Georgia

COMMON FACTOR

All round the world it is commonplace for driven, needy individuals (usually men) to rise to the most powerful positions, there to behave badly. To my mind, it follows, that the problem is dysfunction within humankind as a whole, in the world as currently configured.

My best guess is that, in small numbers, before agriculture and settlement, with simple tools and weapons, even with a big brain and language, mankind was at best meta-stable. In some far-off future, it is possible to project the application of all we now know, to re-establish stability. But in these 'middle years' that we currently occupy, we are mad - to the tune of 6 billion and too much everything. Putin is, in terms of this scheme, a symptom of a psychological 'disease' for which no cure yet exists.

Possibly, the wisest on the planet might devise some approach to Putin that would resolve this impasse. But wisdom is not espoused by governance in the 'civilised world, probably because (unlike arms) it cannot be patented or sold and never becomes obsolete.