Why? Because it's random!

If you live near this god-father figure your circumstances 
may be "revised" if you  fall out with him

My "Agent-Y" recently remarked that she is always asking the question "Why?" (Hence the "Y"!) regarding the human politico-societal scene especially in view of the recent upheavals: Viz: "Renewed nuclear threat, soaring costs and surveillance closing in on us". The reference to "surveillance" actually hints at Agent-Y's interest in conspiracy theorism. For the conspiracy theorist the hidden "Big Brother" is always lurking in the background, quietly watching us and manipulating us. On the contrary, my thesis is that "Big Brothers" are never hidden;  their potentially threatening very manifest presence is the back-stop tool of the dictatorship trade. It is that forbidding presence which is the fallback when charm, disinformation and secrecy fails. "Putin-the-Terrible" is a case in point: We all know what happens if you are in the sphere of influence of this protection racketeer and you either displease him or fall out with him. Interestingly, according to Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch the word we translate as "Terrible" in "Ivan the Terrible" has more the connotation of "Awesome" in the Russian Language. In Russia there lurks the notion that "might is right" (As, in fact, it lurks everywhere else).

Anyway, regarding the answer to the question "Why?", this is more or less how I responded to Agent-Y:

"Why?" you ask! Therein lies the rub. In a world where humanity has partially failed in its mission to subdue the chaos of the Biblical "abyssal deep", the very problem with chaos is that it is so meaningless that there is no answer to the question "Why?"; in the limit it's just randomness and it admits no other answer.  

Take the Putin crisis: It's the meaningless confluence of chance factors: Viz: Christian Orthodox history rooted in the Byzantium vs Rome fault-line, historical Russian alienation from and enmity with the West*, a guy who only understands dictatorship as a form of government, a guy who only has a few years left to him & is having an existential crisis & has converted to an authoritarian version of orthodoxy, and finally a guy who is an ultra conservative & believes the liberal progressivism of the West is evil. Ironically it might have been better if he didn't have such a rubbish army of undermotivated conscripts which is thwarting him in his military aims and makes him dangerous.  He's painted himself into a corner and is left with only the nuclear option.

So it's the chaotic, meaningless business as usual in the vicissitudes of planet earth. No neat conspiracy theory to tie up all those random loose ends and make it comprehensible. The only way to make it meaningful and comprehensible is to deal with sin and bring order to the battlefield of Kaoskampf. 

In this context I will reference here the introduction and epilogue of my book on Disorder and Randomness where I mention the Sherlock Holmes story The Cardboard Box.  

As I've noted before, some in America's far-right have sympathies with Putin's nationalistic & conservative stance; they see Putin's Russia as a bastion of traditional values. But for me both the far-left and the far-right are seriously flawed. The respective left-right extremes of progressivism vs. conservatism and collectivism vs. individualism are both seductive and beguiling roads to dictatorships, as the evidence of history suggests (Relevant link).

Footnote:

* The Latin and Germanic West has its fair share of the blame: Let's recall the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by Western Crusader's.  I do think the West needs to revisit it's history with Orthodoxy and Russia in a spirit of humility and reconciliation. Putin is an end product of grievance, grudge and distrust.  But needless to say Orthodoxy has it's own problem with fundamentalists. 

NOTES

This link to a BBC article by Steve Rosenberg is interesting:  

Retired colonel speaks out on Russian TV - BBC News.

Hopefully at last we are hearing some realism &  sense from Moscow state TV! At least it's a straw we can clutch at. 

Victory to Ukraine!