I’m writing from Brazil, but I could also do it from China. Today the world has become smaller and problems and language, especially through social networks, are unifying.
For example, if we confine ourselves to politics, today we would need a new Lacan capable of weeding out the old words ‘left’ and ‘right’, ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’, ‘modern’ and ‘old’ . The words are so petrified that we get caught up in them like a maze with no way out.
And the danger is that words that were considered sacred or demonic until yesterday may end up losing their meaning today. The language changes with the speed of the development of the world. And no one can doubt that we are in a time of radical change, when not even the best prophets are able to diagnose what will happen, I’m not saying tomorrow, but this afternoon. And all over the planet.
And since the creation of the world, everything begins with language, with words, to which the Church, for example, even gave sacramental power. For example, what does “artificial intelligence” mean today, to stay with the latest buzzword that not even scientists really understand?
If this power of language is so creative, so indispensable and at the same time so dangerous in our relationships, it is also so in politics. For example words like democracy, freedom, right and left, conservative and progressive, fascist and national socialist.
And if it was the words that created the world, it will be they that enrich it or impoverish it, sanctify it or demonize it. Politics is action, but it is also a verb and words that create or destroy.
Nothing is as banal and trite in politics as conservative and progressive, right or left, democracy or obscurantism, liberty or slavery. Language is rich in words and meanings, but it is also petrified while reality is creative.
For example, in many parts of the world today, being left or right does not equate to progress or obscurantism, let alone good or bad, modern or outdated.
The power of words is so great that they can bring about peace or war. A highly politicized father explained to his son that the heart is always “on the left” and that’s where life is. And yet the left has been interwoven with negative aspects throughout the ages and even in the Bible. When we wake up in a bad mood, we usually say that we woke up “on the wrong foot.”
In the Bible, regardless of whether you are a Jew or a Christian, the righteous are always on the right hand of God and the wicked on his left. For example, how do you explain to the evangelical churches today, who are so involved in politics, that we are all equal to God?
And we’re not just talking about linguistics, because in the end, words take the place of facts, of reality. Today, when the extreme right, especially the fascist and Nazism, is beginning to rear its head again, to the astonishment of Democrats everywhere, there is also a danger lurking in attributing the term conservative to this divisive right, ranging from progressive to downright modern.
In truth, things are not that simple. As Nicolau da Rocha Cavalcanti wrote here in Brazil in the O Estado de São Paulo newspaper, to confuse a conservative or liberal with a Bolsonarista would be a great gift to the extreme right. In his opinion, here in Brazil, if being conservative or liberal in any aspect of life, from customs to ideas, was synonymous with being right wing, Bolsonarismo would have already won the battle, since more than half of Brazilians, especially the poorest and least educated, “show sympathy for a conservative banner”, particularly on matters of manners and morals.
If root-Bolsonarianism with strong Nazi overtones ended up being seen as a mirror of the simple right or conservatives, the immediate danger would be to sacralize extremism.
It’s not the same as admitting to Bolsonaro that before he has a gay son, he’d rather end up dead under the wheels of a truck, identifying him as a barbarian, than just having him without being homophobic a son “normal.” ‘, another word that can poison the language.
I have friends who I value for their human qualities, altruism, and respect for the difference between conservative and liberal in politics. And conversely, we all know people who boast of being leftist and end up entangled in networks of corruption, intransigent and unable to grasp the richness of diversity.
When I was young, caught in the nets of the cruel and undemocratic Franco regime and abroad, it was many years before I could vote. And my votes always came from the left, because when I entered the voting booth, I was overcome by the spirit of fascism, Francoism and Nazism.
My flag was not that of the left or the right, but that of freedom of thought. And with that freedom came my appreciation for certain conservative and libertarian values that I had inherited from my parents at the same time. Both were poor country school teachers. There were times in Spain when there was a bloody civil war and an ideological war, and my parents were being punished for several months without pay because the students who left their schools when they reached high school “asked the teachers too many questions “. And, of course, questions and interrogations, doubts and news, at the heart of Francoism were tantamount to degeneration.
For this reason, today, having many years and experiences behind me, to the question of whether I am progressive or conservative, as an Andalusian who spent his childhood in Galicia, I would answer: “It depends”. However, I am I’m very careful with the power of words that end up stripping us naked and identifying us.
There is something that can have universal value that defines us today in the midst of the whirlwind that is sweeping us through the changing times, where not even the greatest gurus of the new languages are able to tell us where we will end up.
And in all of this, when it comes to judging someone politically, I stick to the old language of my ancestors, those who still farmed the land, when they said of someone, “That’s a good man.” Progressive or conservative? “You will know them by their fruits,” said the young and wise Jew Jesus of Nazareth, who eventually revolutionized history.
75% discount
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits