The philosopher Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz (Salamanca, 1973) is a tenured professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Miguel de Cervantes European University. He works as a writer, speaker and teacher; In short, popularizer. Quintana Paz develops his work in the area of knowledge known as Moral and Political Philosophy. His ingenious pen, sharp and insightful, has made him one of the most accurate and listened to analysts of political and social reality. He is the Spanish-speaking philosopher with the most followers on the social network Twitter and the 18th worldwide.
The West prepares an unprecedented tax hike, from Biden to the EU. With Spain in the lead, despite the fact that in this time of crisis most of the large European economies have opted for the opposite. What do you think of this drift? Will we see ever higher taxes?
Even an Easter turkey would be able to understand what has happened to us. For years our governments have been overfeeding the West with money we simply did not have. And that our enormous public debt has been fattening. In Spain, the process has been especially fierce. We are now the 13th country with the highest debt over GDP, when only fifteen years ago we were 93rd.
That fattening money has been used to stuff us with pills -or, often, mill wheels- with the new typical ideology of our establishment. From the UN to Hollywood, passing through NGOs and large companies. Neofeminism, Black Lives Matter, identitarianism of each minority and contempt for national or traditional ties… Now that we are fed up with both – money we did not have and an ideology we did not want – these elites have decided that it is the time to go and carve ourselves with the tax knife, because they believe that we will continue to accept it as submissively as we have accepted our previous fattening.
In Spain, the Government is also preparing a fiscal hack that will especially affect the middle classes, who have been mistreated for more than a decade. Do independent individuals hinder you? Is the middle class in danger?
Being from the middle class, during the time of its splendor -after World War II and, in Spain, after the Stabilization Plan of 1959- meant not only having a certain number in your checking account, but also a whole wad of hope. For example, middle-class people had the reasonable hope that they would prosper as they completed three years of work, as well as that their children would live better than them. Of course, being middle class also meant being able to have such children. Or rely on meritocracy, although it was likely that the very rich would always remain rich and the very poor, poor, it was in your middle-class hands to prosper. Being middle class also meant having faith that education would increase your future well-being. Or that the knowledge it gave you was preferable to ignorance. In short, being middle class implied being moderately comfortable in the world, or at least as comfortable as humans can be.
While we are in our symbolic battles of 1936, our rulers are already announcing to us without complexes a 2050 more austere, more ideologized, less free, less happy
I think that it is enough to enumerate these traits of the middle class for anyone to understand that they are getting out of hand. Or they are taking them from us. Precariousness, herculean difficulties to form a family, contempt for professional merit, display of ignorance and disdain for knowledge are things to which we are becoming more and more accustomed. And, of course, it has to do with the plans our ruling elites have for us, not something out of the blue of Progress.
How does power get to introduce all these measures?
The key lies in another phenomenon that everyone recognizes as typical of our times: the growing political polarization that surrounds us. While the real battle is taking place between increasingly prosperous and powerful elites – so powerful that they even aspire to instil their woke religion into us – and the shrinking middle class, many of our compatriots believe that the issue is still whether the heirs rule of Largo Caballero or the CEDA, if not those of Franco. And so, while we are in our symbolic battles of 1936, our rulers are already announcing to us without complexes a 2050 more austere, more ideologized, less free, less happy.
The new generations live worse than their parents. According to the latest report from the World Economic Forum, in Spain the lowest incomes need four generations to reach the average. How can the social elevator be repaired?
I don’t think it’s necessary to invent the wheel. What were the main routes of social ascent during the heyday of the middle classes? education and effort. What does our government tell us today? That education should consist above all in making the child “happy” and “supportive” while in class, without insisting too much on the effort, which could stress him out, and even less on his achievements, which could make him move up socially.
The choice before us is whether we want to live in an idiotic country or not. And history is merciless with those who opt for stupidity
Naturally, while public and concerted education degrades with that extermination of intelligence that is the Celaá Law, the upper classes -to which our Government belongs, whether in its socialist or Galapagar modality- take their children to education private, who has not forgotten the importance of real learning and real effort.
How do we get out of this mousetrap?
