I borrow an expression from the writer A. Venturini to describe how we walk these days: scattered in reason, uncertain, distrustful. The problems are increasing, mostly extraterritorial, which makes it difficult to contain them. And the fact that we don’t know where we are going makes them even worse; If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will do, the Cheshire Cat warned Alice.

We are in an “interregnum”, the old no longer works, but new ways of acting have not yet been invented (Gramsci). In the face of uncertainty, strategies are adjusted, but the vision of the future and the principles that support it should not change. A successful campaign by law enforcement against organized crime cannot distract from the country we want.

What has changed

Is it possible for a country of peace ruled by a democratic rule of law that provides security, employment, education and quality health to its citizens? An inclusive country that respects diversity and defends freedoms, within regulatory frameworks? A sustainable country, with equal opportunities and less inequality between social classes? A country that protects its children, the elderly and the disabled? A country where the corrupt and incompetent are not the ones holding power? A country where justice is reliable and does not rule in favor of scoundrels? A country that promotes culture and care for the environment? A country lacking migrants and their entrepreneurial capacity?

Modern cities are a kind of “big garbage cans” (Bauman) into which the global powers throw the problems they have created and do not know how to solve them. In Ecuador, we know about the neglect of the state that affects people in vulnerable situations extremely. People are suspicious of politicians and in extreme situations there are protests.

The storm will pass

In 2022, I wrote that we live in a climate of verbal terrorism that has rejected thinking, reasoned opinion, and reasoned dissent. That there will be a transition from word to deed, without cognitive processing: violence in multiple forms of horror. Here we are. And complex problems urgently require complex minds.

Complex thinking (complexus: what is woven into the common) implies the assumption that the real world is not defined by the sum of its parts, but by the properties and events resulting from their interactions (Morin), which enables a more secure conception of the universe. It becomes aware of the assumptions, reasons and evidence on which we base our conclusions (Lippman), since it is imperative to know how to manage ambiguities and risks.

State authorities, media, companies, academia, civil society, families; We have a key role to play in preventing Ecuador from becoming a patchwork country. And this is achieved by using words, questions, discussion, consensus, political will.

Faced with a crisis of public ethics and the dispersion of reason, I applaud the function of order established by President Daniel Noboa and his ministers, Engineer Henry Kronfle in the National Assembly and Dr. Diana Salazar in the Office of the Prosecutor, in a tangled nation. in your own network. (OR)