Elite Insanity on Display in Ukraine

By Robert J. Burrowes

22 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org

For those of us interested in understanding what is driving the conflict
in Ukraine, now seriously complicated by the shooting down of a Malaysian
Airlines passenger jet – which has raised the potential of the conflict to
explode into a nuclear war with devastating consequences for humanity – it
is worth delving into the psychology of key parties to the conflict and
particularly those elite individuals and their agents in politics,
industry, academia and the media who are driving it.

I have been discussing the psychological aspects of the conflict with my
wife and research colleague, Anita McKone, and we agree that there are
some standard and frequently repeated dysfunctional behaviours on display
here with the usual unconscious emotional drivers of this behaviour hidden
from view. Let us then consider some obvious aspects of the conflict and
analyse them from a psychological perspective.

It is possible that the Russian leadership is culpable for this heinous
act although it is difficult to imagine the political and strategic
advantages to Russia of such an attack.

On the other hand, Russian president Vladmir Putin played a thoughtful and
valuable role in defusing the crisis over the use of chemical weapons in
Syria – which were not, as subsequent investigations confirmed and in
contrast to claims made earlier by many western leaders, carried out by
the regime of Bashar al-Assad – and President Putin has played a role of
demonstrable restraint over events in Ukraine where a crisis has been
generated by a US-sponsored coup in which fascist groups played the key
role in the violent overthrow of the corrupt but democratically-elected
government.

And while there is understandable and widespread concern over the shooting
down of the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet, several western political
leaders, some other key figures and much of the mainstream media have been
quick to point the finger at Russia and to even suggest punitive action
before there has been any opportunity for a serious international
investigation to be carried out, as the Russian government has made clear
it is willing to do. See 'Official statement from Russian Defense Ministry
in connection with Boeing 777 crash'
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/kremlin/18-07-2014/128078-russian_defense_ministry_boeing-0/

Why are some political, industry, academic and media figures so keen to
vehemently attribute blame before the facts are known and to hysterically
declare the need for urgent retaliation?

The simple answer is that they are insane: that is, they have a state of
mind that prevents normal perception, behaviour or social interaction.
Unfortunately, however, most people have become so familiar with insane
behaviour from many political and other leaders that they are incapable of
identifying it when it takes place right in front of their eyes. And it is
difficult to resist being caught up in the hysteria that is easily
generated by events such as the destruction of the civilian airliner with
many lives lost (even though this tragedy rather pales in comparison to
the cumulative total of lives lost in the largely unpublicised US drone
strikes against civilians in many countries, the death toll from Israel's
latest brutal military assault against the civilians of Gaza and
particularly the 50,000 deaths from starvation-related illnesses that
occur each and every day in our elite-controlled global economy).

So let me elaborate my description of some key western players in this
conflict as insane. Because of the destructive 'socialization' processes
to which all humans are subjected, most people enter adulthood with a vast
reservoir of suppressed feelings, including intense fear, self-hatred and
a deep sense of powerlessness, as a result of the visible, 'invisible' and
'utterly invisible' violence they suffered throughout childhood. For a
thorough explanation and elaboration of this point, see 'Why Violence?'
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence and 'Fearless Psychology and Fearful
Psychology: Principles and Practice'
http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/

Nevertheless, each person is uniquely affected by their childhood
experience with some becoming articulate and compassionate exponents of
peace and justice. Many more turn out with less desirable psychological
attributes making them into perpetrators of violence whether it be direct,
structural, cultural, ecological and/or otherwise. Tragically, while we
like to imagine that people of this type end up somewhere which prevents
them doing any harm, the fact is that some of these perpetrators of
violence are running many of our governments, corporations, think tanks
and much of the mainstream media. And the world of delusion and projection
in which they live means that violent behaviours are often their first
port of call in response to any conflict.

Because I have discussed the emotional drivers of violent behaviours in
various contexts previously, I want to focus on the deeper layers of
psychology at work here that I have not discussed elsewhere.

Many individuals within the Western elite, and its paid agents in
politics, business, academia, the military and the media, have a terrified
desire for control. As Anita notes, this is the inevitable outcome of
three things: having no control over their parents and/or other
significant adults, such as teachers, who inflicted violence of them as a
child, not being believed when they denounced this violence and having no
adult allies who would defend them from it.

As a result, they now live in the unconscious delusion that they are under
threat or being attacked virtually all of the time and that they must
defend themselves against this threat/attack while also trying to get
others 'on their side' (in support of their delusion). And because they
have 'learned' that allies are hard won, one way they might try to get
people on side is to lie. Another way is to conduct a 'false flag'
operation: to orchestrate an event that makes it look like their
(projected) enemy has been culpable. They then use this false flag
operation to 'justify' their violent retaliation and to call for allies.

Moreover, they enjoy getting someone else 'punished' for something they
didn't do because that is what happened to them. It is a perverse form of
revenge designed to give them the feeling of 'getting even'. Of course, it
is utterly transitory and cannot give them any genuine relief from their
suppressed terror, self-hatred and powerlessness (which must be fully
felt, consciously, if they are to be free of these unconscious emotions
driving their behaviour).

Most usually, of course, perpetrators of violence choose victims who are
genuinely less powerful. This is why the United States government, for
example, has a long record of military interventions against countries in
Africa, Asia and Central/South America where military forces are modest.
Bullies usually 'pick on' victims who are well chosen for their inferior
fighting capacity.

However, sometimes, dominant people have to contend with other dominant
people and there is an inevitable clash of more equally matched forces and
this often leads to vast mutual destruction as occurred in the two world
wars. Moreover, because of the self-hatred (projected as hatred) that
drives the original perpetrator's violence, the fight for them can be 'all
or nothing'. And they will risk total destruction (of everything) to beat
their projected bully and even welcome self-destruction as part of any
defeat (as Hitler wanted Germany destroyed when he knew that the Third
Reich had lost World War II).

The real risk being played out now in Ukraine is that the insanity of key
western leaders will drive them to risk destroying us all as an outcome of
their terrified and self-hating drive for total control.

So what can we do? We need many moderate voices to speak out against
violence, whoever shot down the airliner. We need people to take
nonviolent actions of many kinds to declare our commitment to a measured
and nonviolent response to the crisis: killing more people, especially
with nuclear weapons, won't fix things. We need to support initiatives
that get the conflicting parties together to listen to and talk to each
other, whether in bilateral or multilateral fora. No conflict is addressed
by shutting people out.

And, most importantly, we need to never lose heart or slacken our effort
in the continuing struggle to create our nonviolent world. If you wish to
publicly declare your commitment to this struggle, you can sign the online
pledge of 'The People's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World'
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

We defeat terror, self-hatred and violence with our courage, love and
nonviolence. It takes time.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and
ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an
effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a
nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of 'Why Violence?'
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is [email protected]
and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

Tweet