Media at the service of Caligula

                                        Caligula Look and Learn

 Media at the service of Caligula 

 By Miguel Suárez del Cerro: Considering fascism a mere transitory insanity and alien to the system, materialized in a small group that appears temporarily in institutions and disappears due to the debate of ideas, constitutes one of the errors, perhaps interested, more common than we can find in the history of our species. 

 Because Caligula, as Camus described him, is not a madman with power, but rather has "the most absolute mental balance of a lucid, intelligent and capable person", a topic included in one of the questions posed to Rafael Argullol in the book on passions. This quotation, although it disagrees with some conclusions of the volume, seems to me to be an adequate starting point for this text.

 My goal is to focus on an evil essence much closer to that of all those so-called dictatorships that occupy so many hours of television and newspaper covers. The problem that citizens face when receiving this avalanche of news about foreign dangers is that they are hardly offered knowledge about these countries, they only end up retaining simple and yellow headlines.

 It is true that they tell us that the truth is within our reach, that we can consult all the data we want quickly with any search engine. However, this is not entirely correct, because, in the first place, the media know that they are aimed at a majority without material time or desire to analyze the history, speeches and reality of the countries they speak of; and, secondly, because, even if he did, search engines and social networks would take care of leading him over and over to the same message, to what he already knows. Its objective is to confirm what is known, not to offer new knowledge, because the economic benefit is always in saying what we have been taught that we want to hear. For this reason, commercial movies, music or literature are based on repeating patterns ad nauseam. 

There are alternative positions, honest and free from spurious economic interests, but accessing them and creating an adequate context to correctly understand the reality of other states requires much more time than accepting the clichés. The dissemination of any rigorous analysis is quickly neutralized with one or more simple responses from an apparently serious medium that, in turn, belongs to the same communication group as the program that at night is going to entertain the majority of the audience.

 While the public worries about these terrifying dictators who have become almost Hollywood villains, messages with very clear connections to the worst episodes of the past are reborn a few meters from their home. And, unlike the media unanimity that exists regarding these bad James Bond movies, there is debate in these reactionary ideas, under the excuse of safeguarding the presumption of democracy of all political formations, although we clearly see that their ideas differ much of a project of respect, equality and freedom for all. 

 This also happens because the current fascism, the one at home, the one that goes to the television gatherings, is trustworthy for the economic power, does not bother the markets and has accepted its game and its definition of freedom. But do not get carried away, do not look for a description of a specific party or leader in my words, because this fascism does not materialize only in people or parties, it is found in habitual actions, created routines and simplistic messages.

 To all this is added a constant fear of the future, because the capitalist present is not capable of offering security of any kind. This is how neuroses are created, accompanied on many occasions by a growing and diverse paranoia, and awakens endless drives that want to be satisfied. These drives are born from the natural instincts of the human essence, but they have been transformed. In this way, a socially accepted mode of satisfaction is offered, called consumerism, which does not clash with either liberal clichés or reactionary ideas; it only seems to be up against the evil foreign dictators I have cited before, and since we have already accepted that they are bad, very bad, logic tells us that this consumerism, opposed by those who threaten our world as we know it, has to be good.

 Let us remember Camus's Caligula, who is not crazy, who knows his subjects and who knows that fear, ignorance and dehumanization will make him more and more powerful. In Freudian terms, we could say that the contemporary Caligula forms a despotic superego that, in addition, creates our "it" and, thanks to this, governs our "I" at will.