Early January 2008. Two ETA members are arrested in Arrasate.
A few days later, well-founded suspicions arise that one of them has suffered serious torture at the hands of the Civil Guard.
In the middle of the same month, Fernando Savater wrote a column in this same newspaper titled
The Unacceptable
.
It is a harsh condemnation of the beating received by the ETA member and a fiery plea against the instrumental justification of torture.
If the same tribune had been published by the same author in 2024, it is possible that accusations would have fallen on social networks that, by conceding that the Civil Guard had tortured an ETA member, he was playing into the hands of Abertzale propaganda.
But as far as I remember, in 2008 no one thought of something like that.
Social media has changed the public conversation in ways we may not yet be aware of.
Before his advent, there were – I simplify for the sake of argument – two different channels to access public conversation.
On the one hand, there were the simple messages and the most obvious political confrontation.
I'm talking about the news and certain gatherings.
It was the channel of obviousness.
I say this without a trace of contempt: we need a channel of truisms because most ethical knowledge is mundane.
But there was another channel.
It was the channel of complexities and “buts”.
It took place in the stands of some newspapers, in some magazines and in a few television or radio programs at times of minimum audience.
These were two channels that rarely crossed.
And that they fulfilled different missions.
One sent an unequivocal message: terrorism is unacceptable.
The other alluded to a complexity: it is unacceptable to defeat terrorism with the methods of terrorism.
This separation allowed a platform like Savater's to not be interpreted as a concession to the Abertzale story.
It belonged to the channel of complexities and no one who participated in the public conversation only through the channel of obviousness was aware of its existence.
Nor, I suspect, of Savater's.
With the almost hegemonic role of social networks among those under forty as a means of access to public conversation, the separate coexistence of these two channels ended.
There is a single channel where reflections or ideas belonging to the channel of complexities are read in terms of obviousness.
And so the confusion begins: an article by Santiago Alba Rico defending the cultural tradition of the kiss is interpreted as a filthy extravagance;
a tribune by Clara Serra pointing out ambiguities in the concept of sexual consent is contested by a part of the left because it pleases some conservatives (who also read it in terms of obviousness and, naturally, understand it backwards).
People who dedicate themselves to pointing out complexities are criticized for truisms.
Which makes as much sense as saying that the sound remix of JM Coetzee's latest novel is unacceptable.
All this makes me think of a question.
What the hell is a public intellectual in 2024?
And I tell myself that it is the same as always: someone who publicly puts “buts” to his people.
In other words, a party pooper.
This is not the only thing he does, but a public intellectual has the obligation to cloud the conscience of his people with “buts.”
(Savaterian interlude: perhaps that 2008 tribune was one of the last times in which Savater was a party pooper at his own party; later, he changed the fun, enjoyed the Manichean caviar of his hosts and made sure that this new party, like Paris, did not become will never end.)
I believe that trolling, memes and insults, which is what social networks generate the most, are not criticism from below or from anywhere.
A “but” always announces complexity.
And there is no greater object of ridicule and rejection on social networks than someone of yours who dares to invoke a “but.”
Given this, the normal thing – because there is no moral obligation to be strong, whatever the sinister Jordan Peterson says – is that those who want to point out complexities end up inhibiting themselves.
All this would be unimportant if there were another place where the reproach to those who point out complexities was made in the key of complexities.
That place doesn't exist.
I'm certainly not saying that when the two channels were separate things were more democratic.
What I'm saying is that turning everything into a channel of obviousness is confusing the egalitarian value of democracy with the egalitarian value of
likes
.
Another variant of the supposed democratization that social networks would imply is that now, unlike before, those who write forums would be exposed to criticism from below.
What do you want me to tell you, I believe that trolling, memes and insults are not criticism from below or from anywhere.
They are simply something else (at times downright funny).
On the other hand, the idea that those below express themselves through memes, trolling and insults is an involuntary but terribly classist idea.
That's how things are.
Previously, the medium in which a contribution to the public conversation appeared was a reliable indicator to understand through which channel you were being questioned.
Now everything is more diffuse and one has to make an effort to understand whether the person speaking to me is speaking in terms of complexities or obviousness.
It's not a drama.
It's just more baroque.
But that effort is essential because spoilsports are essential.
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