We live in times of crisis; And when I define it like this, I don’t just mean a mediocre presidency, which managed to disappoint the vast majority of people who voted for it. The phase we are experiencing now goes beyond the current circumstances. These mediocrities who rule over us from the Presidency and the National Assembly will leave, but the problem will remain. The problem will prevail, as we experience the wear and tear of our political and social structures. A symptom of this is that our situation is present in the vast majority of countries on the planet. Protests in France, the attempted coup in Washington DC, USA, two years ago, instability in Peru. Throw the name of a country at random and you will find one of two things: either a country in crisis, or a tyranny disguised as a democracy.

Twilight of democracy

And if we try democracy…

An inevitable change is coming. Given this scenario, the two alternatives are consolidated. The group that looks forward to this change is to the left of the ideological menu. They look forward to the opportunity to once again implement their radical ideological visions. The problem with ideological thought is that it obscures the vision of the context and takes into account the conditions of the place, time, culture and society in which we live. The intention is to impose a mold of reality. Another group defines itself as conservative, and sometimes as liberal; a word that encompasses many visions of the world, within itself. The ideal society they imagine in their minds seems more natural. Ironically, its dynamism stems from crises. But it wears. No economy grows if very few have almost everything; and many have almost nothing. They resort to desperate preservation of the system, while perhaps a better alternative is to seek less catastrophic change. Evolution, not collapse.

Cuba: voting in a dictatorship

Courtesy of Jorge Edwards

Political extremes are growing in number of followers, and thinkers with a conciliatory vision in the center are fewer and fewer.

Times of change and uncertainty await us. We will soon experience something similar to the French Revolution: the collapse of a worn-out structure, without a clear vision of what can replace it. We could certainly say that the change that took place after the fall of the French monarchy was based on the approaches of Montesquieu and his enlightened contemporaries. But his vision was more of a utopian, temporary description of the Roman Republic than an ideology that precisely determines how to act and think. The vision of the French Republic was shaped through a series of trials and errors; which sometimes fell into imperial contradictions.

We are in a time where – ironically – ideologies are becoming stronger; and the more they do it, the more they deny reality. Political extremes are growing in number of followers, and thinkers with a conciliatory vision in the center are fewer and fewer. This can be considered a perfect proof of the barbarism we have fallen into.

In such a situation, we have two alternatives: fear or surrender to the risky curiosity that uncertainty can generate in us. (OR)