Having read Yuval Noah Harari's brilliant "21 lessons for the 21st century', and its chapter on Science Fiction in particular, I followed up by rereading Ray Bradbury's incommensurable "Fahrenheit 451". Harari focuses on the difference between Aldous Huxley's "Brave new world" and other works of fiction, books or movies, such as "1984", "Matrix" or "The Truman show". And he highlights how the key difference in Huxley's dystopia is the people's unwillingness to scape the system, as opposed to their difficulties in succeeding at that once the will is established.
Bradbury opens "Fahrenheit 451" with a quote from Spanish poet –and 1956 Nobel laureate– Juan Ramón Jiménez: "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way". This opening connects superbly with one of the reflections towards the book's ending. "He was individual", says Granger to Montag remembering his late grandfather. "The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on". The storyline in "Fahrenheit 451" is closest to "Brave new world" in that the coming of the will to break apart, as a prerequisite to doing so, is in jeopardy.
And the whole thing got me thinking about the evolution we are witnessing in international politics. In his provocative "We are mad" article –written in Spanish–, Civio advisory board member Victor Lapuente reflects on the slippery slope revealed by the latest surveys carried out on political partisanship in the US. The degree of extreme polarisation and lack of the very basic common ground shown are truly worrying indicators of the toxic political atmosphere developing right under our feet. In Spain too. As with climate change, we are unconsciously tearing apart the fabrics of what makes societal human life possible.
Whilst fighting the spread of misinformation, with this as a fine example of debunking a well-intended article no doubt written as a warning shot, we should be our own individuals. We should live more by the late Louis Brandeis motto: "The most important political office is that of the private citizen". And we should demand from our candidates for office a display of a certain skill for intelligent understanding of the others' position, to rethink how political opposition is put in practice in this century. All in the critically important collective goal of fighting sectarianism.