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Hello, hivers. Today I want to take a pause in the specific monitoring of news to comment a little on the phenomenon of post-truth narratives, the discourse out of the standard by pure political calculation —by way of representation—, the outbreak of induced polarization, and its impact on social thinking, on the popular worldview (or the reasons why all this has such a soft landing in society). I do it starting from the Milei phenomenon to then link it to Cuba, because the most conspicuous YouTubers of the Cuban community who are dedicated to the political thing, mostly based in Miami, share an "ideological" trench with the Argentinean (they love him, and they discovered the man first than many Argentines who now support him). They also share his stridency, they have a lot of reach, but precisely for this last reason, I am concerned about the fact that their theoretical basis —not to say philosophical, to put them where they belong— is light years away from that of Milei. So, let me ride on this uneasy task now.
Sociological degeneration
The problem lies in an unprecedented decline in the analytical culture of our peoples. We have reached a point where a representative figure of citizens has lost the ability to reason, to contrast sources, to look for the balance, the original cause of what is happening. All this as part of a crossroads between phenomena —yes— economic, but also psychological —individual and collective—, educational, political, cultural, and communicational —between concealment of critical information, intentional release of controlled doses, true or not, as part of agendas advanced by both the left and the right. Naturally or induced, more and more individuals develop a defective chip that already comes with the (very basic) answers to all questions, even for those that are very complex, permeable to the wildest theories or stories if they have an antagonistic character by antonomasia (see also here on the subject) or that aggressively break with the known.
Reading this AP cable about Milei's triumph in Argentina, I was very impressed, almost to the point of physically hurting me, by the "reasoning" of a 17 year-old young man —who went to the polls for the first time— who voted for him because "[Milei] expresses himself in a very noisy way". That was what caught his attention. The fact that the so-called ultra-liberal economist —because who knows if he believes in everything he says— "shouts" his "truth", at least for the young man means a commitment to the future of the country. Another enthusiastic young man of 19 years old manifests himself in very discriminatory terms towards women, following the anti-feminist agenda of the candidate for the "Libertad Avanza" (Freedom Advances) movement [the emphasis on the noun "freedom" is mine]. But that is not the most worrying thing, he believes in him because "[Milei] brings different proposals, he does not propose the same as the others[;] he proposes a change[;] we must trust him". In other words, there is no evaluation of the proposal itself, the important thing is that it sounds different, and that makes him trust. Another voter blesses him because the economy can't take it anymore, but the latter doesn't necessarily suggest that whoever is in charge has done everything wrong.
Mario Giménez, who is a butcher in a popular Buenos Aires neighborhood, says "it is time for change", but there is no assessment of what that change implies, not even an expected projection of how it will impact his life (source).
Look, I had already written the previous paragraph when I finally read an opinion article by the great Martín Caparrós in El País —which I had on the waiting list for the last three or four days—, and I was happy to find that his vision —although ideologically we are not in the same line— coincides to a great extent with mine (this of needing our judgments to correspond with the ones of intellectuals or scientists who are "referents", who "validate" them, is perhaps not a very good thing, but, let us be honest in that we feel full pride when it happens). The punishment vote is a category of political science, but it is nefarious. Voting for a candidate only out of spite is for spoiled citizens. Caparrós says that "voters [of Milei] are not looking for a rational criticism, an attempt at amendment, a project; they want someone who shouts that he is going to blow everything up".
In a suggestive linguistic play, Martín Caparrós says that "Milei wants to end chastely with the political caste" (source of the image).
The Milei-Miami-Cuba Connection
The Cuban YouTubers who are in charge every day of stirring up the rejection of the current political system —in a hodgepodge that starts from realities but then manipulates them and sometimes just manipulates—, have seen in Milei a sort of god, with the dangerous difference that they lack his theoretical arsenal. And to reflect on the problem their consumers are exposed to, I will give a quick example that I extracted from the dialogue between one of these YouTubers and Javier Milei about three years ago (with the latter saying that he prefers the organizational model and even the practice of a mafia to the State), where they try to extrapolate general, historical or national recipes and theories to the very-specific Cuban case. Because the thing here is that people listen to them and don't judge any of their assertions, and from that weakness that these guys know well, feeling safe, they inoculate their followers with the poison of disinformation (which results in turning them into mere intellectual zombies, and each channel ends up being a sect).
Claim: The Cuban "interviewer" says that the Cuban constitution forbids the accumulation of wealth.
The fact: Our magna carta only contains the word wealth twice, the first time to say that "[the] concentration of property in natural or juridical non-State persons is regulated by the State, [which also guarantees] an increasingly fair redistribution of wealth", and the second time in which it doesn't have the meaning we are discussing here. But the lie remains, it was already aired and the majority consumed it without a shred of critical thinking, so they fall meekly into the nets of these fishers of fools.
And so these guys spend the week warming up society with a discourse that calls to "rise against the dictatorship" (without ever going to an academic approach of that category), reminding us how "cowardly" we are for not doing so, that we have nothing, that we are nothing, that everything is going wrong, that nothing works, falsifying or oversizing data, paraphrasing reality. I tend to oil my analytical or argumentative capacity watching these shows, and sometimes I even find them comical, until I forget that they have an impact, that they have a solid audience, and I lose my joy. This is not an ideological concern, but a social one, because I transfer the same analytical rigor that I try to embrace to the judgment of governmental activity, without putting a one where zero goes.
Alternatives?
Well, I see the problem of post-truth where it is enthroned as very difficult to fight because the "sick" person is as if drugged, he/she no longer responds to a call for attention, to an alert, or an invitation to an objective discussion. That's why I was saying that sects are formed, people enclose themselves in a filter bubble that doesn't allow anything to enter that goes against their political creed. Education from an early age should strengthen the individual for all this, but it is not always of interest, or it is on a scale that doesn't satisfy, and not everyone goes through it. I am talking about education inward (in its natural habitat, which is the school, depending on the level) and outward, in the media, and in the communities. But the truth is that I don't see how we are going to get out of this hostile moment where shouting prevails over argument. The story over the hard data. When people need to decide not only with their stomachs. Do you?
This is all for our sixty-sixth report. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.
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