CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FUTURE

Two of my grandchildren are studying law, and in the conversations I have with them I try to understand the present and the future from the point of view of this new generation. I am aware that it is only a very particular and perhaps still not very collective vision.

One of the most surprising topics is the language of these young people and frankly, it seems to me that new words are used in order to modify the meaning of concepts. Among the examples that have most interested me are those related to education or social life.

In a recent conversation I asked them how they like to refer to people who claim to be of different genders. They told me that we should dispense with names and speak of the whole of Humanity with a capital letter. The topic gives a lot of scope, among other things because it eliminates in oral and written expression what we have learned in grammar about the gender of words. Also because it does not allow us to distinguish between different groups.

What is humanity? It is not easy to define what humanity is. This word is usually understood with very different meanings, and we have worked with two definitions: the set of all human beings that exist, and the nature of human beings, that is, the way we have to behave, for good and for bad. There is an accepted formula that says: a human being is the one who has the nature of a rational being.

What distinguishes us from other living species and which all members of our species possess is, according to religious views, that we have a spirit or soul. In other words, humans have a special relationship with the Creator of Life. But there is also a secular view that understands humanity as belonging to a particular genus and species.

The question of what humanity is and where it resides seems to have no definitive solution. We believe that it is a question that we humans alone ask ourselves, as we are the only creatures that reflect on our own existence. We say that the word human applies to people who have compassion for their fellow human beings. Human is synonymous with kind, generous, understanding, tolerant, charitable. The opposite of humane is inhuman, cruel, harsh, malignant, unpleasant. And therefore there are two types that coexist in Humanity: the human and the inhuman.

It is not considered a human attribute to be a democrat or authoritarian in any of the different varieties that exist of both meanings. The books explain that there are 10 kinds of democracy that I am only going to name: Direct, Representative, Participative, Partial, Presidential, Constitutional, Parliamentary, Social Democracy, Authoritarian and Religious, for example, Israel. To simplify things and taking into account that almost never a democracy respects its own rules, today we speak of Modern Democracy.

In the so-called Authoritarianism two types are usually accepted: Totalitarianism and Authoritarianism. Totalitarianism demands a reality without political pluralism. A system founded primarily on the principle of authority is considered authoritarian. The abuse and excess of authority, rather than representing the opposite of democracy, means the opposite of freedom. Unlike totalitarian regimes, authoritarian regimes are political systems with limited political pluralism, without an elaborated ideology and lacking free political mobilization, and in which a leader exercises power within formally ill-defined but in reality quite predictable limits. As in democratic regimes, authoritarian regimes often do not respect their own rules either. Modernly we speak of Despotism defined in which power is exercised by a ruling class.

If one believes in what has been said, the teachings of the School and the Humanities depend basically on two qualities: the first is whether our students are in the hands of good or bad people. The second is that since it is convenient for each type of Democracy or Authoritarianism to form followers, education is always changing according to the prevailing winds. Hopefully, youthful rebelliousness will be able to change these realities.