Societies function when there is a minimum of trust and the same amount of solidarity and respect, and if people can speak without fear; if you can walk without looking back waiting for a sneaky blow or a surprise attack; when it is possible to work without restlessness. Societies function if politics is a subordinate occupation and if enthusiasm and effort are directed to it every day; and if we constantly honor the practice of tolerance, dissent without offense, reason and the denial of violence. But if society becomes radicalized and puts politics and its ideologies and tactics above brotherhood, it means that the fullness of hatred has arrived, it means that a mental civil war has been installed and that any possibility of consensus has been banished. This is the most effective method of the “revolutionary”.

Ecuador is entering a minefield of political exploitation of hatred. We don’t see each other like before; we started looking for, and finding, systematically, reasons for mistrust, insults and the belief that everyone is the judge of truth and justice. We are poisoning life. Every morning we leave the house with resentment or resentment on the surface, after watching the news, thunderous statements and announcements of concerted violence aimed at destroying the very concept of community.

Hate speech

poisonous cocktail

Hatred, which begins as a feeling, soon finds ideologies that “give it meaning”, doctrines that justify it, theses that sharpen the desire for revenge. Then spite is “rationalized”, and destructive logic is incorporated into society. The dialectic of revenge creates answers and everyone feels empowered to act as it advises. History is full of examples of tragedies that this phenomenon produces, of trust that is lost, of cooperation that disappears, and how people end up turning inward, closing in on their passions, their fears and anxieties. The neighborhood becomes, therefore, a slum full of enemies, an office, a hell of rivalry, bus passengers, a crowd of frowning people, drivers, arrogant cars armed with guns.

The dialectic of revenge creates answers and everyone feels empowered to act as it advises.

Democracy as a system for achieving power, for articulating theses, tolerating diversity, and legitimizing representation has been forgotten. Now imposition is what rules, threat that works, strike that works. Fear is what permeates society, fear of crime, fear of political actions; fear and surprise is what marks the days.

Brutal racially motivated hate crime: man punches over 125, kicks and spits on 67-year-old Asian woman

Bitterness in politics reaches its fullness. What is happening in Latin America is an example of the degradation of institutions and is proof that the only remedy against the destruction of rationality is a consensus, a minimum agreement between civilized people, who are obliged to assume this intelligent and generous sense of politics. and social behavior, in order to avoid tragedies in which blindness, force and denial of the reasons of “others” triumph.

Can we escape the trap of violence? (OR)