The mindset of the populations of Siberian origin (part 9)

Part of the series Perceiving complexity

⟵ The mindset of the populations of Siberian origin (part 8)

The aspects presented in the previous part about how men relate to this raw reality psychological power are more about the basic Altaic masculine situation. Given the change of perspective by leaps and bounds when compared to classical masculinity, among populations with other cultural influences there may be shame in acknowledging the realization of weakness as a source of tremendous power.

The Turks have some Middle Eastern influences that can make you consider the psychological power as a mental plateau leaning on women as upholders of psychological fluidity. This can make you too obsessed with the women in your life as secret bestowers of power and in the same time as liabilities that may show the world that your power is not so unitary (I wrote something about the Middle Eastern mindset in Part 12 of Perceiving complexity and in an article about backgammon). It looks like such influence was present as early as the 14th century.

In the preliminary exchange of letters before meeting on the battlefield, Timur wrote to Bayezid that “you are but an ant: don’t seek to fight elephants, for they will crush you under their feet”. The kind of confidence you have when you really are in the flow of the raw reality power. You are not mentally invested as a classical man in static mental plateaus and you can afford it. You went through the mental passage of not leaning as a man on static plateaus and you really mean it. A classical man would have too much personal investments in static plateaus to be able to be so fluid mentally to sustain such confidence.

In response, Bayezid leaned on the women as the pillar of stability, like in the Middle East, provoking Timur to battle and, if he does not come, “may your wives be divorced from you. But if you come and I run away from you and not meet you in battle, then of course may my wives be divorced”. It is not a masculine personal focus into the unknown, but an orientation towards the women as bestowers of overall meaning.

Of course, you can find references to women in the more basic Altaic approach to projection of power, but the nuance is not so much about the control or loss of control in relation to the power the women bestow, but as a practical problem. The men themselves have the power (and for this they need to face the loss of stable mental plateaus, immerse in the revealed weakness and then in the tremendous power). For example in the proclamation of Genghis Khan as the supreme leader, as recorded in the Secret History of the Mongols, the people declared:

“We will make you our leader, our great Khan. We will fling ourselves like lightning upon your foes. We shall give you the fairiest girls from the enemy. If we disobey you, take our flocks and our wives and our children and throw our worthless heads upon the sand.”

In the relation with women they may not be so interested in keeping and projecting the fiction of a masculine control of the situation by default, like in the Middle East. It is more about a focus on what is a real sense of control of the situation. And for this you may be open to notice when you don’t have it and understand what a real control of the situation may be about.

In this video for the Turkish Gündoğdu Marşı, you can sense that the men rather put a facade of strength, but in reality they are scared. They are mentally invested in static mental plateaus, they are scared of losing them, they do not really have that fluid power. (It is not a problem with being scared in itself, it is more about knowing how to accept the scary part and not think in static terms of being strong by default.) And, at the end of the video, they conceptualize their strength in relation with women as bestowers of power. Like in the Middle East, like for example in Bel Rouh Bel Dam (translation) of the Lebanese singer Najwa Karam.

And if you read this and you have the tendency to hide this further on, you are still in this Middle Eastern mindset, because in your mind you will still think in these terms. Of course, this does not mean rejecting the role of the women like the way the Middle Easterners tend to do (this only perpetuates the problem), but rather to see it for what it is and find your own immersion in the unknown. You need to face the unknown by yourself and inevitably this will show you how weak you are in comparison to how you think you are and then you will have a more reliable psychological power.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had this kind of Altaic power with no Middle Eastern easy escapes, his gaze was something like that of the awakened man from Amanat of Hassak. It was a focus on the fluidity of the unknown. The Middle Eastern approach of doubling down on classical masculine sense of being powerful by default turns the man into something like in Taram-taram of the Uzbek singer Farruh Komilov, with the impression of being the center of the world, while in practice the situation is more like a raft carried by strong ocean currents (the increased awareness around the diachronic fluid complexity).

Another case is that of the Russians. In Europe, the image of the Altaic masculinity is something like in Tatarin (translation) of Aigel. But this strength does not come so out of the blue and it is not such a monolithic approach to life, like in the European view. This view is under impression that there is something magic in the Altaic masculinity, for some unknown reason they manage to be so strong psychologically.

It is not interpreted in terms of leaning on women for the source of power like in the Middle East, but on a stand-alone masculine strength, like in Europe. This stand-alone strength is interpreted in Europe as a mental plateau. Hence they see the Altaic strength as an unexpectedly powerful mental plateau. Normally, a man cannot be so strong if he thinks in terms of mental plateaus, but these Altaic men can do it through some magic secret.

In reality, this strength is about not investing your self-image in static mental plateaus. The lack of understanding of its source creates an image of Altaic strength like a static mental plateau, which is misleading. The Russians tend to conceptualize the situation in these terms, the previous musical example is rather about a Tatar seen through Russian and European eyes. It has the focus on a static plateau of power, it starts with him asserting that he is not “weak and flimsy” like the more mainstream Tatar self-image exhibited by the taxi driver. And then an endless stream of focused display of psychological power.

However, all is so linear, if you stay like this focused on projecting power like a static plateau, you become stale soon, you marginalize yourself from real control of the situation. This specific Altaic masculine state of mind is rather like in Opmay-opmay of the Kazakh band Aziya with Baqay. It is not about a continuous static plateau, you let your mind dive in the fluid raw reality perceptions, like the occasional disruptions of the video image. On the one hand, in order to be able to do this, you need to accept as a man that you are not in control of the situation like a static plateau. On the other hand, it is very rewarding psychologically to dive your mind in such fluid perceptions and see unexpected perspectives, hence an unexpected self-confidence that can be unsettling for other men who think from the point of view of static plateaus.

This is the origin of the masculinity projected in Tatarin of Aigel, only that this European rendition is blind to the dive into the fluidity of the mind and the implicit acceptance that you cannot be in control of the situation through static plateaus. A man like in Tatarin is rather a woman’s fool, the woman is encouraging him to display such a masculinity focused on the static plateau so that she can be able to sustain his fluidity and thus make him dependent on her. Officially he is so tough, but in reality he depends on her.

