A quick nod in agreement :smile:
Poverty is relative.
A basic standard of life and health...that would help to resolve some problems but not all.
Violence and greed will always be with us. The need for power.
And who is it that tends to be that way and why...

Complexity rules.
Bye for now :sparkle:

Depends on who "we" are. If we're Russians, the answer is something along the lines of the mass protests that chased Mubarak out of office in Egypt. These are not without major risks, but neither is living under a dictatorship with a collapsing economy.

For the rest of the world, the answer is something more similar to Cold War containment doctrine. Essentially, a long term strategy to isolate them and thus impede their ability to wage war. The current sanctions regime is a good example if it actually holds long term.

A drastic step up in investment for European nuclear, wind, tidal, and solar power would be the real key. Nuclear energy represents the current best bet for green energy and energy independence from dictators, and yet public opinion, largely shaped by myths and flaws in the nuclear technology of 60 years ago, remains a major obstacle.

The risk here in terms of grand strategy is that an isolated Russia essentially becomes a vassal of / resource market for China. China has its own significant issues with aggression, lack of political freedoms, etc. China has generally been far more rational than Russia, and less aggressive, but, because it has a dictatorship system without a clear successor to Xi, this could change. And whereas the Russian military is demonstrating that it is not particularly competent, the threat posed by the Chinese military is less clear.

Of course, a major barrier for any of this is various liberal democracies voting for their own pseudo-strong men who have their own aggressive policies they want to implement.

To @Shwah

I think you know very well what I'm trying to do here.
And doing your very best to thwart that.
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Please desist. — Amity

Apologies for this.
I have edited my OP accordingly, thanks :sparkle:

Excellent points in a substantive, thought-provoking post.
Unfortunately, I don't have time to read and respond carefully right now or tomorrow.
Hope others can give feedback, thanks! :up:

How do we solve a problem like Putin?

A person isn't a problem to solve.

As for the situation at hand, the solution is simple, but people generally refuse to implement it: Act in good faith, with common decency, and treat people like people.

But most people will rather have their right hand cut off and their eyes plucked out than act in good faith, with common decency, and treat people like people.

They generally refuse to do so in peace time, what to speak of doing so in times of war.


I'm not going to mention names, but some of the people who wrote those essays you're refering to generally sound like lumpenproletariat with advanced degrees.

Self-criticism. This is my way. If a person practices self-criticism, that person cannot be so destructive, because that person will continuously ask to herself: “What am I doing? Is it good? Is it intelligent? Will it help progress?”. If Hitler had a habit of self-criticism, he would have thought, every second of his life: “What am I doing?”.
— Angelo Cannata

For people with delusions or paranoia - mad or bad, it is not possible to reason like this.
They have no reason to. — Amity

What makes you think Hitler wasn't being critical of himself? What evidence do you have, either from existing recordings of him, or what appear to be his writings (published or private)?

What makes you think that self-criticism should result in exactly one kind of answers? Namely, those pleasing to the current mainstream politically correct agenda?

This reminds me of a Christian preacher who said, "If you're honest, you will realize that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. And if you don't realize that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, then you're simply not being honest." He imposed his standards of honesty onto others.

You're doing the same kind of thing: Imposing what the result of self-criticism should be, and that if a person seems to lack that result, it can only be that they aren't self-critical.


This is a philosophy forum, not the watercooler. "Gut feeling" is not an argument.

Accept that we've emboldened him — Isaac

This is still part of the narrative "Putin is evil/a monster/bully/etc. and everything he says and does must be interpreted in line with this fact".

This is where it all goes wrong. It's acting in bad faith. Acting in bad faith goes wrong as long as the other party still has some strength to resist it. The only times when acting in bad faith seems to work out fine is when the other party is too weak to offer much resistance.

The actual problem at hand is operating on the idea that acting in bad faith is good, or at least not problematic.

So, it's about keeping doors open. Even if Putin wants them tightly shut with no light shining in. — Amity

There you go: The West's supremacism. It radiates through every crack.

Westerners insist in their supremacism and entitlement, while there are still people in the world who refuse to submit to it. And yet they are the bad guys!

Sorry, I don't have anything to contribute to this discussion. To be honest, I am skeptical of such advises: Putin/Russia/Europe/etc. ought to do this or that. OK, how do you imagine this is going to happen? Will Putin listen to your advice? Will Russia or Europe (what could that even mean?) Are you just advising the universe on how it should proceed going forward? (You may as well, for all the good it will do...) Or is this more like a prayer? But then why get into such specifics? Keep it simple: "Thy will be done..."

