Before closing the year I propose an exercise contrary to what we have done for 12 months and think about the world from the shoes of others.
Of those who are unable to realize that they are wrong, who are deceived or outright hold absurd positions for malicious reasons.
That is, those with whom we have argued on social networks, in after-dinner chats, in the Uber or simply in the privacy of our brains when we hear the news or listen to a conversation at the next table.
Imagine that you are a writer and a character in your novel participates in a family chat in which he defends with passionate arguments a position contrary to the one you hold.
What would you have the character say to make it
sound
convincing?
Or, to put it another way, would you be able to mention three aspects that deserve some respect in positions contrary to yours?
For example, if you are not exactly an Obrador sympathizer, could you recognize López Obrador at least some virtue, despite everything?
Do you see any compelling reason why so many want it?
And, conversely, if you think he is the president this country needs, could you understand, if not share, the fears he inspires in those who oppose him?
Recognize any aspect in which the Fourth Transformation has given justified reasons to criticize it?
For what purpose?
If for nothing else, move the muscle of the imagination or if you want, to do something different from what we did for a year.
Or perhaps because after almost four years of debates, it is clear that the two visions of the country that are competing in the public conversation fail to convince each other.
Judging by the fact that the polls' approval and disapproval levels have remained stable, we would have to conclude that there has not been much success in campaigning to change the other party's mind.
The two-thirds ratio
versus
a third, or 60/40 depending on which source is consulted, not much has changed, despite the strength of the arguments that each party attributes to itself.
Perhaps that means that our arguments are less forceful or absolute than we had thought or that the reasons of others have some weight, at least for them.
A minimum of curiosity would have to lead us to examine, even for a moment, what those reasons would be.
Of course we can also entrench ourselves in the reassuring notion that others think differently simply because they have been deceived and live in error;
but that is exactly what we have done the other 364 days of the year.
It is not intended that convictions be betrayed or certainties dynamited.
Consistency in defending one's own positions, commitment to a project and to the values in which we believe, loyalty to the points of view that we share with the community to which we belong or with which we identify, are commendable.
That is infinitely better than apathy and disinterest in public affairs, or the valemadrismo of individual and selfish solutions.
Perhaps there are times when it is necessary to discuss open graves and any concession on a decisive issue constitutes a betrayal of our convictions.
But nothing can be built, more than the abyss, if we permanently settle in the trench that denies the adversary the right to consider his reasons valid.
We are condemned to share the voyage on this ship we call Mexico, and it is evident that we will not be able to get rid of each other, nor convince each other until we become a single faction.
This being the case, it would be worth looking out to contemplate from their own perspective the reasons of those who reason differently from us.
At least for one day of the year before it ends.
Don't you agree?
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