Politics: The Dangers of Simple Answers and Angry Masses

There is a lot of frustration and anger in the world. This has led to the election of Donald Trump, to the Brexit vote in the UK and to the Catalan independence movement here in Barcelona.

On the declaration of independence here in Catalunya, I made this video reflecting on the last 18 months of politics. I believe that there is anger and frustration… some is just rebellion… but there is a lot of understandable frustration with a growing inequality in our societies that we must deal with.

My worry is that the current politics are polarising the different views… Trump causes extreme emotional reaction, Brexit causes emotional reactions… and Catalan independence causes emotional reaction. It is not an environment where we can work together to create a better structure for living together. What can we do?

I think we can each make an effort to engage openly in understanding the lives, hopes, dreams and frustrations of others, particularly those who are different from ourselves.

2 responses to “Politics: The Dangers of Simple Answers and Angry Masses”

hibabynihaomama

November 18, 2017 at 12:38 am

My view is that people’s emotional reactions to all of these impudent and umpunished acts of corruption -committed in the hardest times, with such high rates of unemployment, such low salaries and total uncertainty of a peaceful and well-deserved retirement after a lifetime of hard work, taxes and obligations… and commited by those who should care for us, because we voted for them to manage our resources… do not let us see the truth about human progress: that together, we can do better. A few rotten apples should not break us appart. We should not fight with our brothers and sisters because we lack resources. The solution is not to blame the thief or to get rid of those who make the smallest contribution to the community. Everyone can contribute in any or other way. But we do need better leaders, leaders that we can trust and that encourage us all to work together. In a world that is running out of resources, with rapidly increasing population, there will be more and more tension. We all must come up with sustainable solutions to real problems. Let’s not tag ourselves in opposition to others. Who are we? Before someone wrote our nationality and the country where we must pay taxes on a piece of paper, we were born humans.

Loading…

Reply
eixerits

November 1, 2017 at 1:45 pm

I appreciate your courage to take a position on such a controversial subject as Catalan independence. I agree with most of your points but I disagree when you suggest the independence movement has a populism byass. Of course the symbolic independence declaration is arguably effective and probably a political mistake, but in general I consider the steps taken by independence leaders are much closer to the dialog you calim than those taken by Spanish government

Loading…

Reply