the jokes start—Comedy Central, The Tonight Show, Marc Maron’s garage—they will end up, eventually and probably immediately, living online. They will, at their best, go “really, insanely viral.” …. Comedy, like so much else in the culture, now exists largely of, by, and for the Internet. Which is to say that there are two broad things happening right now—comedy with moral messaging, and comedy with mass attention—and their combined effect is this: Comedians have taken on the role of public intellectuals.
In my opinion it is probably a stretch to refer to comedians as ‘intellectuals’ when there are members of our society who dedicate themselves to rigorous academia. But comedians are intelligent. And they play a vital role in society. It could be said that comedians act as society’s mirror, reflecting public sentiment back at us.
The fall of empires is not a new concept and our modern theories of how a society might collapse do not appear to be dissimilar than that of those who came before us. For example, between 1833 and 1836, American painter Thomas Cole created a five-painting series entitled ‘The Course of Empire’ which depicted the rise and fall of an imaginary city. Cole drew inspiration from the following line Lord Byron’s 1873 poem ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’:
First Freedom, and then Glory; when that fails, Wealth, Vice, Corruption, barbarism at last.
This quote echoes the sentiments of Vladimir Putin, Tim Dillon and Gerardine Hoogland. Western democracies have been the modern global superpowers since the rise of the British Empire in 16th century. Now, as Mr Putin has pointed out, the failing West is characterised in part by vice and corruption.
Below are the final two images from Cole’s five-painting series. They are titled ‘Destruction’ and ‘Desolation’ respectively. These are the paintings which represent the final two stages of Cole’s imaginary empire.
Describing ‘Destruction’, Cole says that ‘luxury has weakened and debased. A savage enemy has entered the city. A fierce tempest is raging. Walls and colonnades have been thrown down. Temples and palaces are burning… description of this picture is perhaps needless; carnage and destruction are its elements’.
In relation to the final image in the life cycle of Cole’s imaginary empire, ‘Desolation’, Coles says that ‘day-light fades away, and the shades of evening steal over the shattered and ivy-grown ruins of that once proud city… Violence and time have crumbled the works of man, and art is again resolving into elemental nature. The gorgeous pageant has passed — the roar of battle has ceased — the multitude has sunk in the dust — the empire is extinct’.
It seems to me that today we are situated somewhere between Cole’s ‘Destruction’ and ‘Desolation’. Not yet gone, the battle rages on. But our battle is not characterised by a foreign army storming our gates. Our enemies are internal, and our war psychological. The obfuscation of reality by our media makes it unclear what role each actor is playing in the dismantling of the institutions which once supported our civilisation. We are an empire divided.
Today, parts of modern America reflect this point in the course of our empire:
So, Is Putin Based?
Yes.
But some may think that we should discount his opinion on the basis that he is an alleged war criminal.9
If this is the case, then what are we as a society to make of the fact that Barack Obama is a celebrated, Nobel Peace Prize-winning thought leader? His hands are not clean. The Harvard Political Review has documented Mr Obama’s war crimes, stating that ‘there is no question that former President Obama and his administration violated international humanitarian law’.10 This fact has not deterred the public from accepting Mr Obama as a public speaker, author, and political figure. This contradiction suggests that we are prepared to accept war crimes if they are committed by 'our side'. Are we any different from the Russians who support Mr Putin's ideological war against the West? In my opinion, the answer is no. In these circumstances it is not clear whether the West has a valid claim to moral superiority over the Russians.
‘Marriages And Divorces’ Our World In Data (Web Page); William Bennett, ‘Stronger Families, Stronger Societies’ New York Times (Article, 24 April 2012); ‘Marriage, Cohabitation And Mental Health’ Australian Institute of Family Studies (Web Page, June 2015); ‘Marriage And Divorce Statistics 2022’ Finder (Web Page, 5 January 2015); Kelly Donahue et al, ‘Early Exposure to Parents' Relationship Instability: Implications for Sexual Behavior and Depression in Adolescence’ (2010) 47 Journal of Adolescent Health 547; Janique Kroese et al, ‘Growing Up In Single-Parent Families And The Criminal Involvement Of Adolescents: A Systematic Review’ (2020) 27 Psychology, Crime & Law 61; Jennie Brand, ‘Parental Divorce Is Not Uniformly Disruptive To Children’s Educational Attainment’ (2019) 116 PNAS 7266; Sol Rappaport, ‘Deconstructing the Impact of Divorce on Children’ (2013) 3 Family Law Quarterly 353.
Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (2016, Columbia University Press); Betty Friedman, The Feminine Mystique (1963, W W Norton); Dolores Barclay, ‘The Family: It’s Surviving and Healthy’ Tulsa World (Article, 21 August 1977); Nikita Coulombe, ‘Why Feminism Wants to Dismantle the Family’ Medium (Article, 16 January 2017).
Madeline White, ‘The Racist History Of Our Flag Cannot Be Denied’ Sydney Morning Herald (Article, 2 June 2016); David Weber, ‘Aussie Flag Flyers More Racist: Survey’ ABC News (Article, 24 January 2012); Alan Taylor, ‘The Statues Brought Down Since The George Floyd Protests Began’ The Atlantic (Article, 2 July 2020); ‘How Statues Are Falling Around The World’ New York Times Magazine (Article, 24 July 2020); Sarah Maddison, ‘Why The Statues Must Fall’ The Sydney Morning Herald (Article, 12 July 2020).
International Criminal Court, ‘Situation In Ukraine: ICC Judges Issue Arrest Warrants Against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin And Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova’ (Press Release, 17 March 2023).
Excellent article.
To the point about comedians being (or not being) intellectuals - what is an intellectual anyway?
In the ancient world, especially Greece, this was how the political messages were often disseminated; through the plays, both dramatic and comedic.
So, yes, comedians definitely have a crucial role to play as far as getting information out to the public.
I agree that we probably are somewhere between destruction and desolation. We are among the ruins right now. How it ends up, who will know.
Finally, to Putin - who are any of us to judge when it comes to morals. The West is witnessing one of the greatest events of moral bankruptcy ever in history. Putin has as much right as anyone to have his say; heaven knows Western leaders don’t hold back in their own judgements.
The systems of law and governance go way back further than 500 years. We look to Ancient Greece for beginnings of democratic thought. Then the Romans fine tuned that with a Constitution, of which we inherited in a form that we see today in the three levels of government (if one can honestly say that this is working - that, of course, is another issue). We owe the ancients a lot, and the Romans perhaps even more when it comes to our political discourse. But, like them, we ought hang our heads in shame for what we have let our institutions become.