Putin: a political and psychological profile

I have seen a lot of puzzling psychological assessments of Putin recently. One of them was that Putin is on the autism spectrum. This seems highly unlikely to me. While it is true that many people with ASD are introverts like Putin, introversion and ASD aren’t the same thing. People with ASD. Two little known facts about people on the spectrum

They are rarely pro-actively aggressive
They are less likely to make irrational decisions (source)

A few days into the war with Ukraine it became clear that this war can’t have any winners, but only losers and these include the Ukrainian as well as the Russian people and to a much lesser extent people in the west. So, the most rational decision would have been to end this war as there is really nothing to be gained.

Merely vilifying and considering Putin a psychopath isn’t very helpful either. It’s much more useful to understand where Putin is on a psychological and political level. On Salmon Schwartz’s circle of values it isn’t hard to locate Putin:

Putin’s values are clearly in the self-enhancement sector. I have traced back the psychological origin of this profile to an evolutionary pastoralist profile. Visible success, visible ability and material wealth are clearly on Putin’s list of values provided that the rumours about his love for luxury are true.

Like the Yamnaya pastoralists that roamed the Russian steppes, Putin subscribes to an extreme virile view of masculinity. His offensive-aggressive stance also is in line with pastoralist raiding patterns. Of course, pastoralists aren’t born villains, however, they have a high level of in-group sociality and clannishness being highly generous with their allies, but extremely tough on their enemies. Pastoralists typically are organised in segmentary lineages which have shifting patterns of alliances that can scale up quickly in times of war. While pastoralists are generally egalitarian within their group they tend to consider other groups as inferior, a political position which is called Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) or group hierarchy.

Pastoralist dominance in history has often led to oligarchic structures, which can be seen in mediaeval feudalism, mafia organisations and the kind of oligarchy prevalent in Russia nowadays.

SDO is common among populist politicians, which explains why Putin has so many fanboys among populists like Donald Trump who considered Putin a genius after starting the war while much of the rest of the world was shocked. Unfortunately, Trump isn’t the only fan Putin has got. European populist leaders were often no less ardent admirers. However, many of them are more reasonable than Trump and are reluctantly distancing themselves from Putin (e.g. Marine Le Pen).

Putin certainly doesn’t want to go down in history as a villain, when he sees himself as the white knight saviour. Honour is important to pastoralists and it is exactly what makes Putin dangerous. Honour isn’t rational, but a code of honour is part of all oligarchic structures like feudalism (chivalry) and mafia (omertà). For Putin, it’s a personal matter of not losing face and status. Outside criticism hurts him much less than criticism from within.

If there is a diplomatic way of ending the war in Ukraine, these are important things to consider for both Western diplomats as well as the Russian people. The longer this war goes on the lower the chances for a diplomatic solution will be.

For more on evolutionary types check out my books

Understanding History: Herders, Horticulturalists and Hunter-Gatherers