And also he cannot think much about the overall situation, as he cannot dive his own mind into the unknown, he just exploits the current situations. He has moments in the video in which he lets the fluidity of his mind unfold, but it is in terms of static power, “I can do this while showing no static plateau weakness”. In the previous Kazakh example, there is no much interest in showing linear static control of the situation, there is more direct awareness of the mechanisms of the other kind of power.

Another nuance from Tatarin is “I can do this and you can’t”. The part with “you can’t”, one the one hand, simplifies a lot the perception of the situation, as it limits the complexity of the situation to the current context. You avoid facing much of the unknown in this manner. On the other hand, it turns you into a master of the current context and if you think you are great by doing that, it ties you down mentally to it, you are grabbing the other people’s context like a buoy of stability amid the fluid raw reality.

You need to dive into the fluidity of the mind by really facing its complexity, not by simplifying it through a limitation to the current context. This can bring you in practical situations of “I can do it and you can’t”, but the focus should be on “I can do it”, with all its incumbent responsibilities in facing the unknown.

The original Altaic masculinity in relations with women can be very accepting of not showing a control of the situation as a static plateau. The men can be like this Kyrgyz guy in Jarım bolçu of Almaz Nazir uulu. He can unfold that Altaic psychological power by not paying attention to display classical masculine prowess like a static plateau and it does not matter that he is poor and physically weak. The unfolding of the situation is more realistic, he accepts that he may not have success every time and this can really lead to overall success.

About the deceitful approach that finally made him successful, if you still want to be a man facing the unknown in your life and not depending on other people’s organization, you soon discover that you need to to be up to the unleashed complexity of the situation if you engage in deceitful practices. It is very easy to be deceitful with this fluid view around other people’s organization, but you may soon discover that ultimately it depends on who is really facing the unknown of real life. That one can really move things forwards and the others just depend on him and his organization. There is some long-term Altaic experience around the fact that just unleashing deceptive practices left and right, while on short term may look so liberating, in the overall situation it just ties you to the people who really face the unknown.

There is also an Altaic masculine possibility to just dive into the mental fluidity and create your own organization on the spot, which can look like in Oşko of the Kyrgyz singers Totomidin and Surma. The man is disconnected from the current social organization and goes along with his own. This is something like Raskolnikov’s dream by the end of Crime and Punishment, with individuals who each have their own take on what social life means, messing up the society badly.

In itself, this state of mind is not necessarily bad if you really assume organizational responsibilities. You can notice unexpected aspects, like the non-Euclidian geometry of János Bolyai and Nikolay Lobachevsky. But, if you are looking for a simple, lazy-minded organization, you just become a dictator regimenting the rest of the population to your own worldview.

The relation of this state of mind with specific ideologies promising to make sense of the world can go in a variety of directions. Some may sense what a complexity is behind a specific ideology if really put in practice and realize they should not really rely mentally on static ideological aspects, as these can bog them down. They may back down or just hijack some ideology, but only by paying lip service to it as a vehicle for personal power.

There is also the option of being very idealistic and innocent as a way to not get the ego entangled in the messy complexity of situations unleashed by ideologies. Music like İnsanların İçindeyim (translation) of the leftist Turkish Grup Yorum can give a feeling of this state of mind. The basic innocence, if faced for what it is, can show unexpected perspectives, like those of the pan-Turkic character Nasreddin Hoca or those from The Idiot of Dostoevsky. If it is just idealistic as a chase of a static ideal plateau, it can turn too emotional and aggressive and in practice the specific ideology does not really reach a moment of being put in application.

For example, the emotionally charged dabbling in the Japanese society with ideology in the 1960s public turbulence. They stopped after a while when it began to sink in the discrepancy between the superficiality of those ideologies and the depth of complex perceptions in the Japanese mindset that they usually don’t know what to do with in organizational terms.

The ongoing turbulence in the Turkish society after Atatürk’s death is an entrenchment of the political structure developed by him with an adult gaze that realizes the problem with such ideologies promising easy meaning in life as a static plateau. It turned into something like in Mini-mini of the aforementioned Farruh Komilov, with the army as the second older woman intervening to prevent the immature pair do stupid things.

Unfortunately, no influential trend appeared in the Turkish society to realize by themselves they need to grow up, they rather rely of Atatürk’s structure for a never-ending emotional and aggressive innocence. What Erdoğan currently does is still not a full-fledged ideological application, it is “against the system”, with him sitting in Atatürk’s palm like a spoiled brat. There is something authentic and serious in being fed up with this context, but a lazy “against the system” approach only perpetuates the situation by leaning on the structure put in place by Atatürk.

In the Russian case, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 had a strong static ideological approach, with people under impression that they found the solution to the social problems (not just as an emotional frenzy), as a result of this European veneer of focus on static plateaus. The madness that followed and the bogged down social life proved at a deep level in the Russian society that there is a problem with such static plateaus. They can’t go back to the previous times when they were too clueless about it. But, in order to admit this, they would also need to admit that there is a problem with the masculine projection of power as static plateaus.

There was no such willingness and, after the fall of Communism, the democratic life was a mixture of a facade of idealism with habits of the mind of “I can do whatever I want if I have power” from the Communist times and the earlier Tsarist times. There came Putin who put back some order, but still without confronting the psychological issues started by the Bolshevik Revolution. He just continues the same situation, with an increased focus on the idea of masculine infallibility, with a self-centered celebration of masculine strength, with the population somehow going along, somehow wondering what is really going on with them and with this brand of adoration of masculinity with homoerotic undertones, like in Moya boginya by Doni featuring Artur Pirozhkov.

The end of Moya Boginya, with the man having both women in his bed (who, by the way, along the video look so depersonalized and side-lined), is about a man who cannot admit he does not have control of the situation in any circumstances, as this would question his masculinity as static plateaus of power. This comes especially after the miserable failures of “enlightened men” from the last century which revealed too much in the Russian psyche the problems with such static plateaus of power.

Such a man feels like not having much maneuver room in his mind, he feels like a cornered man who has to prove constantly his masculinity. His mind does not dare to go beyond static psychological plateaus to really dive into the unknown by himself. The dare decreased a lot because of what the Communist experiment revealed about the sense of competence of the classical masculinity. Thus he has to constantly prove that he is better than the others, he does not have a life of his own.