For personal advice, I like this proverb best: do what you ought, come what may. That's all that any one of us can aspire to.

Sorry, I don't have anything to contribute to this discussion. — SophistiCat

Like I said to @Count Timothy von Icarus, I can't respond fully today.
However, both you and @baker have contributed to this discussion in thought-provoking ways.
The article for me was a starting point.
There are clearly more perspectives and issues to be explored.
For example, the religious ideology you hint at.
Also the philosophy of what, if any, actions can or should be taken.

I haven't heard that proverb before:
"Do what you ought, come what may".

I think it is ambiguous. What does it mean, to and for you?
Does it reflect a particular philosopher's theory/practice?

I don't know which is worse? Killing people (Putin) or letting people die (Biden)? :chin:

Is this the Russian version of The Trolley Problem? Utilitarians!

I'm too tired - physically and mentally - to continue the discussion I started.
Thanks to all who participated. It's been a learning experience.

I haven't heard that proverb before:
"Do what you ought, come what may".

I think it is ambiguous. What does it mean, to and for you?
Does it reflect a particular philosopher's theory/practice? — Amity

I have seen this saying variously attributed to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Leo Tolstoy. It was also adopted as a favorite motto by the Soviet physicist and human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov. It means (for me) that you should do what your conscience tells you to do, even when you have little knowledge and control over the outcome.

This is where it all goes wrong. It's acting in bad faith. — baker

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "acting in bad faith", but I don't think accepting we've emboldened Putin matches any understanding of the term I know of.

I agree with the problems of acting in bad faith insofar as dishonesty, but I don't think that extends to necessarily being charitable, at least not with those in power. Those in power need to be held to account, it's one of the most important controls on power there is. So if Putin appears to be a tyrannical dictator I don't think anyone's under any obligation to look for the most charitable explanation of his actions, only one that is plausible and, most importantly, benefits those in most need.

My objection to the adolescent 'Putin bad man' argument so many posters here want to insist on, is not that it is a bad faith argument (he does seem quite bad, surely!), it's that it benefits those in power at the expense of those in need. It lends succour to the American arms industry, the 'reconstruction' loans, the IMF, by making it harder to sell any position other than 'fight to the death - every last man' (which just prolongs their extremely profitable war). Conversely it further impoverishes the powerless (in this case the Ukrainians) who must die in their thousands, just to keep Russia occupied for a bit, and then live as serfs to pay back the, now tripled, debts they owe at a new 'just-out-of-war' interest rate.

If all this bullshit moral flag-waiving actually got anyone anywhere I might quietly keep my English sense of disgust at the public display of emotion to myself, I don't mind the odd bit of bad faith among the drama-queen generation we seem to have somehow bred - but here, it's actually immiserating people and it's that which bothers me.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "acting in bad faith", but I don't think accepting we've emboldened Putin matches any understanding of the term I know of. — Isaac

You've used the image of the bully on the block in other discussions about this topic. Thus taking for granted that he's a bully (and that "we" need to find ways not to provoke him).

What would you do if someone called you evil, a monster, and would persist in that for a long time? Eventually, you'd probably conclude that the person doesn't mean well to you and you would take some action against them, depending on the circumstances and your resources. Would that make you an monster, a bully? Or just someone concerned about his own safety and wellbeing?

I think the same kind of scenario happened to Russia, on a much greater scale, of course. The West has always belittled and demonized Russians, and acted against them. The Russians were fully justified to conclude that the West doesn't mean well to them, and that proactive self-defensive action needs to be taken.

It's why I think the West didn't "embolden" Putin. To "embolden" Putin implies that he's a thug who just needed a little push.

My point is that the moment one thinks of another person as evil/a bully/etc. and treats them accordingly, the interaction is bound to deteriorate. You can observe how this happens between individual people, and between countries.

There is, of course, a tendency to minimize the context in which one sees the matter, people tend to ignore the initial bad faith in which they entered the interaction, and all they do is look at the other person's negative reaction.

In contrast, when one genuinely means well to others and acts accordingly, the other person will generally reciprocate in kind.

If the West would be fair and goodwilled toward Russians from the onset, the Russians would have no reason to think the West doesn't mean well to them, and there'd be no conflict. No war.

The West is like someone who hits the other person first, and then cries foul if the other person hits them back. "Look what he did to me! He hit me! He must be destroyed!"

He must be destroyed! — baker

:smile: Yes, yes, let's destroy him...her...it...er...who was it you wanted to destroy? It won't hurt will it?