It is called the “double bind” and it is said to be a cause of schizophrenia: an authority figure gives instructions so contradictory that victims lose their grip and with it their ability to comply or resist.
Something of the kind might have happened to the Russian political elite. Once ordered by the Kremlin to be atheist communists, then pro-European modernisers, they are now instructed to transform themselves into anti-western religious nationalists.
Sensible characters such as Alexei Kudrin, the former finance minister, have been pushed out. Think-tanks that delivered fact-based analysis are ignored while mystic ideologues are said to have the ear of the president.
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