Columnistas invitados/Guest columnists

El cientificismo se ha entronizado en el pensamiento universal hasta el punto de fomentar el relativismo moral, que se establece con el argumento de que los conceptos éticos son variables según las culturas y las épocas en que se desenvuelven, sencillamente porque no pueden ser empíricamente demostrados.

No cabe duda que el período de La Ilustración fue sumamente positivo para el avance de las ciencias y la tecnología al abrirle las puertas a la investigación y al libre debate en torno a los descubrimientos y pruebas empíricas. Al hablar de "La Ilustración" (Enlightment en inglés) nos referimos al movimiento cultural e intelectual que se desarrolló desde mediados del s.XVIII hasta principios del s.XIX, partiendo de Inglaterra, Francia y Alemania y culminando en la Revolución Francesa y otros acontecimientos que provocaron gradualmente el fin de las monarquías absolutistas europeas. Este resultado tangencial se produjo pese a que inicialmente provocara lo que se llamó "despotismo ilustrado", según el cual el pensamiento crítico y reformista de "La Ilustración" podía justificar las leyes que mantenían el absolutismo, valiéndose de la introducción de una serie de reformas y mejoras que, de hecho, pusieron fin al feudalismo, dieron una mayor autoridad a los jueces y crearon muchos centros educativos, pero mantuvieron los hilos del poder en manos del monarca.

Según lo describo en el libro de próxima publicación, titulado "La Huella del Cristianismo en la Historia", el cientificismo resultante de La Ilustración «postula que los únicos conocimientos válidos son los que se adquieren mediante las ciencias positivas, lo cual tiende a dar excesivo valor a las nociones científicas o pretendidamente científicas. Por tanto, sus críticos lo califican como una postura ideológica que pretende hacer pasar como conclusiones de la ciencia lo que serían en realidad nociones intelectuales propias de una determinada filosofía materialista. Por el contrario, sus promotores estiman que las ciencias formales y naturales presentan primacía sobre otros campos de la investigación tales como ciencias sociales o humanidades.»

En otras palabras, en la mentalidad contemporánea se está imponiendo agresivamente el dogma que postula que todos los problemas o preguntas pueden solucionarse con el método científico y que éste es una forma muy superior a cualquier otra de llegar al conocimiento.

Invertebrate Spain (as in without backbone), and The Revolt of the Masses are two of José Ortega y Gasset’s best-known works. Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), a Spanish philosopher and essayist, wrote during the first half of the 20th century when Spain wavered between monarchy, republicanism, and dictatorship. For him, the Basque and Catalan separatisms of his day were manifestations of the existential ordinariness of societal values, and of the mediocrity of Spanish institutions. Spain had ceased to be “an active and dynamic reality” and had become a society without ambitions or illusions.

In Invertebrate Spain, Ortega y Gasset defines a nation as “a project suggestive of life in common” and argues that Spain “invertebrates” itself by the intellectual poverty and deficiency of its political class. He emphasizes that the shortcomings of a mediocre, invertebrate ruling class transfer to the institutions they lead. This fosters a radical demoralization of society. He expands on the theme in The Revolt of the Masses noting that “masses” are the aggregation of individuals that have become “de-individualized.” These individuals have stopped being free thinking and have been dissolved into an amalgam that thinks and acts for them. Thus, Ortega y Gasset argues, Spain has ceased being a nation and has become “a series of deadlocked compartments.” These reflections of José Ortega y Gasset came to mind as I read of the latest (July 2018) surreal controls imposed by the Cuban government on its population. The Communist Party of Cuba's 6th Congress introduced some minimal economic reforms in 2011, primarily by allowing self-employment in about 200 trade activities including buying and selling used books (activity #23) and working as a public toilet attendant (activity #29). These self-employed attendants are presumably in charge of maintaining the facilities and charging patrons a fee.

The bizarre list of economic activities permitted in 2011 corresponds to Ortega y Gasset’s depiction of decision-making by a mediocre and invertebrate ruling class. And yet, some observers foolishly portrayed these changes as those of inspired new leadership. The need, of the Cuban military and Communist Party, to control every aspect of life is antithetical to the individual freedoms and empowerment necessary to bring about an economic renaissance.

Introduction

There is a rich literature on what went wrong with liberalism, from the seminal The Light that Failed by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes (2020) to Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed (2018) and Edward Luce’s The Retreat of Western Liberalism (2017). In the midst of debates between those who claim we have entered a post-liberal era, those who think liberalism should genuinely reform, and those who assert that liberalism is fine and that its enemies are simply authoritarian populist leaders or covert fascists, the term “illiberal(ism)” has flourished.

In this recent proliferation, illiberalism is used as a fuzzy and inconsistent classification, an intuitive way to describe ideologies and practices that diverge from liberalism —understood in the same loose and innate way— without being entirely identifiable with authoritarianism or dictatorship: illiberalism would be situated somewhere in the middle of a continuum from democracy to non-democracy, describing a move from the former to the latter. Yet beyond this plasticity, illiberalism has demonstrated some ideological leadership in challenging the purported historical inevitability of liberalism and inviting us to decentre our values and policies therefrom (Snyder 2021).

Is Donald Trump the lone character to blame for the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021? I wouldn’t be too surprised if a fair and transparent Congressional procedure proves that President Trump has made serious mistakes in his frantic attempts to overturn election results in those States where he claimed fraud had occurred.

These errors must be proven through due process in a Congressional Committee comprised of members chosen by both parties independently, and where both the prosecution and defense witnesses were cross-examined in accordance with fair rules for both parties.

In fact, so far in the one-sided proceedings, it appears that the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack hearings have presented powerful and compelling evidence that President Trump failed to act as he should have to curb his supporters and prevent further violence.  Unfortunately, the Select Committee only has accusers among its members. They are all part of the prosecution. Absolutely no one in the defense role. Not even the two Republican Representatives handpicked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi against the wishes of that party, which had previously selected five members to join the Committee but were vetoed by the Speaker. Nor has a single witness appeared to testify in favor of President Trump or to at least point to some mitigating circumstances. Is a fair trial possible in such circumstances?