Compare this with Erkekpin men (“I am a man”) of the Kazakh singer Gazizkhan Şekerbekov. The singer is comfortable to let unfold the side of his masculinity that immerses in the fluid raw reality perspective and is not interested in projecting power as static plateaus. This side still thinks in basic masculine terms when it is about the woman and, when the two sides meet in the bar, at first he becomes aggressive when he sees his woman with the classical masculine side of him. He is then surprised to see another side of the woman who goes along with him. This is preparing you to not just fight stupidly for the control of each static plateau.

This understanding and acceptance of a masculinity immersed in psychological fluidity and not necessarily projecting power as static plateau makes you much more aware about the real power you have. And about the situations you are fighting a losing battle and you need some serious readjustments. Normally, the Russian society would need some serious readjustments that would reform all the psychological morass started by the Bolshevik Revolution.

The two major reforms in the Russian history resembled a lot in depth the reforms of other polities with Altaic mindset. Only that in the Russian case these two reforms were a matter of personal will of leaders to move things forward as a result of relying on static plateaus, while the other polities did the reforms only when they felt the real sovereignty was seriously under threat (like the Meiji reforms and the Atatürk’s Reforms). Otherwise, probably they would have just preferred to continue dabbling with the situation. They had already a sense of how complex things are and they would have just preferred to not do much (which is not necessarily good either). Nowadays, some Japanese long for a new event like the Black Ships from 1852–1854 to force again the society do some deep reforms, as they can’t find the willingness to do it by themselves and confront all that complexity.

In a sense, it is good to have a personal initiative as a leader to move things forward, but you also need to be up to the complexity you unleash. The Russian reforms as personal initiative of the leaders go along with the European belief in static psychological plateaus, in this European impression that there is a coherence in the world as a static plateau of meaning. It is good to have the initiative to move things forward, but it is not good to believe in such a simplistic coherence of the world, you need to be aware of the real fluid complexity.

Otherwise, you are going to learn it the hard way what such deep reform can unleash, like the Russian society during the increasingly bogged down Soviet times. They find it difficult now to return to a more innocent pre-Soviet era, they are too aware of the complexity, but they do not want to admit it, as this would mean the crumble of the belief in the European style of masculinity as a static plateau.

The Turks were lucky with Atatürk, who was not so stuck in the belief in classical masculine coherence, he managed to find back the basics of the Altaic masculinity, to have the psychological strength to abandon the Ottoman compromised structures and start anew. There are situations in which you need to sense that it is much healthier to just give up some personal involvements. Compare Moya Boginya with something like Hayatı Tespih Yapmışım of Ferman Toprak.

Another issue with this kind of masculinity is that the awareness of the fluidity can give you the impression that you can do such extraordinary things. If you see the situation too much from the point of view of static plateaus, it turns into some sort of masculine bovarysm, everything feels so at hand, only that you can’t see very clearly how to get it. Like in Küme Düşersin of Oğuz Yılmaz or in Ty takoy (translation) of the same Doni, now featuring Natali. The latter is one of the Russian music video with most views at this moment on YouTube, which says something about the current major trends in the Russian society.

For a start, a better approach would be like in İstanbul’un Babası (“The boss of Istanbul”) of Hasan Yılmaz. He is letting his mind unfold the feeling that the power is so at hand, but this also supposes unfolding the real complexity of the situation, with other thought threads about him in more mundane contexts.

Something like this can permit you to have a life of your own, not just dabbling with the existing organization created by the responsibilities of other people who really face the unknown of real life. Apparently, Putin has unexpected, out-of-the-box approaches, but he is doing it the easy way, by leaning on other people’s organization, on other people’s responsibilities. It is much easier to manipulate the current context than create yourself new avenues by facing the unknown. However, this approach makes you dependent psychologically on the one who really assumes responsibilities.

This makes him obsessed with acknowledgement from the West as the real responsible party in charge with the overall organization. His regime engages in a manipulative debauchery like massive doping in sports that saw Russia banned from competitions, in splashing whatever money needed to get attention from those who assume real life responsibilities, like the 2014 Sochi Olympics as the most expensive ever in history, like the investment in Eurovision contestants etc. This while life in Russia is so stagnant, he is basically lucky with mineral resources.

Among the Altaic people with not so much investments of the sense of self in static plateaus there is some knowledge that it is very detrimental on the long run to just unleash manipulative practices left and right, as this will turn you into the psychological satellite of other people who really assume responsibilities about life. If you want to use that fluid thinking, you really need to be up to the game. I mentioned before the image the Altaic men have in Europe. Among the Russians, who have a more intimate knowledge of the Tatars, there is also another image about them, that of people who tend to be honest and sincere, but naive and simple (in the south, the Persians too have a similar image about the various local Turkic populations, as a result of long-term cultural coexistence).

Something like in Tatarin of Rinat Safin. The man wants everybody to be happy, but he rather sees everything through a patternized stereotypical glance. The woman tailing him is like his anima. The Tatar women can deliver approaches more in tune with the raw reality perspective, like in Oyge kaytır yullar bar ele of Aygul Barieva or Teläklärem sezgä of Albina Karmışeva. Of course, the men can do this too, but they need some mental training. As well as there are lots of women who “go Putin”, focused only on manipulating the perceptions of other people for their short term benefit, although on long term this only makes them dependent on those who face real life.

Another aspect is that an approach like in Oyge kaytır yullar bar ele is about seeing the situation on the sideline, not really being the one who sustains the organizational structure and moves it forward diachronically. When you are in this position, you realize that much of the classical human thinking process is made of simplifying, patternizing stereotypes, plus whatever wisdom is there accumulated around them. A direct view into the huge diachronic psychology beyond this patternization is like the entanglement of threads around Albina Karmışeva in Teläklärem sezgä. If you want to work directly with the diachronic psychology, there are not many available psychological tools. You need to see by yourself how to think and what to do with the classical human organization made of stereotypes.

The Ottoman millet system was something like in Tatarin of Rinat Safin, only that the men applying it had more experience in working with human psychological patternizations (not that the millet system was good by default, it had lots of aspects to overhaul and improve, the Ottoman Empire did not crumble for nothing).

