On the Enduring Power of Malevolent Leaders - 0 views
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power evil authoritarian leaders culture politics history bible
shared by Javier E on 06 Mar 22
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this week, let’s talk about his enemy, Vladimir Putin: why he’s a common villain, and why men like him are ubiquitous in human history. They rise and fall with almost metronomic regularity, not just because there are always men who are drawn to absolute power and military glory, but because these men connect with specific human needs and unlock the darkness in human hearts.
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as recently as ten days ago significant figures in the United States and the west obviously and openly admired Putin, including Donald Trump, the former president and frontrunner for the GOP nomination. Days before the Russian Army launched its unprovoked attack on Ukraine, Tucker Carlson, the most popular cable news host in America, was so pro-Putin that his remarks were rebroadcast on Russian state media.
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In 2017 Christopher Caldwell, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, delivered an address to the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar, entitled “How to Think About Vladimir Putin.” Hillsdale, for those who don’t know, is arguably the premier conservative college in America.
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Caldwell’s words are worth remembering because they describe—perhaps more eloquently than anyone else in the west—not just why Putin built a following abroad, but also how he became (at least for a time) popular at home
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He is the elected leader of Russia—a rugged, relatively poor, militarily powerful country that in recent years has been frequently humiliated, robbed, and misled. His job has been to protect his country’s prerogatives and its sovereignty in an international system that seeks to erode sovereignty in general and views Russia’s sovereignty in particular as a threat.
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if we were to use traditional measures for understanding leaders, which involve the defense of borders and national flourishing, Putin would count as the pre-eminent statesman of our time. On the world stage, who can vie with him? Only perhaps Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey.
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the available evidence indicates he’s been broadly popular in Russia for two decades. One wonders how long this popularity can hold as Russian forces struggle on the battlefield, but the bottom line is still clear—tens of millions of people (including some of the most influential people in the west) have admired an objectively evil man. Why?
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Throughout history we see familiar patterns, in times of stress and confusion, people cry out for salvation and strength. Success—including military success—builds a bond with the people. The victorious ruler connects not just with human pride, but also with profound human longings for protection, purpose, and identity.
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One of the most fateful passages of scripture is found in 1 Samuel 8, the moment the people of Israel demand a king. Dissatisfied with the leadership of Samuel’s dissolute sons, they demanded a king “to judge us like all the nations.”
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“There shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
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he did what Kemal Atatürk had done in Turkey in the 1920s. Out of a crumbling empire, he rescued a nation-state, and gave it coherence and purpose. He disciplined his country’s plutocrats. He restored its military strength. And he refused, with ever blunter rhetoric, to accept for Russia a subservient role in an American-run world system
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Marius’s case for Napoleon feels relevant as Vladimir Putin longs for the glories of the Russian imperial past:
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Putin inherited the husk of an empire, and in war after war, for year after year, he triumphed. He expanded the zone of Russian control. He replaced the lost Soviet identity with a renewed commitment to Russian greatness. While Putin’s victories weren’t as dramatic as Napoleon’s—Georgia and Crimea can’t compare to Jena and Austerlitz—war provides a terrible purpose, and victory creates remarkable pride.
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The sobering reality is that we cannot look at Russia and simply shake our heads at “those people,” secure in the knowledge that we’re fundamentally different
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we’re still not far removed from a violent attempt to overturn an American election, led by a mob waving blue flags stamped with their leader’s name.
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There are those who see the ways in which human beings abuse liberty, or squander it in disorder and decadence, and are drawn to the order and direction of authoritarianism. In this formulation, freedom itself is the problem. It doesn’t provide purpose.