Many are asking about the state of Putin’s mind. The simple answer is, “nobody knows.” And we are not inclined to be either armchair generals or armchair psychiatrists.
That said, there are ways to gain some insight. For your Sunday listening we offer the following deep dive into Putin’s brain. This is a pre-Covid, pre-Ukraine-invasion PBS Frontline interview with The New Yorker’s Masha Gessen, who has studied Putin carefully and offers a viewpoint of great clarity. We suggest you watch (listen) at least the first 20–30 minutes of this two-hour program. You will learn, among many other things, how Putin, born seven years after WW2 and growing up in Leningrad, experienced his formative years. The insight revealed in this interview may be both startling and alarming. For me, I hear a confirmation that we are dealing with a monster.
Here’s the link for a thought-provoking Sunday.
“The Putin Files: Masha Gessen,” https://youtu.be/Kk9igTqTx9s.
After listening to at least some of this interview, please consider the ancient mythological dilemma. You are in a sealed cave. You are discovered by a monster who wants to eat you. You are trying to find a reason to argue and therefore to convince the monster not to eat you. From birth, the monster has learned only deceit, arrogance and brutality. The monster has only one thing in his mind and cannot be persuaded to change his goal of consuming you. What do you do? The choice becomes binary: be eaten or find a way to kill the monster.
David R. Kotok
Chairman & Chief Investment Officer
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