Political essayist obsessed with social transformations that transcend the material, Esteban Hernández, (Madrid, 1965), has laid bare in titles such as The end of the middle class the processes by which social structures are modified, composing an atlas that he now expands with The heart of the present (map of an unknown society) in which he proposes new gaps, beyond those accounted for by income.
He opens the book with two anecdotes, one about automatic response protocols and the other, the unexpected results of 23-J and the stupor of the right. Is the second story the result of the first?
When you operate politically and need results, you make a reading of society from which you send your messages. When these responses are automated and are the product of your bubbles, you generate first an ossified view of society and, secondly, a way of interpreting linked to AI that offers very banal responses. And this has been the case: the left’s interpretation of the May municipal and regional elections and the right’s interpretation of the July general elections are erroneous because they are the product of this type of trivialized thinking.
Let’s go with the first pair: aspirational and ashamed.
This occurs in large cities like Madrid or Barcelona. You have a city where the large communication companies, the legal profession, consulting, the high administration of the State and the universities are located. You create a climate where there is bustle, excitement, possibilities. Many of the people from the inner cities come. They are middle class people, that is, they are the people who can pay for their stay in Madrid, not just their studies. Everyone is waiting for their time to come. Therefore it is an aspirational activity. Sure, what’s happening? That there are many people who come to that and fail. When you realize that it is not going to be your turn or you no longer have enough money, you have to leave or you will live poorly in the city. Or you change your profession to one of social discredit. People tend to hide, because they feel that middle-class shame: “I don’t want to be seen as a sworn guard.”
Another of its peers: connected versus immobile.
It has to do with network configuration. You have a central nucleus in Madrid around which other territories develop. It is becoming a border. The further you get from the core or the less connected you are to the core, the less chance you have. At work, if you live in the provinces and you don’t have money, you won’t have connections. You need at least two of the three things: money and connections, or money and living in the right place. There are many places that have good life connections, so to speak, but that don’t have opportunities, where you think you can have a future but the city doesn’t. And you live well, but you have the feeling that things are not going well and you are afraid that everything is going to shit.
And even with capital status, you see cities whose commerce is dying and that only gather people where there are terraces.
For me this element is decisive because in general, in the West, politics has been defined by this fight between the core of the network, which absorbs resources, and the rest of the territory. This is France with Paris, the United Kingdom with London or the United States with the coasts. And it is Argentina with Buenos Aires. For us, the great territorial dividing line, however, is the Ebro line. In the elections it has been clearly seen: from the Ebro line downwards, the presence of Vox and the PP has not been frightening. On the other hand, there are the Basque Country, Navarra and Catalonia. And it is a State that has two global cities, Madrid and Barcelona, ??and there is a huge point of friction there.
In “optimists against fed up” he describes optimism as a bad political practice.
It is a way of fantasy, of forgetting problems. Among the national enlightened classes, you put a problem on the table and they said “well, it’s true, but it’s temporary, we will have ideal solutions in no way.” And the peak is the technological fantasy: “I’m going to take rockets to Mars and the cars drive themselves.” With those inflated expectations there are people who have made a lot of money.
Has the right become the patron saint of the fed up?
Yes that’s how it is. He has lived by better identifying the existence of these focuses and channeling them towards his positions. Spain is a special place in this, but in the West it has been like that.
“Innovators vs. experienced.” Is it generational?
I wanted to go a little beyond the old-young axis. This has to do with the difficulty of enforcing what has already been done. And in that aspect it doesn’t matter if you have a lot of experience or a little. There is no accumulation. But the processes in general are cumulative, that is, people grow because they advance. You start with a potential and then you develop it. But that accumulation is biased, because any moment can set you back to zero, and today the learning you do is not about improving the activity, it is about improving how to survive.
It’s flexibility. Clear.
You don’t learn to do your job, you learn to be flexible, to navigate the codes of the company or the sector. If you know how to do that, you will do well, regardless of your task. That completely changes the framework.
He closes with a praise of balance. He will not be an optimist.
This is historical, it is in Aristotle and Machiavelli: in all societies, and it does not matter whether it is capitalist or communist, there are people who have a lot of power and people who have little. The difference between some regimes and others, and it was like this for Pericles as well, is the ability for these differences to be shorter and manageable through agreements. When all these agreements are broken and societies are divided, they not only have strong internal tensions, but they suffer enormous temptations to dominate by force what they have not been able to dominate by consensus. And that is our moment, a historic moment. Because the consensus between those who have and those who do not make one society tend to last much longer than another. And I am convinced of that position.
