I doubt that the history of the human being records as much senselessness as what we observe today on the planet. From the most important matters to the most frivolous, everything seems infected by ignorance, smallness and mediocrity.
The serious danger of the extinction of the human being has appeared again, this time at the hands of Vladimir Putin, a self-conscious madman who completely lacks the global vision that a head of state should have. His territorial claims over the neighboring republic of Ukraine may lead him, given his conventional military failures, to use nuclear weapons, with all that this means for the future of humanity.
At the regional and individual country level, the picture is bleak. The United States of America, the most powerful nation in the world, the flag of democracy and freedom, is today broken into two large fragments separated by stupid ideologies. The entire nation seems to have adhered to extremes, setting aside the proverbial sanity of their predecessors. On TV, two totally different countries are painted daily, the United States of Fox News and the United States of CNN. Whoever opposes Trump is a communist. Whoever opposes Biden is a fascist. Half the country says Hunter Biden is a thief and the other half says the thief is Ivanka Trump. Some read everything about Kanye West (who brags about never having read a book), while others read everything about the Kardashian sisters, who base their notoriety on the size of their butts. Whoever admits abortion in cases of rape or imminent danger to the mother is a communist. Black Lives Matter supporters want to destroy the confederate statues, even though this is part of history. Worshipers of white supremacy say that the rise of blackness represents a macabre and premeditated project to change the racial composition of the nation, what they call the white replacement theory. The melodrama of Piqué and Shakira (accused of tax evasion), that of Jennifer López and her multiple husbands and loved ones monopolize the attention of viewers. A true orgy of brutalization.
Today a Republican is identified because he refuses to be vaccinated or a Democrat because he never cuts his hair. Social Security, it is said, is a Democratic myth, while Republicans aspire to maintain white supremacy in the country.
Immigration, say Trump and the republic of Fox News, is represented by pedophiles and thieves, perhaps without realizing that their ancestors were immigrants (although not of the same origin) and that the problem of this great stampede from poor places to less poor is very complex and cannot be solved with a wall. Free university education is necessary, says the far left speaking on CNN, even though we know that the US treasury would not withstand such a subsidy and that free ends up being the most expensive for the nation. The black population complains about discrimination, but their organizations, their TV programs, etc. They do not have a target or remedy. The issue of gender has reached the absurd and cheesy, with the use of inclusive language and the replacement of the acceptance of differences (which would be sensible) with the attempt to glorify differences (totally insane).
Those of us who cling to the center, adopting some positions defined as the left and some positions defined as the right, are attacked from both sides. They call us communists or fascists, depending on the interlocutor. As the poet William Butler Yeats said, at the time (my translation): The Falcon no longer listens to the falconer/everything disintegrates, the center can no longer stand/anarchy is unleashed on the world… the ceremony of innocence has disappeared/ the best lack any conviction/while the worst are infected with passionate intensity.”
On no essential issue, of life or death for all, is this polarization more tragic than in the case of climate change. At the 2016 Paris Conference and in subsequent conferences, the vast majority of the planet’s countries have adhered to a scientific thesis on the influence of man and his use of fossil fuels on the planet’s climate. Man has acted as an important geological agent, increasing carbon emissions to the point that the planet is in imminent danger of irreversibly crossing the temperature limits that guarantee our normal life on the planet. We already see the tragic consequences of this process, without the human being being able to agree to act with the necessary speed to correct this profound deformation.
On the contrary, the world is still bent on its problems of absurd frivolity. In Venezuela, an ignorant dictator, Maduro, consolidates and erases the trace of his predecessor, another ignorant dictator, causing a struggle between those who follow him and the widows of the previous one. In Peru, a ridiculous man is president; in Nicaragua, a psychopath is in charge; in Cuba, the people have been enslaved for decades. Not a single statesman is in sight in the region.
The groups that advocate restoring the quality of Homo sapiens are weak. We are drowned out by the bullshit zarzuelas that prevail today about what Harry said to Charles or if Megan twisted Camila’s mouth. Some will tell me: sir: frivolity has its place in this life and they will be right, but I answer: yes, but not to the point of placing it as the cornerstone of existence.
There are leaks. But the sad thing is that one must escape from the surrounding reality to find happiness, when it should be within the reach of the vast majority of human beings. The path we travel takes us to the most severe involution.