Some of the Russians themselves have this honest approach to life (that can be also naive in the absence of the proper mental training in thinking from the fluid point of view), but this is not something cultivated and appreciated like at the Tatars (especially after the Bolshevik Revolution). The other Tatarin music video that I mentioned before, with the tough Tatar guy, was about the rejection of this aspect (the Tatar taxi driver) and assumption of the European image about the Altaic men. Obviously, there is a problem with being naive and simple, but immersing in manipulative debauchery is much worse, you are losing yourself quickly. It is better to study the situation and get increasingly experienced to think from the fluid perspective. Some innocence with an immersion in that deep fluid psychology while studying the world (and not parking it into idealistic innocence) can be a good approach.

The Tatars are currently faring much better than the Russians, in spite of the historical marginalization and discrimination. They had a much more responsible leadership since the fall of the Soviet Union. The economy is in a much better shape, only that it is milked too much by the federal authorities from Moscow (even more after the annexation of Crimea).

See this taxi driver in Syktyvkar commenting about the deplorable state of the city. The tourist asks him what happened. The driver explains that after the fall of the Soviet Union everything in Russia became so dirty. Who lives well? Chechnya, Kazan (the capital of Tatarstan), Sochi, and on second thought (when asked by the tourist), also Moscow and Sankt Petersburg.

Moscow and Sankt Petersburg are the cities of the Russian leadership that suck the wealth of the country and they are not thought in the first place as “normal Russia” by someone from the rest of the country. Sochi is the seaside pet project of Putin with that Olympiad, while Chechnya underwent a major reconstruction after the war (with money partly taken from Tatarstan). Only Kazan is by its own means, in spite of being milked too much by the federal authorities, complimented by the driver as the most beautiful city.

There is something ridiculous, clownish in general with these Altaic dictators who go haywire in psychological terms, there is a sense that they are not like the classical men. See for example the selection of “dangerous world leaders” the team from Last Week Tonight of John Oliver made for a part about the Turkmen dictator Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. As they studied about him and entered in his psychological atmosphere, these were the dangerous leaders that came to their mind: Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Kim Jong-un, Viktor Orbán. All of them are from this Altaic cultural area, except Rodrigo Duterte who won his place there with his “life is a joke” attitude.

Where are the likes of Bashar al-Assad, Xi Jinping, Mohammed bin Salman or Nicolás Maduro? Obviously they are more dangerous than some of those listed there in the TV show, but they are not in the same psychological area as the Turkmen leader. The bad leaders that escaped selection give the vibe of simple classical masculinity with a belief in static control of the situation, they don’t have this “life is a joke” attitude. In a sense, there is something like in the Romanian saying “still the Turk pays” or the Spanish saying “head of a Turk” in that selection. Those listed are not felt with classical masculine psychological defenses and it is easy to make fun of them once you got yourself in the atmosphere of someone like Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov (although the stated choice of leaders there was their dangerousness).

Of course, being an Altaic leader does not necessarily put you in this situation. If Atatürk were alive, most likely he would not have ended up in that list of clowns. If the West knew more about leaders like Nursultan Nazarbayev or Ilham Aliyev or the recently deceased Islam Karimov, probably the first one would not have been chosen for that list, but the last two likely would have been added there. In all three cases it is about dictators, but it is about a certain vibe of indulgence in psychological fluidity that the man is not really up to as control of the situation, thus giving a ridiculous vibe.

Personally, I don’t see the solution necessarily as a direct strive to be always on top of the situation by default in that psychological fluidity, as this can either make you stale and miss important real life aspects (like Rinat Satbaev in Qayta qayta and Sagınış) or just give you the impression you are on top of the situation. For the latter case, it is more about noticing when you are sliding into feeding your ego with impressions you are in control of the situation with these psychological fluid explorations.

Basically, when you are in situations like in Oşko, you should consider them as psychological fluid explorations, pay attention to what this psychological environment is about and notice how you can have as a man a responsible control of the situation from a fluid perspective. And, in terms of Altaic leadership, as the awareness of the aspects I present in this series will spread, they will likely determine more responsibility and a richer social psychological life and the dictatorial leadership would look increasingly ridiculous.

When I saw this Tugan tel by Salavat Fäthetdinov, its imagery reminded me of the personality cult of Nicolae Ceaușescu from my childhood in Romania. But, in this case, this is really a popular appreciation for Mintimer Shaimiev as the Tatar leader who managed to steer rather competently the situation in the complex context of the Russian Federation. The appreciation is something along the lines of that of the Turks for Atatürk.

These are leaders who do not get stuck in static masculine self-images, the problem that creates these dictators (in the case of the Russians, also with ideological self-aggrandizement they exported worldwide, which caused the nutcase dictatorship of Ceaușescu in Romania). It is still a problem that even some of these good Altaic leaders may not be so interested in cultivating a valuable civil society like in a democracy. And large parts of the population itself may not be so interested either, as this would make them face too much the complexity of real life they have some awareness of.

The people should pay attention to the extent they kind of like how a dictator assumes responsibilities about the complexity of real life, like the Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram in Sheel Oyounak Anni (translation), complaining how this need for control stifles her creativity. At the end of the video there is also the nuance “your looks are dangerous, most dangerous thing about them is that they are beautiful, their charm fascinated me for years”. The man really takes in consideration with such control that psychological abyss that she is aware of (and people in general from these Asian cultures are aware of, but still the dictatorial approach is a lazy solution to such awareness).

The approach I am releasing here is more about opening the mind coherently about the mental abyss this fluid thinking supposes, instead seeing it as an “uninteresting” back side of the mind, like in the household structure at my grandparents I mentioned in the first part of this series. Because that side is “uninteresting”, the person just chases ideal front side mental plateaus or ends up chasing fights with suffocating stale mental plateaus, as a legacy of the original classical feminine mindset (and the women too are not necessarily bound to this either).

If you face that complexity, you need to have yourself more responsibility in your life. From what I noticed until now, even if people may not get the idea or may rebound around their convenient views, this approach about facing the abyssal fluidity seeps in among them like in The Death of Ivan Ilyich of Tolstoy, it changes the paradigm.

