On the 16th of February, Alexej Navalny died in the remote Russian penal colony called “Polar Wolf”. If you don’t know who Navalny was, a quick read through the Wikipedia entry will get you up to speed. In short, Alexej Navalny was widely considered the most recognizable face of the anti-Putin opposition in Russia. He was a largely symbolic figure, given that his chances of running for President, or having his party win the elections, were close to zero. But symbols can change history.
I don’t often choose to enter into the political fray and express opinions on the current events, but I always pay attention to what’s happening on the world stage. I am not an expert in geopolitics, nor do I claim to have access to unadulterated, fully objective news reports. My field of interest is symbols, archetypes, myths—both past and present—and the evolution of human consciousness.
I do believe there is an archetypal dimension to Navalny’s death, and to Putin’s certain reelection for his 5th mandate at the helm of the Russian Federation.
So here’s an archetypal angle on the news of Navalny’s death. The persecution and death of Navalny marks a stage in the war between two models of the Masculine. It represents the temporary victory of an archetypal Masculine that, for lack of a better word, I will call Toxic.
Before I move on, I am aware that a situation of this magnitude is always more complex than what we can read in the news. Neither Navalny was a “saint” endowed with only positive qualities, nor Putin is an incarnation of pure evil. They’re both complex human beings, although they happen to also represent archetypes in today’s world scene.
Moreover, many threads of cause and effect intervene to create an outcome of this magnitude. Russia’s position in history, the evolution of Russian internal politics, the complexity of Russia’s judicial and prison system, all of these and more factors should be considered by any responsible historian who chose to write about this undoubtedly dark page in Russia’s recent history.
But I’m no historian. I don’t even claim to present an objective or balanced reconstruction of the facts. As I stated above, I’m interested in archetypes, and you don’t need a lot of historical context to see archetypes at work.
For over two decades, Vladimir Putin has publicly broadcast a very specific flavor of the Masculine. He has consistently presented himself, especially after his first presidential term (2000-2004), as a resolute, cold, and when necessary, ruthless leader. He has made it a point of rarely showing emotions, with the exception of cold anger. He has made sure to show his adversaries — both inside and outside Russia — that he is in control, holds near-limitless power, and will not hesitate to use it against anyone who dissents.
If the world scene were a high-school patio, Putin would be a boy you should be scared of. Not a bratty and boisterous bully, but the kingpin of the tough boys’ club. The one that the bullies bow to, because he has demonstrated often enough that he can be more violent than all of them. But also one that has logic and a plan.
Putin didn’t invent this archetype of masculinity. It has been with us for centuries. Looking back in time, many of the warlords that we now celebrate as great historical military leaders would, as far as we know, have looked strikingly similar to Putin.
Then, of course, there were also military leaders of a different kind: those who went down in history for their compassion with the enemy, their enlightened ruling of their populations, and even their paternal and marital love. But Putin isn’t one of them. If he has any familial love to speak of in his life, nobody knows for sure whether Putin surrounds himself with any kind of love or tenderness, but it seems unlikely. There aren’t many details on Putin’s family, except that he has two daughters, and that he is divorced. Whatever role or influence Putin’s wife may have had on him, it seems to be very little now, and on an archetypal level, she is non-existent.
Contrast this with Alexej Navalny, who in one of his most symbolic pictures, is surrounded by his wife and two kids, while recovering from what is widely recognised as an assassination attempt by the Russian security services.
But Navalny’s ties with his wife seem to go beyond familial love; immediately after his death, Navalny’s wife Yulia pledged in front of the world stage to continue his legacy, with these powerful words: “By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul. But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny.”
In archetypal terms, Navalny represents a Masculine that is in a relationship of cooperation, mutual respect, and deep solidarity with the Feminine. Putin represents a Masculine who rules alone, with no Feminine allowed any visibility, let alone voice, around him.
So Vladimir Putin appears to us today as a man surrounded by other men, his powerful subordinates. He wields power in an unashamed and unrestricted fashion, punishing his opponents either with death or life-long imprisonment.
And while this may seem shocking, the reality is that Putin is embodying an archetype of Toxic Masculinity that is present in all of us.
The appeal of Toxic Masculinity is strong. Especially in moments of instability and fear on the world scene, millions of people are fascinated by a man who uses power ruthlessly and unabashedly, especially if he happens to be their own national leader. The projection of a stern, even brutal, but protective father is almost inevitable. To the childish, infantile part of us, a violent but protective father may feel better than a weak father or no father at all, especially if we live in a tough neighbourhood.
