Metastasised tribalism: modelling Putin's mind – incubation of dysfunction

Some commentators assert that it is impossible to model or understand what was in the minds of Vladimir Putin and his entourage when they ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine. This note takes a different view and asserts that it is absolutely possible to model their mindsets. To do so, one has to commence by considering the complex influences of culture and history.

Historically, tribes have been wandering the steppes for thousands of years. Their warring natures have developed as a result of living in harsh environments, and from fighting other tribes in order to survive. Overlaid with this, their historical pagan beliefs and traditions have become entwined with dialogues of warfare. These traditions have been formed by the harsh and beautiful landscapes of the steppes. They consist of customs and beliefs associated with hunting, and with life and death. Christian Orthodoxy has now also become an important part of the ritualism which drives those traditions. To kill in the name of pagan and Orthodox creeds now equates to tribal membership. Death has become aligned with national identity. 

There are additional cultural overlays to consider. These include Russian tribal-like females who protect and enchant their menfolk with the romance of pagan and Orthodox rites, thereby further adding to the complexity of the social landscape. These women hold powerful semi-matriarchal roles, within both the pagan and Orthodox traditions.  Their men rely on them, giving those men reasons both to live and to die. Other notable influences include the physical aesthetic of the built environment of socialist modernism, which fosters a sense of safety and tradition. There are also the totems of the communist built-aesthetic, which together with modernism, have cemented a day-to-day visual world of constructed motherland into older tribal traditions.

In this social and cultural environment, addictions have also played a vital part in forming belief systems in modern Russia. An addiction to violence has been adhered to for thousands of years – with war and death becoming not just about survival from occasional attacks, but about a fundamental belief in creating safety and community through the act of killing. This has created a phenomenon where killing at will becomes a self-synthesised drug. By nominating supposed enemies, and then fighting them, tribes are able to create a never-ending supply of addictive, reward-driven behaviour. Addictions to sex, aestheticism, and alcohol are also on this list of self-destructive, impelling factors.  

Disinformation is the most recent addition to the list of socially entrapping behaviours. The culture of the symbol ‘Z’ has created an addiction to disbelief; disbelief in anything that is assigned as being different from the state/tribe. Silence in society, and adherence to the Z dictum, is now not only due to fear but also because adherence to Z equates to the safety of tribal identity. The concept of the Bolshevik ‘Blue Blouse’ theatres, in which dictated beliefs were set out, has become turbocharged by the internet into Z society.  The need to feel part of the motherland has overcome many peoples’ initial fears and suspicions about Z.

Over the last 30 years, since the break-up of the USSR, a new factor has been added to this complex landscape of traditions and addictions. Offshore finance and its many and varied forms of theft, appropriation of Russian state assets, and the related warring between organised factions have provided Russia’s leaders, its elite, and its criminal gangs with almost unlimited amounts of finance delivered in a hyper-luxurious, hyper-violent, ego-driven, and surreal environment. This has fuelled dysfunction in society. 

The art of theft has long been part of Russian culture in old tribal tradition, and now in the more modern form of the Vor organised criminal gangs, who regard theft as a badge of honour. Theft of assets, and the art of offshore finance, have become part of national identity; a game to play, and a way of being part of society.

As a result of this incubation, the leadership is now in the grip of metastasised tribalismwhere war, violence, money, sex, aestheticism, disinformation, and the constructed politic of motherland have combined into one overarching condition.This condition may be regarded as a psychosis which has been gestating for thousands of years and has now been incubated over a period of 30 years.

It is in this context of psychosis that Russia’s leaders took the decision to invade Ukraine. It is in this context that a cabal met at the Kremlin and decided to return to the historical business of murdering Slavs on the plains of southern Ukraine. That business is partly a way of continuing to build a false sense of constructed safety through addictive violence, and partly to do with acquiring assets and money. Starting the war was a conscious adherence to the psychosis of metastasised tribalism.

 Men who make decisions on the basis of psychosis have core weaknesses. Their unwillingness, by definition, to support balanced justice in society, and their involvement with multiple addictions, means that every action that they take is a step towards their self-destruction. However, and most importantly, their beliefs, and their actions linked to metastasised tribalism, are by definition betrayals of their tribes.

 A true tribal leader would encourage and educate his tribe towards betterment, rather than towards fostered psychotic behaviour. A true tribal leader would see that positions of strength come from adherence to local versions of justice. A true tribal leader would see the inherent dangers in the addictions which have been allowed to ravage Russia for the last 30 years.

His surrounding entourage are of the same ilk. Men bereft of natural justice, and torn apart by their egos and their behaviours. They too are men under the influence of metastasised tribalism. This incubation of dysfunction into its new and metastasised form has unleashed an ancient but now infected philosophical rhetoric, to which, sadly for the wider Russian people, their leaders have become slaves. The leaders very mistakenly believe that they have become the übermenschen of the steppes. However, the übermensch, and the corresponding untermensch, are concepts which do not sit with the precepts of Orthodoxy, or of paganism, or of equitable tribal society. In this rhetoric of false godhood, Putin has further betrayed his tribe.

People ask ‘what will come next’ in Russia. There are many possible paths. Among all of them, ongoing incubation through addiction will play a key role in ensuring continuing psychosis. Eventually, Russia’s people will look at their leadership’s actions and addictions either through eyes of equity and common sense – and see their toxicity as betrayal of the wider tribe; or, the leadership will be seen through the eyes of psychosis, by people who will regard the leadership’s addictions and psychosis as weaknesses which can be exploited for the financial and ego-driven psychotic gain of a new group of faux-leaders who mistakenly believe that they can take over the mantle of übermensch. 

It is highly unlikely that there will be a one-generation change from the current status to a version of Western law-based society in Russia. Instead, change might come one generation at a time, with successive leaders slowly seeing the value of law over chaos and violence.

 Putin could have started this trend towards a law-based society with his ‘de-offshorisation’ of the financial world. In forcing his elite to keep their assets onshore in Russia, Putin could have created a voluntary move towards the laws which would have protected those onshore assets. However, in this, he has also failed. The invasion of Ukraine and the culture of Z have only encouraged and further embedded the dog-eat-dog culture of organised crime in Russia. This was another conscious decision based on adherence to the psychosis of metastasised tribalism.

Wars and violence have been at the heart of life on the steppes for thousands of years. In order to look to the future one therefore has to take a thousand-year view. In such a view, the only sure course to take is one of adherence to equitable law. Balanced justice will serve both as a sword and as a shield against metastasised tribalism. This applies across a wide range of activity. This piece does not try to apply the principles of metastasised tribalism to each of these activities in minute detail. However, in overview, it is clear that malign and inequitable activity should be viewed through the general lens of metastasised tribalism.  

In summary, within the new world of internet-enabled disinformation, dictums of langue-neutral and non-toxic truths must be explained and followed. In the world of commerce, no space should be given to malign intent; psychosis-driven organised crime has no place in, for example, the City of London. In the sphere of defence and physical security, lines must be set out and adhered to. In the world of offshore finance, which incubates metastasised tribalism, equitable law must be applied so as to ensure that Western infrastructure is not used by the Russian siloviki or by organised criminal gangs. Additionally and importantly, the West must ensure that it does not allow infiltration of its society to affect its societal beliefs and its systems of justice.