Let me write something about the women too. Some of the Russian women are like in previous two musical examples with Tatar women who know the need to be responsible from the complex fluid perspectives. Others share the same problems with the Russian men who enter in mental static plateaus. For women, this tends to manifest in tendencies to have explosive reactions or to incite the men to do disruptive things so that those static plateaus crumble down.

The easiest example that comes to my mind are the two important women in Dostoevsky’s life. Anna Snitkina was the kind of woman who did not end up entangled mentally in static plateaus and thus she could continue to unfold the fluid perspective, but she may have been too much on the idealistic side. Polina Suslova was entangled with static plateaus and this made her constantly pushing everybody for challenges. The 2002 film House of Fools is also a good example, with Zhanna as the pacifist, yet idealistic woman and Vika as the restless woman constantly inciting to revolutions. This is not necessarily about women with these specific specializations, a woman can have both these nuances in different contexts and different areas of the personality.

Putin has an approach that tricks this issue around inciteful restless women by presenting himself as a man who is not “the system”, but as a daring man who constantly breaks down and disrupts what is stale. In fact, this is just a manipulative imagery, as that not only he is very much the system, but he is too conservative in a situation in which the Russian society badly needs some reforms. He is a lazy manipulator like in Natasha qalay of the Uzbek singer Odilbek Abdullayev, not facing the unknown of real life and leaving to the rest of the world the initiative to move things forward. This inevitably turns him into a ridiculous and clownish figure.

The problem is what kind of reforms? With the current Russian mindset, it may open again the floodgate of Dostoevskyan Raskolnikovs, Verkhovenskys and Stavrogins like at the Bolshevik Revolution and the churning out process to leave the most callous one on top. This is because the people are reluctant to face the lessons from the Soviet Union (which would also suppose for both men and women facing the lack on masculine infallibility, a sore point in the contemporary Russian society). On the other hand, if there is some restrain in unleashing the reformatory zeal, then the reforms turn into a poor quality idealism with no proper attention payed to the relation to real life, which leaves way for opportunist to profit from the situation, like after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Narushaem pravila (“Break the rules”) by Hanna featuring Luxor appears to be a more responsible example of a woman dealing with static plateaus. It is about this feeling of suffocating static plateaus, but it has also some vibe that she would just fool herself if she were just inciting the man to act recklessly to break them apart. The music has some psychological explorations about really finding an authentic mental fluidity.

This is more in the idea of showing a good example, as many Russian women still are under impression that there is a core of classical human thinking that can work with the diachronic psychology, thus being inciteful. Not that being inciteful is something bad in itself, but it should be something more open ended, not under impression that there is a already there an plateau of satisfaction and, if the man is incited to break apart the existing situation, it is so consequential for the man to find it. To give an idea, listen for example this Tallava by the Albanian singer Sanimete Krasniqi.

The Koreans have something similar to the situation of the Russians, as they have too problems with being stuck in static plateaus as a result of seeing themselves too much from the perspective of the Chinese cultural influence that leans on static plateaus as organization. To give some examples, the good, idealistic woman and the manipulative, selfish, inciteful woman from the 2000 TV series Secret, or the study of such a haughty woman in the 2006 TV series Fantasy Couple. Or the nut rage incident.

As a musical example, the band 2NE1, with this state of mind ending up in having sex, like in Can’t nobody or in violence, like in I’m the best. The North Korean regime is under such psychological influence, just notice the explosions of emotions from their public declarations when something annoys them. It is not necessary to be a woman behind those emotional outbursts, the men themselves behave like this without any feminine direct intervention if they grow up in such environment.

In general, it is about being caught in some ideology and turning it into some vehicle for a violent reorganization of the society in order to break apart the stale mental plateaus in your mind. See also this scene from the Japanese film Drive (2002), with a former Buddhist priest accidentally ending up on a rock scene and preaching Buddhist concepts in a very “Leninist” inciteful, incendiary manner. In this case, the woman is rather attenuating the potential of violence by moving the focus to sex, she is not sliding herself in supporting his nuance of achieving some idealistic new world order. It may still be about a new order, but one that really takes in consideration the fluid psychological complexity.

He is preaching about “waking up to wisdom and benevolence”, but previously in the film he beat heavily her partner, as he was annoyed by how that man’s drug abuse was disregarding the Buddhist precepts of respecting life. This is a man who lives very superficially in a world of concepts, while under impression that he can give back the vibrant and righteous fluidity of life to the society (in fact, rather in order to destroy what is static and stale in his own mind). The woman still notices his potential.

In the more basic Altaic social life, without entanglement with too much belief in static plateaus from other cultures, the women still can end up too much in their head. They feel things are stale and they incite men to violence in order to refresh the situation, but it is not so much with this “against the system” vibe like at the Russians and Koreans. See Ko’pkari of the Uzbek singer Hosila Rahimova, how luminous is her face at 2:14, after the men throw the lamb in the circle. That act has broken down what was stale in her mind. But what was stale was not so much a static “rational” belief in social order, like at the non-Altaic cultural influences at the Russians and Koreans. It is about things that got stale for herself in her mind. She does not have the vibe of a “woman breaking down the system”, of “can’t nobody hold us down” like at the Russians and Koreans, she is already in charge of her life. I have much more to write about this, you will need to wait for future parts of this series, don’t draw hasty conclusions.

And sometimes you can find at the Russians and Koreans much better insights into what is this Altaic mindset about, exactly because of the problems created by the entanglement with too much belief in static psychological plateaus from other cultures. Some people don’t just go along with the situation at hand, they wonder what is going on and they have much more direct and experienced perceptions of this psychology.

I mentioned in the previous parts some Korean musical examples about the basics of the Altaic mindset. Those were rather possible because of going through the problems of being stuck in static mindsets and sensing back the Altaic psychological fluidity, with a better awareness and experience around what is this about. That Korean traditional dance that looks like an introduction to the abyssal power has a much more valuable perception around what is this power about. The Taepyungso Sinawi of Gamin (Kang Hyo Sun) has much more depth of perception around the Altaic psychology of going through difficulties.

