Imagining possible futures is not within the reach of all kinds of living matter. It is, in fact, a quality of the human being and is a sophisticated expression of intelligence. Those who know about evolution point out that this ability to plan in the long term or, what is the same, to project what can happen and how we would feel if it happened is an evolutionary strategy with which the human being – thanks to a brain that represents life in images – manages to increase the chances of survival. And it does so as a result of planning different futures and rejecting options that are imperfect, undesirable, risky or those that compromise its own survival. All this, of course, without having lived that scenario, or having suffered its consequences. Turning to Karl Popper, it is a question of putting to death the defective hypotheses of a future imaginary, without risking our own existence or the conditions that make it something truly appealing.
Thus, the simple exercise of imagining situations not yet lived, from images that we store in the brain or from previous experiences, allows us to simulate, experiment and decide consciously. What would happen to us or how we would feel in the event that the next Government of Spain decided to renounce making equality between men and women feasible or to protect women victims of gender violence or repeal the right to die with dignity, among others. Anticipating what may happen and living their emotions allows us to know if the result satisfies us or benefits our interests. Experimenting without suffering adverse effects is, in fact, a form of intelligence that facilitates decision-making. The same can be said if the analysis is made in terms of benefits for society as a whole or the protection of the political system itself, if we are talking about futures that compromise the quality of the democratic system.
It is not the first time that I bring up this type of reflections because of what they have useful in the field of political life and particularly at election time. Politics in democratic societies is the most powerful instrument to manage the present, but also to win the future. Electoral campaigns are, to a certain extent, a large market where "futures" are bought and sold. Rightly so, elections are the terrain where emotions escalate displacing any attempt for the rational element to guide the process of choosing who we want to govern us. The political parties know this and propose to the voters that "future" proposal that they have imagined for us. The result is reflected in electoral programs dotted with proposals on economy, health, education, environment, science, industry, equality or the role of Spain in Europe and the world. A future designed for young and old, workers and unemployed, men and women, rich and poor, wage earners and entrepreneurs... The essence that each of the possible futures distills is condensed communicatively in slogans and campaign posters that each of the political forces configures with more or less success. Forward, Spain Advances, proposes the PSOE for 23-J. It is time, suggests the PP. What matters, says Vox. It's coming for you, remember Sumar. And so with each and every one of the electoral proposals that concur in the elections.
The PSOE with an impeccable record of service as a party that has projected the great advances in Spain has drawn in its electoral program the future to which it aspires. Nor does he hide that he will carry it out, if the parliamentary arithmetic allows it, with the party of Yolanda Díaz and with her in the Government. The PSOE has dedicated efforts so far this campaign to highlight what has been achieved to date endorsed by tangible social advances and an economic situation that all international organizations celebrate, although many families still suffer the consequences of the high cost of life. In the context described, and after the result of the regional and municipal elections, how to explain the apathy of the left-wing electorate or, even worse, the transfer of vote from progressive options to right-wing proposals. The reasons are multiple and, among them, is the wear and tear caused by the succession of disagreements of a coalition government, together with some parliamentary alliances not always explained or understood. All this, being relevant, configures worldviews of the past, but should not compromise the future scenario to which the PSOE summons us next 23-J What makes then that future oriented to the great challenges such as that represented by climate change fails to mobilize the voter of the left? The answer, which I only sense, could require these political forces to stop more and explain how the costs of a disruptive environmental and technological transformation that only the most obtuse deniers can ignore will be addressed. The majority of Spanish society is not climate denier, nor does it resist embracing technological challenges, but worries (and a lot) about the impact they will have on their lives and that of their children. This aspect, I believe, constitutes one of the blind spots that should be corrected in the remainder of the campaign so as not to compromise the options of a future of progress.
And the PP? The future he projects is determined by the certain risk of having to govern with a reactionary party like Vox and willing to dynamite the constitutional consensus on which our coexistence is based. The plans of the extreme right are clear in relation to the will to carry out its conception of the future of Spain by taking part in the Council of Ministers. A hypothesis already tested in more than one hundred and forty municipalities, as well as in the autonomous governments of Castilla-León, Valencia, the Balearic Islands or Extremadura. Although each of the examples cited has its own singularities, it is difficult to ignore some of the consequences that this coalition has in terms of equality, restriction of freedoms, exclusion of groups or cultural regression. The PP considers the option of governing with Vox as a fair toll to pay to reach power. The question is whether it is acceptable for the social majority of this country to accept as inevitable the future described by a reactionary political force that challenges the foundations of constitutional consensus and erodes the backbones on which coexistence in Spain is articulated today.
Returning to the futures market that represents an election campaign, it is worth asking what is expected of a committed voter. It does not hurt, as voters, to explore the capacity that our intelligent human condition gives us and, before voting, take the trouble to imagine that future that each of us aspires to have. Exercising this capacity becomes an exercise of responsibility from which we can hardly renounce if we accept that the future to which the results of the polls on 23-J lead us has been perfectly imagined with sufficient anticipation to be perfected. Doing so requires something as simple as stopping for a moment and feeling the consequences of what will happen if, as has already been said, the program of the extreme right passes through erasing the content of the social advances of the last forty years through legislative repeals. The 23-J is sold futures. And you, what future are you willing to buy?
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