Culture of Service: It may seem like an abstract, academic topic, perhaps useless when bullying is needed, violence instills fear, politics erodes institutions and perverts what little faith people have left. But no. The lack of this culture explains many things and countless disasters. It explains the uselessness of the state, the weight of bureaucracy, the indolence of officials, judges and other hierarchs.

A culture of service means that leaders – all of them – are transient characters in charge of a task (for a limited time). The culture of service means that kings, leaders, candidates who would go down in history are not elected in the republic. Elected officers of the community must answer for the power they wield, and are therefore bound to reveal their plans, explain their alliances, support their decisions, and renounce any ambition that conflicts with their mandate.

Procrustes syndrome

This means, in short, to decide, adapt your behavior to the rules, get information and tirelessly fight for transparency. Be useful.

I am afraid that this question was not clear to those who exercised and exercise political power. There is serious confusion, stupidity, or bad faith in understanding the tasks that people assign to legislators, presidents, mayors, and other characters who act in the endless spectacle that public life has turned into.

They are not appointed to use the prominence of their position to promote campaigns, strengthen the electoral race, play into the hands of their bosses or take revenge on opponents. They were not chosen to become “famous” or to display their arrogance at every opportunity. They are in office to work for the welfare of the country. That’s what they are for.

This misunderstanding about what public services entail goes back a long way. Perhaps this is the reason that explains why the history of this failed republic is full of useless characters, leaders without stature, eternal aspirants for monuments.

Good news

Perhaps this is the explanation why between so many parties and social movements – there are hundreds of them -, so much shouting and so much discourse, we have such poor results in managing the interests of the community. And that, between elections and consultations, bankruptcies appear as monumental as those in an absent state.

This misunderstanding also explains the behavior of the elites, the poor work of civil society leaders, pettiness, blindness, and eternal complaining.

What legitimizes power, what maintains the functions of the state, is service. Without service there is no legitimacy.

A system that is not capable of opposing violence, guaranteeing education, creating conditions for employment, implementing justice and creating minimum conditions for the work and progress of each person will be everything, but it will not be an authentic democracy. That will be the fiction we will live and endure. This mediocrity that overwhelms us. (OR)