The previously mentioned Narushaem pravila (“Break the rules”) of Hanna with Luxor appears to have some increased realization that inciting the men to just destroy the current structure is going nowhere, while it has the pathos of being stuck in static plateaus. Some women have this impression that if you destroy the current structure a magnificent psychological fluidity will unfold naturally afterwards. They end up with these perceptions because they lean on the peace of mind of an existing structure, they are not the ones who are really facing the unknown like the men. They face the unknown mostly around the masculine organization. Hence the impression that after the destruction of the structure there is still there an underlying stability capable of supporting the unfoldment of the psychological fluidity. However, if the structure is destroyed, there is no underlying stability and you are likely to end up with dictators assuring the coherence of the society.

The previously mentioned Taepyungso Sinawi of Gamin is about a woman who has a better understanding about how it is to face the unknown of real life, probably as a result of accumulating experience with the Korean issues resulting from believing in static structures. Ultimately it is still about breaking the rules of the existing structure, but by really facing the unknown beyond the static human psychology like the disruptive percussion instruments of the male musicians. This should be as an expertise of working coherently with the psychological fluidity. And in that case the focus is not so much on breaking the rules (while you still break them), but on practical work with a valuable psychological fluidity.

Another aspect is that the basic Altaic psychology has an inner space disconnected from the classical human static organization, in which you can unfold the fluid side of the mind without feeling so hampered, like in İstanbul Ağlıyor of the Turkish singer Gülay. I wrote in the Part 11 of Perceiving complexity about how can you analyze a situation from this perspective, with a move back and forth between the immersion in organization and the inner fluid space in which you can watch the organization like in a cinema seat, as in Uyansın of the Turkish singer Neslihan Demirtaş.

The men too end up thinking from this perspective, as in Sargardoringman of the Uzbek singer Umidaxon. The progression of music videos of the Kyrgyz singer Ilyaz Abdrazakov appear to show how he has an increasing understanding of this perspective. In Janım ay (“My life”) he is witnessing how what he was considering reality feels more and more as just a psychological structure in his mind (the opposite of those men who end up believing they know how to create a new idealistic world order by breaking apart the current one). Some years later, in Süy Deymin, he reaches the root of such perceptions when realizing how much he was leaning on the women’s support. This support had a much more profound psychology that was making him increasingly see his initial sense of reality as just a structure in his mind. This is the kind of psychological environment in which you are not so inclined to be invested in lazy-minded static ideologies and worldviews promising a simplistic clear understanding of the world.

Tańdaý of the Kazakh band JUZIM can give an idea about how the situation is changing in that inner space when you end up invested in such static worldviews that give you the impression you have a clear understanding of the world. This feels like Russian psychological influence with immersion in a static worldview and subsequent feeling of suffocation: “they think for me, I don’t like that, they don’t know what my heart wants, I don’t obey that”. And further on the impression that she has a clear mind: “from a thousands thoughts, I can breathe, the answer is in my mind, I know what I need”. There may be an initial very genuine basic fluid feeling of knowing what you need (not as a static plateau), but further on the woman may think and process this impression while immersed in the static worldview and taking advantage of the simplistic way it creates psychological meaning. This can turn further on in inspiration for the men to develop crazy overhauls of the society as in Communist Russia and North Korea, which in practice don’t change anything of substance because they have no substance in their beliefs in the first place. It is only a leadership going crazy and the people suffer so much.

This video is still not going fully Russian, as the awareness of that inner space continues to have its primacy. The mind is not yet sliding into believing that you have the solution that creates a fluid society without that feeling of suffocation. It has some immersion in the unknown, but with some framing of static linear worldview: “I seek light from darkness, I have faith, I have confidence, forward only”. In this case, I find good to let this unfold in the mind while paying attention to not lose the sense of authenticity, it is good to experiment what is with these static worldviews and have more experience about them. It is not about avoiding them.

I don’t see this video as something bad, as long as it does not turn into a belief in a solution within the static worldview. This is the kind of environment in which you get a more clear idea about the depth of the basic Altaic psychology with a “forward only” rather focused on the abyssal unknown of real life, as in the previously mentioned Taepyungso Sinawi of Gamin.

A case worth mentioning around this issue of relating to the static plateaus is that of the Manchus, as an example of a major failure in understanding the strength and weakness of the Altaic mindset. They were already aware of the previous experience of the Mongols who conquered China, only to see their leadership assimilated culturally by the Chinese. When they conquered too China in the 17th century they thought of doing it smarter this time. They forced the entire Chinese population to adopt Manchu identity markers like dress, hairstyle, as if this would preserve the Manchu identity.

The situation turned even worse for them, as they had this false assurance as being in control of the situation as a static plateau and they ended up even more assimilated. Nowadays the Manchu identity is severely weakened, the Chinese authorities shun even the term Manchuria itself and use instead Dongbei (Northeast). Practically, it is as though the Manchus don’t exist. Theoretically they are about ten million people, but did you hear anything about them in the contemporary context?

The Altaic mindset offers unexpectedly valuable possibilities to think fluidly, which can give you unexpected advantages. But, if you just apply it with its original feminine approach, you end up as a psychological satellite of someone else who really assumes organizational responsibilities. It is possible to assume responsibilities with this fluid thinking, but you need to work on your psychological expertise.

Compare the Manchu approach to the Ottoman one, in which the leadership sensed how you lose yourself if you seek such assurance of leaning of static plateaus of control of the situation. They had more awareness around how to see this fluid psychology in itself as a support for static identity plateaus, like in Yar Ali Senden Medet of the Turkish singer Yıldız Tilbe. She is has some more awareness and expertise about the plurality of thought threads in her mind, about how she works with a plurality of static plateaus points of view in her inner space, like the plurality of those TVs. With this psychological depth, you don’t end up believing in static plateaus. Even more, you can sustain concomitantly a plurality of them, like the Ottoman millet system.

Around these issues, I should add that I do not necessarily see the women only in background supportive positions. But for this it is necessary to face this fluid complexity. What I tend to write here about supportive roles is around the practical situations that tend to happen in real life, at least up to now. And even in such situations, I pay attention to what is valuable.