Again I am going to be unoriginal: with intelligence. To continue swallowing that what is decided in an election in 2021 is to choose between Nazism or democracy, as the entire left in Madrid has tried to convince us, is idiots. To continue thinking that an educational law like Celaá’s LOMLOE -which, ultimately, delves into the errors of all the laws in this field that, since the LOGSE, have brought us to where we are- is oriented towards “solidarity”, the “equity” and other empty signifiers, is for idiots. To think that in a world as harsh as the current one, the fragmentation of our nation, the enmities between regions -which the left has promoted so much in its campaign against Madrid- will lead us to a good port is, once again, idiotic.
So the choice before us is whether we want to live in a dumbed down country or not. And history is merciless with those who opt for stupidity.
“2030: you will have nothing and you will be happy.” It seems that the World Economic Forum and the powerful have a very well prepared plan for society. Is it the right path? Where is it leading us?
The phrase seems revealing to me. It reminds us of that other by the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, “property is theft.” It is quite a sign of our time that those who come to solve this “theft” that is to own things are no longer the anarchist rebels of yesteryear, with social arguments, but our establishment, armed with ecological arguments. Owning a car, heating, air conditioning, electricity, even your own apartment, is detrimental to the planet, it is taking away its pristine nature. So be nice and stop possessing. By the way, all this is reminiscent of another less famous phrase of Proudhon: “property is impossible.” No doubt our elites are determined to make it so. For us, of course, not so much for them, nor for their much more polluting mansions, helicopters, jets or world tours.
Has the coronavirus pandemic accelerated all these changes sought by the elites?
Well, it was Greta Thunberg herself, promoted by all the international organizations and world entertainment to the status of a New Age prophetess, who has already warned us: if the world has been capable of mobilizing like this in the face of an emergency like covid-19, there is no reason not to do it in the face of everything she demands!
Gagging ourselves, silencing the truth, is going to be essential as our lives are being spoiled more and more.
In addition, the coronavirus has triggered dreams of a new beginning, of a “reset” of our civilization, which is the golden dream of those who want to start a new one. A new civilization that, contrary to the Western one – heteropatriarchal, homophobic, oppressive, bellicose, anti-ecological… according to these haruspices – should finally implant paradise on Earth. It’s just the same old Gnostic dream, camouflaged as if it were similar to our Judeo-Christian heritage. Like her, she appeals to terms such as love, fraternity or attention to victims. But, at the same time, it is subtly different, because it forgets something that is very clear in Judeo-Christianity: that paradise cannot be implanted here below. And even less blaming, like a scapegoat, only a part of the population: the middle class, whites, men or heterosexuals.
A large part of society has bought the arguments of the elites. Revolutions usually succeed when the powerful are part of them. Are we facing a revolution?
If I were part of the elite, of course I would be very pleased with the huge number of people who have already swallowed my lies. And, as I said at the beginning, I would rush to carve the succulent dish in front of me. Above all for one reason: that, deep down, I would be gripped by the fear of something that I cannot solve. And it is that I live on lies. Whoever has the truth on his side has a very powerful ally. So, if I were part of the elite, and despite my obvious current success, I would also feel scared and in a hurry.
It should not surprise us, then, that freedom of expression is increasingly restricted, with the excuse of combating “hate speech”, “scientific denialism”, “unjustified alarmism”. Gagging ourselves, silencing the truth, is going to be essential as our lives are spoiled more and more.
Is there any real opposition? Even in Rome the Pope embraces these speeches.
In reality, the political views of the Pope should not have any repercussions among the Catholics themselves. His function as pastor is to maintain the deposit of faith and morals, to teach the eternal truths that any Christian, current or of the 10th century, must believe, and to exercise certain ceremonial or organizational functions as Supreme Pontiff. Francisco’s political opinions should have the same weight for a believer as his soccer opinions; or that the political opinions of Alexander VI, the Borgia Pope, when he faced the King of France, and that no one today requires us to share. By the way, neither then did anyone think that being a Catholic was equivalent to thinking about Italian politics in the same way as Alexander VI. Clearly there has been a setback in understanding of the papacy among his own faithful there.
The ‘moderaditos’ continue to think that things will go as smoothly as we promised after the fall of the Berlin Wall
Unfortunately, a large number of Catholics are unaware of these truths of their faith, and…
Facebook Comments
Disqus