In 2024, with two serious ongoing regional conflicts (Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine), plus another extremely volatile conflict looming on the horizon (China-Taiwan), the world feels more dangerous and unstable with every passing year. This is just a trend, of course, and it will eventually meet its reversal, but to the consciousness that is incapable or unwilling to zoom out, it may seem like instability and insecurity are the way things will be forever.
Consequently, political leaders that embody different variations of the Toxic Masculine are cropping up in several parts of the planet. From Putin in Russia, to Trump in the US, to Erdogan in Turkey, to Jinping in China, to several other men and a few women in less prominent countries (including a bunch of political leaders in the European Union), the archetype of Toxic Masculinity is, again, on the rise. To me, this represents one of the most serious dangers humanity has faced in recent years.
Because while archetypes are in and of themselves neither “good” nor “bad”, they can be more or less adjusted to the current situation. Archetypes live in a timeless dimension, and they are not great at changing and evolving, except in very slow cycles. So when a community chooses a certain archetype to be its leading symbol in a specific historic context, this has long-lasting consequences.
In today’s world circumstances, the rise of the Toxic Masculine is extremely worrying—not because he is politically incorrect, or brash, or even because of his innate violence. The most problematic aspect of the Toxic Masculine is his incapacity for dialogue, mutual understanding, and cooperation.
In the 21st century, most of humanity’s significant challenges—from environmental breakdown to epidemics to the looming specter of annihilating world wars that were simply impossible before the invention of the atomic bomb, to overpopulation, to energy consumption—are of a global and hyperconnected nature.
The Toxic Masculine archetype is spectacularly unfit to tackle any of these challenges.
His natural instinct is to guarantee his own safety, and, in the best case, that of those who are subject to him, by leveraging his own power. He has a natural capacity to impinge on the weak and ally himself with the strong. As an ideal objective, the Toxic Masculine aims to grow in power until he feels firmly established on top of the food chain. Eventually, though, he is violently confronted by the second in line, and the story continues.
Nowhere in the Toxic Masculine’s worldview is there any space to sit at the table with others for a conversation that is not centered around power, but around love. The energy of love is simply foreign to the Toxic Masculine, except in its debased form of tribalism and nationalism, which effectively means the love of those close to us (few) in exchange for the hate of those farther to us (always the majority).
As disheartening as it is to see the Toxic Masculine on the rise on the world stage, the uncomfortable truth is that this archetype will not just go away. It is impossible to simply surgically remove the Toxic Masculine archetype through moralizing it, for example by pointing out how wrong, abusive, and backward it is. While the global shifts of consciousness around Masculinity are all positive and inevitable, it is also the case that human consciousness at large cannot tolerate too much change too quickly. This is one of the reasons why often, after a progressive movement or a progressive global leader appears on the world scene, some kind of ultra-conservative backlash reaction is soon to follow.
The opposite is also true, and oftentimes in history countries and communities have experienced times of immense growth, solidarity, and renewal after having been subjected to the most severe and totalitarian regimes.
But in today’s interconnected and fragile context, these extreme swings of the pendulum contribute to aggravate the tensions and polarities that the world is gripped by.
If I see any way out, it is only the emergence of a more balanced, stable, centered, perhaps less “revolutionary” archetype, both in the Masculine and in the Feminine sense. This is the only one that can provide a viable alternative to the Toxic Masculine.
On a practical level, this means that leaders who are willing to dialogue, to put themselves in question, to entertain complex and even paradoxical ideas, are the only way out of the dog-fight climate that the Toxic Masculine world leaders will inevitably end up fostering.
Those more centred and balanced leaders, though, are going to have a hard time in today’s polarised world. In the current context of global insecurity, it is hard enough for more level-headed leaders to get elected without compromising on their principles of inclusivity and dialogue. It is even more difficult for them to stay in power for any length of time without their popularity plunging: a centred, nuanced approach is much more likely to disappoint everybody than make everyone happy, especially in a time where public opinion is becoming increasingly polarised.
But while all the above difficulties and challenges are real and severe, it is also true that truly “global” leaders, leaders who are able to recognize the whole human family as their “tribe” (and that includes even their opponents) are the expression of the inevitable next step in the evolution of a global human consciousness. Any leader who can embrace big views to tackle big problems, despite his or her own lack of popularity in the short term, is drinking directly from the source of what collective consciousness is longing to express.
From an archetypal level, being aligned to the next evolutionary step of human consciousness means being backed up by the strength of what C.G. Jung called the “Spirit of the Depth,” the invisible current that runs below the threshold of collective consciousness but propels its long-term evolution.
At some point, inevitably, the world will have fewer Putins and more Navalnys; but it may take years of conflict, violence, and suffering, to get there.
Cool article, thanks for sharing brother!
Thank you!