A comment or addendum on
the Newsletter that appears below.

Once one understands the SYMBOLIC nature of politics, things are not so difficult to understand. It's not that people want "real" things. Large chunks of "territory?" What is one going to do with all that territory? Historians live in a "world taken for granted." They don't interrogate their own assumptions. They live with the collective dream they have agreed upon.

Nations have symbolic meaning, which accounts for most of what happens between them (war and genocide). Germany was Hitler's "motherland." He was born in Austria, and identified himself with Austria (and Germany). He wanted to return to the Mother, a gigantic, symbolic Mother, thus Hitler blew himself up, becoming "bigger." 

Same dynamic with Putin. He wants UKRAINE to "return to the Russian Motherland." For what (real) purpose? No purpose. What is he going to do with all that land or territory? With all those people? The little man feels or becomes "bigger." He blows himself up. And everyone pays attention. It's all symbolic. Full of sound and fury.

And the historians take these fantasies so seriously (and of course the fantasies that these men enact have very serious consequences (a matter of life and death). However, the motivations are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing real. 

It's not valuable to compose monumental histories if you don't know the ROOTS OF ACTION. Timothy Snyder has hundreds of "likes" on Amazon for the books he's written.  But does he have a clue regarding the root causes of the "facts" and events he write about? 

Donald Trump had millions of "likes." The fact that people "like" something doesn't make something true.

In fact, more likely if people DO NOT LIKE SOMETHING, is is more likely to be valuable and true. Think Darwin and Freud.

Richard Koenigsberg

Hitler (1938): "Austria must return to the great German Motherland."
Putin (2022): "Ukraine must return to the great Russian Motherland."
Yogi Berra: "It's déjà vu all over again."

In the first pages of Mein Kampf, Hitler declared that Austria must "return to the great German Motherland." The separation of Austria and Germany, he said, "does not seem conceivable." The desire for political re-unification was the “elemental cry of the German-Austrian people for union with the German mother country." 

Sound familiar? It's déjà vu all over again" (Yogi Berra)>

Vladimir Putin currently enacts an identical fantasy: Ukraine must return to the great Russian Motherland." The smaller nation that (unfortunately) has been separated from the larger nation, is not actually separate. It only seems that way. Violent actions must be performed to demonstrate that Ukrainians have it wrong. Ukraine actually is "at one" with the nation from which it seems to be separated.

Ukraine must "return to the great Russian Motherland." Hitler's political fantasy precisely--with different countries playing the roles. A political delusion as Howard Bloom calls it, which nonetheless generates monumental forms political reaction that we call "reality."

Reality as the enactment of a fantasy. Immersed within this fantasy: Living within a dream, which generates massive bloodshed.

"One blood demands one Reich," Hitler said. The bloodstream of one country becoming indistinguishable from the bloodstream of another country. This requires, somehow, the endless spilling of actual human blood blood. Russian blood is shed in Ukraine. Ukrainian blood is shed in Ukraine (which Putin calls "Russia," thus slaughtering his own people).

Everyone watches the enactment with fascination, but no one articulates the fantasies that are the source of the enactment. No one cares.

It seems self-evident that Putin should desire that Ukraine should return to the Russian motherland and that Ukrainians should be killed if they hold the belief that they are separate from the motherland. 

Kill those that are separate. Rage toward separation. The mind externalized to create politics and history. It seems "real oh so real." And it is "real," the killing and dying. But in actuality, it means nothing.

What would happen if Ukraine was "conquered," thus becoming a part of Russia? Would Putin feel better? Would he sleep better at night? Would he feel that his own body had suddenly expanded in size? More gigantic in size? Fused with an ever-larger mother? 

To repeat: Putin's fantasy is the same one that Hitler enacted in 1938: precisely the same. "Austria must return to the great German Motherland." "Ukraine must return to the great Russian Motherland."

Of course, in the first case (1938), Austrians cheered. They welcomed the Fuhrer and German soldiers. Fusion with the mother.

Ukrainians don't seem cheerful about the prospect of union or symbiosis with the Motherland. They are committed to the core of their being to remaining separate.

When an infantile fantasy is enacted in the world of politics, it resonates with everyone. The entire world pays attention.

Richard Koenigsberg