These are new political times in Chile, there is no doubt. Not only has a new government taken office, but also a new generation, the result of a new cultural framework that year after year is leaving behind the old values of order, structure and forms, to seek to refound a new social order strongly based on the emotions of the moment and hyperbole ideas not yet settled.
Clearly, we have to want the best for this new cycle and the people responsible for driving it. To want the opposite would be to wish one’s own evil. However, as it has always been, what happens does not depend only on the new authorities, but on each person who is part of the existing social fabric (or unweaving).
The construction of new instances of encounter, dialogue and agreement has been something that is perceived as lost within this new cycle. It seems that like an adolescent who reveals himself from his parents, considering that they know nothing, contribute nothing and nothing of them should be adopted for his own future, in the same way, this new atmosphere seems to refuse to look, weigh and leave the good of the old in order to build looking to the future. On the contrary, it seems that the desired future is a copy of a distant past, deeply idealized and drawn in black and white that do not honor the truth of the facts.
In social psychology, the subject of mass phenomena has been widely addressed, how emotions become contagious and states become increasingly unconscious and thoughtless, and this seems to be a clear case of that, in an idealization and thoughtless euphoria that can end like the most idyllic dream that ends with the alarm clock, from one moment to another, without warning and in an uncomfortable way.
Is there something wrong with being in this state? Maybe not in itself. More than bad, it gives us the feeling that something good is happening and something better is yet to come. The main point, which in my opinion seems to be dangerous, is the loss of reflective capacity to make decisions that may be necessary today (not always comfortable) with the aim of achieving something that is better understood tomorrow. And just as the new elites are brimming with utopia, and the media seek to be “in tune” with the mass fashion of the moment, people have been infected, because in the same way, the thoughtlessness of the masses permeates a dangerous mirage to its authorities, that it could leave us all worse off than before this dream.
You yearn for the good, recognizing the concrete and the real scope, is a basic principle to give continuity to a larger project, to something that aims to last longer than a mere one-night party. But it seems like everyone wants to get drunk today no matter what happens tomorrow.
We have to hope that the awakening is not sudden, that the dream does not quickly turn into a nightmare, and that the reason beaten by the desire to believe in the illusion can recover quickly and does not remain dejected on the canvas of the social ring.
We’ll see how this process continues, which we hope will be better than it seems from afar.