Regaining hope

We already know the world isn't exactly rosy, especially for those of us who still believe in a better society and planet than the one we have now. The general feeling is that, in the best-case scenario, things won't get worse: in terms of inequality, employment, housing… global governance, mental health… The latest episode, during these days of Christmas festivities, is the forced eviction instigated by Albiol in Badalona. An inhumane eviction—like those we've also experienced here, in Can Rova, Ibiza—of people, many of them employed, but unable to afford a roof over their heads because of the 'freedom' of the market.

This eviction, and the subsequent protests, have highlighted the darkest side of the process of dehumanizing 'others': the loss of our own humanity. Paradoxically, in the name of supposed Christian and Western values, some residents, poisoned by far-right hate speech, have even prevented organizations like the Red Cross and Caritas from carrying out their humanitarian work, and the parish of Our Lady of Montserrat from serving as a refuge for the most vulnerable. Are these the same people who will wish peace and love upon their loved ones during Christmas lunches and dinners? The same ones who defend Christian values against those of other religions? Probably so, because one of the triumphs of techno-feudal neoliberalism is the mental disconnect we practice between what we think and what we do. This isn't about guilt, but about consistency and responsibility towards others, because no one should wish for another person to sleep rough, nor believe that anyone deserves it. We are feeling-thinking beings, Fals Borda reminded us, and it is with this way of understanding ourselves (beyond an abstract rationality, capable of reducing people to numbers and common sense to a certain utilitarianism) that we must be and exist in the world.

The election results in Extremadura, one of the poorest regions in the country, are not very encouraging either. Those of us who recognize that social classes exist find it difficult to understand why the working classes vote young gentlemenWhile the decline of the left was predictable, what's hardest to accept is the growth of an increasingly indistinguishable right and far right… Soon, the people of Extremadura will regretfully experience a coalition government that faced less resistance to forming than the left did, and which will ruthlessly follow the global neoconservative agenda. And perhaps this is one of the main handicaps of those who, from a progressive standpoint, want to establish themselves as alternative governments: confusing the welfare state and formal democracy with what people want, even though this no longer allows them to sustain even a minimal life project.

Sociologist Manel Castells emphasized this point bluntly a few days ago in an interview with the newspaper The Country Which honestly shocked me: democracy only exists in our heads. And if people stop believing in the system's institutions and in its usefulness for improving the lives of the majority, well, we're in deep trouble… And this is the point: the more anti-system, anti-institutional, and anti-politics the party is, the better results it gets in this context.

Reconnecting political institutions with the most pressing social problems (housing, decent work, etc.) is no easy task, but above all, we can't reduce it to a simple rhetorical battle—another big mistake of the left. Is it also a battle for a new cultural hegemony of the working classes (what are we capable of offering in the face of the life goal of an entire generation that, from the most absolute precarity, aspires to be millionaires?) and for the transformation of structures from the few spaces we have left (each institution, each policy, what is the purpose of change?). To demonstrate that despite the headwinds, wonderful things can be done (as the social economy teaches us every day with its practices) from the margins. That these things generate real, tangible well-being, and that these transformations and some of the well-being generated are related to another vital challenge: rebuilding the social bonds destroyed by cultural capitalism and finished off by the new dependencies created by technofeudalism.

It's true that 2025 has perhaps left us with too many inputs that reinforce a certain pessimism of our time. But it also allows us to glimpse the clues that can restore our hope, the enthusiasm that fuels any transformative project… For every Trump, a Mamdani; for every Albiol, dozens of hospitable neighbors; for every Abascal, thousands of stories that remind us who we are and where we come from; for every Netanyahu, a 'flotilla' full of solidarity; for every word of hate, one of love. Because that's what it was all about these days, besides consuming, right?