The spontaneity of the boys is amazing.
Dad, what do presidents study? asked my youngest son, 10 years old, during family dinner while we were talking about world news.
In an era of tectonic changes and quantum transformations in terms of social ties, values, technology, geopolitics and leadership, are presidents qualified to lead the destinies of a Nation?
Will cooperation between the United States and the People's Republic of China prevail after the presidential election on November 5?
Can the European Union emerge from its irrelevance?
Will there be direct war with Russia in Vladimir Putin's fifth term?
Where is Latin America inserted?
Meanwhile, the “different ones” win in Western politics, the disruptive ones, who quickly gain the empty space in the face of an establishment in paralysis.
Traditional identifications are diluted, brand loyalties evaporate, “the new” emerges.
Do leaders understand that positive results are required of them for the common good?
Culture has been central to the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanalysis.
Civilization imposes restrictions on individual impulses for the sake of social coexistence.
Paradoxically, the more the culture develops, the more the unrest grows.
However, Freud also introduces the concept of sublimation, the possibility of channeling repressed energies into art, science or religion (Discontent in Culture, 1930).
It is unacceptable today to observe the almost zero preparation of current leaders, the little space they dedicate to their self-knowledge, to reflection, to designing and drawing road maps on their strategies and actions in a professional manner.
Freud also analyzes Why War (1932) in dialogue with Albert Einstein, who makes efforts to avoid a new conflagration after the First World War.
But Freud is more skeptical and recognizes the difficulty of eradicating death drives.
Despite this, he accepts that “everything he works for the development of culture also works against war.”
It is precisely in the territory of self-knowledge, art, science, and a shared spirituality where hope and the possibility of well-being reside.
Nurturing and “sublimating” around culture is essential for progress.
It seems that today everything revolves around acting, image and spectacle.
It is insufficient.
What truly matters are the results and how they are perceived by a demanding and demanding society.
This is why it is essential to have spaces for introspection, where issues related to character and personality can be worked on.
“Content is King,” said Bill Gates (1996) to point out that the most important thing in communication is the content, the story that is told, the words and the forms.
And that is where battles are fought and won.
Against this backdrop, cultural leadership with a focus on effectiveness is a powerful path to progress.
Also to avoid the prolongation of wars and counteract the authoritarianisms that lurk on the horizon with the continuation of crises, as Freud pointed out in The Psychology of the Masses (1921), anticipating what would come a few years later.
The paths ahead can be very dissimilar.
A stage with greater culture, prosperity and well-being is possible.
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