For example, the expressivity of the Tatar singer Ilsiya Badretdinova in her song Putin kebek ir kirek (“We need a man like Putin”). This is not specifically about destroying what is stale and creating a new idealistic order, it is rather about the mainstream Altaic masculine role of organizing social life while immersed in a valuable psychological fluidity, without specific ideological entanglement. In this case, she is the kind of woman who slides into just developing a masculinity with that abyssal power while thinking that things simply work out if the man is acting. You can just live within this perception and do nothing about practical issues unfolding in real life that result from this approach.

I still pay attention to the initial value there, before being invested in that practical social unfolding, which can be seen better in Mişӓrem (“I am Mişӓr”, the Mişӓrs are a Tatar subgroup). There is value in this zest, which also comes with some psychological fluid thinking. Further on, the question is what to do with this.

Additionally, something that can be lost in the current Russian social context (which determines a cul-de-sac masculine self-image as in Moya boginya) is that the woman has some sense that the man has to be developed, he may even need to face the weakness. It is not entirely an initial belief in the masculine prowess. You can see Ilsiya Badretdinova also in situations with Firdus Tyamaev (I mentioned him in the previous part of this series with his tribulations around the psychological power in Soyam janım).

The Russian understanding of the situation, especially after the miserable failure with Communism, is very weary around facing weakness, with bad consequences. Many Russian women are reluctant themselves to face the concept of masculine weakness, they do not seem to notice well what is with this part of the Altaic psychology and life is much easier while leaning on the belief in an innate masculine strength. This turns into a psychological structure reaching some aspects similar to what is going on in the Middle East, with homoerotic undertones as in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In the basic Altaic psychology itself things may not be very clear around facing weakness and around how to relate this with the classical human concept of masculine strength. The women can give very contradictory signals, but still the discovery is there and it has a life of its own.

Another aspect is that Putin kebek ir kirek, while being a specific endorsement with leaning on male power, is not entirely about being engrossed in the man, the expressivity has a life of its own in many aspects, given the psychological depth. It is a fluid psychology there manifesting itself that can be in fact very subversive to the classical masculine psychological organization, if you just lean on the latter for internal coherence and consistency. The comments below the video mostly go along with the overt message or just compliment the singer’s atractiveness, but there appear also some like “is this banter?” or “Putin likes men and dislikes women anyway” (the suspicions around his sexual orientation given his peculiar engrossment in the imagery of classical masculinity).

It is important to pay attention that there is a fluid psychology there and see what is going on. This can make you feel like a very refreshing leader and even trailblazer. But, if you just go along as a man with such female psychological background inspiration while continuing to lean conveniently on classical masculine organization, it is likely to develop some clownish vibe while you think you are such a great man. This clownish situation has a range between still relying on paying attention to how the world sees you and really being immersed in this fluid psychology, like in Oşko of the Kyrgyz singers Totomidin and Surma, really living within the sense of reality of this fluid psychology, with all the subsequent consequences.

In the latter case, at least there is a vibe of being accepting of the situation and not necessarily seeking to fake some expected social image. And it depends what you do with this state of mind. As I mentioned previously, this can make you notice unexpected perspectives if seen for what it is, but it can also be used lazily as straightforward projection of “reality”, like by forcing your family or an entire country to go along with whatever occurs in your mind as your specific sense of reality, like the aforementioned president of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who determined that specific, probably involuntary, selection of Altaic clownish political leaders by Last Week Tonight.

If wondering what is going on and seeking some sense of normality in your life, there may not be immediate masculine mental tools to do something about this situation. The reaction can be like in Qayta qayta of the Kazakh sigers Ahan Otınşiev and Rinat Satbaev. However, if you restrain too much this fluid psychology, you may end up very self-refrained, since you are not a classical man anymore, you know about how that fluid psychology works, you simply cannot go back to unfold naturally the simplistic classical masculinity. It can turn into a situation like in Sagınış of the previous Rinat Satbaev, here in collaboration with Nurlan Espanov, when trying to get the secret of naturalness and popularity. Or a situation like in O’yna-o’yna of the Uzbek singer Ziyoda, in which the mind is following on the surface classical masculine organization, but it is heavily subverted by that fluid thinking and the man may not know how to relate these two perspectives. He has plenty of involuntary naturalness and popularity, but he does not know how to relate with such psychology (at the end of the video he starts to have some understanding).

If you pay more attention to what is going on in this situation in which you don’t know how to unfold naturally your masculinity, you realize that you ended up in a feminine view of the masculinity. The masculinity is not unfolding by itself according to the natural impulse you have, as that impulse is seriously disrupted by another perspective that is rather observational from an external perception. This more direct perception can open the mind to some of the gist of this fluid thinking, it is not anymore necessarily about some crazy fluidity as it turns out when relating it to classical masculine thinking, but about an unexpected psychology, a deep non-linear thinking with a plurality of thought threads, in which you do not rush to simplistic conclusions, you need to have a sense of authenticity around what you perceive, like your life depends on it (given the long-term disempowered feminine perspective). You may simply experience how this fluid thinking works in practice, something like the specific observational vibe regarding a man from Ӓkren genӓ atlap baram of the Tatar singer Aysılu Gabdinova. This is with what I call ebru Altaic psychological nuances that I wrote about before.

As I said in the previous part of this series, this does not mean that the classical masculinity is entirely rendered good for nothing. You can’t simply return to the classical masculine organization, as that looks ridiculously narrow-minded compared to the sense of authenticity and psychological depth of this ebru thinking. But there are still lots of valuable aspects in the long-term accumulated masculine experience. And the masculinity is reorganizing, there is also lots of tapping into the accumulated experience of many previous generations of men dealing with this cultural context (but it is important to sense also personally what is going on).

A reorganized masculinity seeking some sense of order can be like the policeman from Şudıñ boyında of the aforementioned Ahan Otınşiev. It is an inner character that kicks in when you feel like things are going too haywire (if you have some conscience and sense of overall responsibility focused on the unknown revealed by such complex fluid thinking, not necessarily seeking refuge in creating a defensive self-serving and likely self-deceiving psychological organization). This is not usual classical masculinity seeking to uphold a specific ecosystem of self-centered pre-existing order. It is open to investigate what is going on, it has the patience and psychological resources to do that, as it assumes the value of the perspective like in Ӓkren genӓ atlap baram.

