© Pablo Temes
In the introduction to a little-known book he wrote with Ambassador William Bullit, entitled President Thomas Woodrow Wilson. A psychological study, Freud argues that it was natural for Wilson’s way of thinking “to ignore the facts of the real external world, even to the point of denying that they existed if they conflicted with his hopes and wishes.” Quite simply, he was not interested in reality but in what he projected onto her: a naive, yet dangerous, desire for him to align with his wishes. It was not relevant for Freud if this behavior was conscious or not, the key was that perverts, paranoids and hysterics build their fantasies in similar ways “even in the smallest details”. Many of them are our leaders and their retinues.
The real war, in Ukraine, and the trashy one, in Argentina, which began the day before yesterday once morest inflation, show us that Freud’s Wilson is probably back among us, recharged and vital. At the international level, the unforeseen prolongation of the conflict unleashed political attitudes, intellectual debates and media behavior that seem to follow the pattern of fantasy rather than reality.
As expected, the fantastic drift was first attributed to Putin, who considers that Ukraine is an illusory state, devoid of national sense, which must return to the arms of Russia, its motherland. In the imaginary narration of the Russian leader, the Ukrainians yearn for the same as him, something that the facts insist on contradicting.
However, many politicians, intellectuals and media figures in the West do not seem to have responded to Putin’s delusions with a sense of reality. At some point, his arguments and proclamations ran parallel to those of the Russian, to confirm that old saying: in war, the first victim is the truth. A wave of sudden Western chauvinism washed over them; they considered that the Russian aggression had definitively consolidated the unity of the West once morest an enemy whom, without nuances, they assimilated to absolute evil. A thinker of the stature of Fukuyama, respectable for his reflexivity and recognition of his past mistakes, believes that if Putin falls it will be possible to recreate the “spirit of 1989”, which preceded the Soviet disintegration.
It is not surprising that the audiovisual media have simplified the facts because, here and in the world, they tend to be governed by the wishes of their captive audiences.
On the other hand, the arguments of intellectuals of prestige and experience give food for thought. They are the advisers of the democracies and they have an important responsibility.
In a response to the thesis of the legendary George Kennan that NATO’s drive to the East was a strategic error with dangerous consequences, famed Russia expert Stephen Kotkin argued that the expanded military alliance is a strength and that it is nonsense. think that the West is in decline.
On the contrary: Zelensky and the brave Ukrainians gave him back his identity and galvanized his values. What need was there to extend NATO to the former Soviet republics when, when the Berlin Wall fell, there were no military threats and it was an opportunity to work for democracy and consensus? The Kotkins’ answer is that Russia, regardless of the sophistication of her culture, constitutes a kind of ontological threat to the West: she is an essentially aggressive and despotic nation, and that will never change. The time has come to cancel Russia. It resembles a biblical condemnation, uttered paradoxically by the mandarins of Western rationalism. We are powerful, Kotkin preaches: “Western means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms we enjoy, that we sometimes take for granted.”
The Ukrainians, under the bombs, made us believe once more in the values of civilization, from the comfort of our cabinets. Like fantasy, hypocrisy is also a weapon of war.
Wondering if Putin’s barbarism will mean the end of populism, Ross Douthat, New York Times columnist and author of The Decadent Society. America Before and After the Pandemic, responds to Kotkin with painful realism: disappointment, stagnation, demographic and economic decline, the social fabric increasingly shadowed by drugs, depression and suicide will not go away because the Russians fail in Ukraine. Douthat also makes an incisive observation: the Ukrainians are closer to nationalism than to liberalism. Now we feed on them, but soon, like the Poles and Hungarians, they might disappoint us.
Putin is probably lost in perspective. And that defeat decreases the chances of populism in the world. But the question is another, and it concerns the defenders of democratic institutions: are there consistent values, political leadership and material resources for the masses to distance themselves from authoritarian leaders? Because populisms are not born from a genetic aberration, but from the decomposition process of liberal democratic capitalism, which deepens social and economic inequality. The bleeding of legitimacy finds its main explanation there.
Meanwhile, in Argentina we are in the third day of the war once morest inflation, formally declared by the President and his staff. It is a pathetic symptom of something that society senses: the government ran out of economic and rhetorical resources to channel the situation and keep the people happy. It remains for him to take refuge in fantasy: we will defeat inflation militarily, the country will grow, the IMF program does not imply any adjustments, we will be re-elected. To suppose that this denial of reality, which is perhaps the anticipation of an announced defeat, will give the country a chance for emancipation may constitute a fantasy similar to that of Western apologists.
While Alberto Fernández sells fictions, Cristina squirms in her defensive narcissism and Macri travels to Italy to play bridge, in the polls pessimism and anguish grow, contempt for the leaders and the preference for a third option, surpassing the two coalitions.
It seems that everyone is working in favor of a deputy on the rise, who despises the system, raffles his salary and gets 2 million Argentines to enter the lottery.
*Political analyst. Founder of Poliarquía Consultores.
