The poison spreads through the beautiful body of Europa. The attempted assassination of the Slovak Prime Minister has once again exposed in all its harshness the toxic political context in which we are sinking. We must be very cautious in resorting to broad strokes and generalizations in the face of different episodes of violence in different political realities, but it is evident that there is a broad degeneration of public debate that spurs dangerous feelings and that is widely detected on the continent. What is the antidote?
Unfortunately, it is emerging as a complex medication, requiring multiple components. As Marta Peirano recently pointed out in these pages regarding disinformation, the work of several actors is necessary, with politics, digital platforms and journalism standing out among them. These same ones are the key in the broader scope of toxic polarization, within which misinformation is an important aspect. The complexity increases if one takes into account that the secretion of the substances necessary for the antidote cannot be achieved only through legislation, but depends largely on an internal moral compass. To put the collective interest and the values that support it before the interest of the party.
Digital platforms, as is well known, are tremendous accelerators of polarizing dynamics. Social media algorithms push agitating and emotional messages with special force, because passion and indignation tend to keep users more tied to their screens than calm and rational speeches. They reaffirm us or outrage us to hypnotize us, because what they want is our time, and to squeeze from it the information with which they make money. They are centrifugal motors. Obviously they care much less about citizen harmony than their bottom line. Regulation is essential here, demanding standards, pinning them to responsibilities in an increasingly refined and effective way. However, the task is difficult. Gross incitement to hatred is relatively easy to detect and there are tools to demand its banishment. The polarizing fine rain is immense and difficult to regulate without giving up basic principles. Many toxic plants thrive thanks to it.
Independent journalism is an essential component of the antidote. Honest verification of facts in all directions is what forms the common basis of a society. At least a minimum of verified and shared data is needed on which to build the debate for a democracy to work. However, this journalism, which has its editorial line, but pursues the truth in all directions and clearly criticizes everything that deserves criticism, is weakening everywhere on the continent. Financial difficulties make it difficult to investigate the political or economic powers on which the medium’s survival may depend, while dwindling newsrooms lose the strength to dedicate personnel to research, etc. At the same time, the aforementioned platforms not only attract almost all the advertising, but also almost all the attention, displacing the media and depriving them of their ability to project a complete worldview from all their pages.
On the other hand, militant journalism proliferates, that which puts the pursuit of political objectives before the authentic search for the truth, wherever it leads. That journalism can occasionally reveal important facts. But, even when it is honest—openly declaring its positions and objectives and respecting the basic praxis of the trade—it is not the solution to our poison, because by definition it is part. It tends to point its cannons only in certain directions. This reduces its credibility. Its nature does not build bridges: it widens abysses.
Then there are the so-called journalists who are simply agents at the service—whether by belief or money—of certain causes. These do not even deserve to be in the same paragraph as the previous ones. Not only are they not an antidote: they are the poison.
At this point, it is worth mentioning another p, subsidiary but important: that of foreign powers, which take advantage of the others to foment discord in our societies with the aim of weakening us, turning us into dysfunctional societies.
But, of course, the central point is that of national politics. It is she who has the greatest capacity to poison or heal, through containment. In Europe, the fundamental responsibility for the degradation of public discourse lies with the extreme right, which so often carries execrable and inflammatory messages. Madrid will be the scene this Sunday of an event that will bring together several of its international leaders. There is little doubt that there will be an abundance of poison. The worrying thing is that, in many European countries, the supposedly moderate right not only agrees with the ultra, but also assumes part of its content and tones. Spain is a textbook case.
This premise, however, cannot lead to a denial of responsibilities on the left side of the spectrum. Of course there have been and there are leftist forces that have bet everything on polarization, with textbook populist positions and that embrace agitating rhetoric—Mélenchon in France, Cinco Estrellas in Italy or Podemos in Spain, for example. Social democracy itself cannot in any way avoid a self-critical examination. Simply denouncing how big the beam in someone else’s eye is will not be enough. It is a good idea to take care of keeping your eyes clear, as they may have some straw, or even some minor beams.
The antidote is the conviction that the solution is not to descend into the mud produced by others. It is not renouncing neatness, thinking that if others commit abuses, then one is already freed from certain ties, that if others inject poison and colonize institutions, then one has the right to respond with at least half of that. There is no room for naiveties. Politics is fighting. But there are limits, and entering into a certain game, even as a response and with less intensity, is feeding the spiral. Today, perhaps, it grants victory. Tomorrow, without a doubt, will leave worse societies for everyone. And it can be defeated in a different way. The profiles of the winning candidates in the Catalan and Basque elections are proof.
And that leads to two other fundamental ps: words and people. The antidote is a collective work. It demands of all of us. To companies like the German ones that spoke out against the extreme right. And to individuals. Everything counts. That adjective that we should not have uttered or published. That point of benevolence with our part and that cruelty with the other. That serious time when we didn’t have the reflexes to oppose an outrage that emboldened the poisoners or that we didn’t distance ourselves from our group when they were wrong even though they were usually right. The antidote, the spirit of democratic regeneration, will not be found so much in the Official State Gazette as in the moral compass of individuals.
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