It looks like something like this happened in Crime and Punishment of Dostoevsky. This character kicked in as the investigator Porfiry Petrovich, but it appears that Dostoevsky could not wrap his head around his modus operandi and he constantly describes him emphatically as effeminate, as though he wanted to make some sense of him and not leave unclear the existence of such a character not fitting in his expectations. Well, in fact it is a reorganized masculinity, and it can rather feel like an abyssal super-masculinity, like the policeman from Şudıñ boyında.

Once that policeman / prosecutor perspective unfolds, you have all kind of psychological resources available, but you still need to see what to do with it, it is your responsibility to face the unknown of the situation and see how to approach what is going on in order to have a sense of authenticity. The initial methods of Porfiry Petrovich are rather the easier ones, like seeking to confuse and provoke Raskolnikov, but they are not necessarily valuable to get to the bottom of the problem (they are valuable sometimes, but not necessarily when you may rather sense that you need to understand yourself something deeper about the situation). Dostoevsky is learning about this perspective as the story unfolds.

The policeman from Şudıñ boyında has from the start this sense that he has to get to the bottom of something. It is not so much about “this and that happened” as chasing a plateau of “truth” within a self-centered ecosystem of meaning. There is a feeling that there is something more to understand. As this investigation unfolds, practically Ahan Otınşiev has a better understanding of what is going on with him, new synapses appear in the brain around how to make sense of this fluid psychology and how to face real life with it.

In Dostoevsky’s case, the denouement is a major refreshment like in Taatta of the Yakut singer Künney. He thought initially the situation from the perspective of a static plateau of truth, the prosecutor’s initial quest was to align the unknown of real life to his perception of truth. He was using fluid thinking tools, but he was still orienting his mind around a perceived plateau of truth (women seeking easy solutions also do this many times).

The story still opened the mental abyss of something beyond this kind of thinking. There is a mental abyss in the pivotal character of Lizaveta, which draws you down the rabbit hole and it looks like he explores this perspective in the next novel The Idiot. What is with this innocence? When letting it unfold, it shows a worldview in which you do not necessarily orientate your mind around a plateau of “truth”, you observe what is going on and you notice all kind of unexpected perspectives.

They are not necessarily what would be called innocent perspectives, it can open your mind to all kind of terrible aspects like the adult woman and the small girl with lanterns in Yuh Yuh of the Turkish band Cemali. This specific video is the case in which you make the difference between the psychological ecosystem in which you have some coherence and the rest of the unknown. The lyrics are about keeping some code of conduct amid all the terrible aspects revealed beyond the usual classical masculine self-centered cluelessness about the how things are much more complex.

There is also the situation followed by Dostoevsky to go along with such perceptions and explore what they are about. This can give deeper insider understanding of what is going on when you are not focused on the current plateau of “truth” in your mind. It looks like further on Dostoevsky explored this in Demons, opening the mind about how not just to focus on a specific plateau of “truth” and thus notice how self-centered and self-serving can be the thinking process when focused on a plateau of “truth” as control of the situation, how much manipulation happens “on the other side of the Moon” to sustain that plateau of “truth”.

It is something similar to Middle Eastern realizations like in Ana Al Insan of Diana Haddad I wrote about in part 12 of Perceiving complexity, only that this specific video ends with an “Epic of Gilgamesh”-like focus on the perishability of that classical masculine psychological plateau. This plateau is still the only point of orientation in the mind. Dostoevsky is immersed in the Altaic feminine psychological organization outside of that plateau, which offers the possibility to bring the man to see from the “cinema seat”, like in Sargardoringman of the Uzbek singer Umidaxon.

From this perspective, further on he can afford to not rely on the existing plateau as orientation and just let things unfold in the mind, even when showing how compromised the entire “plateau of truth” organizational structure is. In the next novel The Brothers Karamazov, the system condemns a person who probably is not guilty, but still heavily involved in the situation. In Crime and Punishment there was an initial presumption about the existence of a plateau of truth, you just need to find that truth and then find ways to prove it publicly.

Dostoevsky died shortly after finishing the publication of The Brothers Karamazov, so there was no further investigation around what to do with this situation after facing so directly how compromised is the classical human psychological organization. Structurally, you can’t simply live with this situation, you need to further investigate what is going on. Who knows, there could have been some better perceptions that could have given organizational ideas and avert the misery of the Russian brand of Communism, well realized as an outcome in Demons.

My take on his down the rabbit hole exploration is that from the start I would not have had the nuances of Raskolnikov’s fascination with super-masculine power as initially in Crime and Punishment. That is revolving too much around the classical human psychological organization in the idea that “wow, I can transcend it”. This is like being clueless of anything other than that organization.

The basic Altaic experience of that super-masculinity is more like in Opmay-opmay of the Kazakh band Aziya with Baqay. The focus in not on transcending the classical human psychology, like being clueless of anything beyond it. There is some organization initially provided by women about simply being in this psychological fluidity that has a life of its own. The reorganized masculinity seeks some inner equilibrium, there is an observational side of the man that pays attention to what is going on with the inner stability. The man in suit that appears by the end, when the music slides more into “going nuts”, is the same character as the prosecutor from Crime and Punishment or the policeman from Şudıñ boyında. This character can vary in nuances, the way this inner relation unfolds depends on the expertise, wisdom and depth of assumption of overall responsibilities of each man. In this case, they have some understanding and he goes along with them to some extent. Instead of the wow factor around transcending the classical psychology, there is a sense of being in a mental abyss and the focus is rather on how to relate to it.

These aspects are lost in the European image of Altaic men, consequently seeing them as transcending by some sort of miracle the plateaus of the classical static psychology, like the image of the Tatar man in Tatarin of Aigel. This kind of imagery also tends to miss how you need to experience and face the weakness to be immersed in such psychological strength. There is still value in an exploration like that of Dostoevsky, as in The Brothers Karamazov it still reaches more in-depth perceptions, and on the way to that it can give better insights around what is going on and how this psychology relates to the classical human thinking.

→ The mindset of the populations of Siberian origin (part 10)