Only parents find it impertinent to ask children who they love more, dad or mom. If there is no coercion, they respond so hotly, because they are trying to hurt the feelings of the aggrieved parent. Parents, more adults—that is, hypocrites—say that they love all their children equally. Ha. Everyone has a favorite, although some do not even recognize it themselves and retreat into the taboo of equality of affection, when there is nothing less democratic than love and passions. Trying to govern them with equanimity always leads to embarrassment and horror, as the apostles of polyamory know well.
Perhaps the refusal to admit the inequality of paternal-filial love comes from the Manichean and absolutist way we have of presenting tastes. For a troubled father, accepting that Abel is his favorite means that he does not love Cain. We experience tastes as dichotomies: if you like A, you hate B, and vice versa. Everything comes down to opposites that deny each other: Madrid or Barça, Verdi or Wagner, wine or beer, comedy or drama, town or city. As if choosing one meant rejecting the other, in an atrocious logic of loyalties and betrayals. Perhaps in football or politics this may be the case - and not always - but there is no reason why one cannot like several things that are opposite to each other.
This militant and childish way of understanding taste is what inspired the signing of David Broncano for TVE: they want to put the viewer against a rock and a hard place. Who do you love more, dad anthill or mom resistance? You have to choose the one that matches your vote. Don't be a die-hard fan of Broncano and then vote for the PP. Or the other way around: it is not worth enjoying Pablo Motos and then declaring yourself a socialist. Don't get confused, define yourselves.
As much as we want to be like those parents who say they love their children equally, taste is complex and contradictory. You can belong to Broncano and Motos and not be crazy, just as you can detest Broncano and Motos at the same time. Or, as is my case, you can feel a very broad indifference towards both and witness this battle, without a doubt the most banal of those seen in the Spanish cultural wars, astonished.
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