Está uno harto de recordar –y ustedes aburridos de que yo lo haga– el viejo adagio de mi familia: “Nunca se debe intentar contentar a quienes nunca se van a dar por contentos”. Y sin embargo es algo que en España hay que sacar a colación continuamente, como si no darnos nunca por contentos fuera uno de nuestros mayores vicios, o más bien ardides. Es este un país lleno de gente insaciable, a la que nada parece jamás bastante, que ve cualquier gentileza o concesión no como deseo de tener la fiesta en paz y llegar a acuerdos, ni como recapacitación y afán de ser justo, sino como síntoma de debilidad inequívoca de quien cede, y por lo tanto como señal para tirar de la cuerda y forzar aún más las situaciones. Lo más sorprendente es que nadie haga caso de ese adagio, que nadie se plantee lo inútil y aun lo contraproducente de intentar contentar a quienes jamás van a darse por satisfechos.

(…)

Porque también los hay de millares de individuos, y estoy seguro de que ustedes se las habrán visto en la vida con alguna persona así. Habrán puesto paños calientes y tenido infinitas buena fe y paciencia con ellas, habrán procurado agradarlas y apaciguarlas, las habrán tratado con guante blanco ante su enorme susceptibilidad y su imparable exigencia …, y no habrán conseguido sino recibir reproches y broncas, se habrán sentido en insaldable y permanente deuda con ellas, habrán experimentado la desagradable e injusta sensación de que, por mucho que hicieran ustedes en provecho suyo, ellas no sólo no iban a agradecérselo, sino que lo iban a tomar como algo lógico y debido y además insuficiente. Son personas imposibles, desesperantes, con las que lo mejor que puede hacerse es romper todo vínculo y trato, no tenerlo malo ni esforzarse por tenerlo bueno (una quimera, esto último). Son individuos que en seguida pierden de vista lo que es una deferencia o un gran favor por nuestra parte, que consideran “derechos adquiridos” lo que graciosa y voluntariamente les otorgamos un día, que olvidan que no tenemos ningún deber para con ellos, y que, si les retiramos nuestra protección o beneficio, lo juzgarán una agresión, nada menos. Recuerdo haber tenido amigos a los que favorecía en lo posible: sugería su nombre para trabajos o viajes; lograba que se los invitara a donde no lo habían sido; hacía gestiones para que se los publicara o tradujera; los ayudaba a mejorar sus tarifas, sin llegar a la indecencia de recomendar públicamente lo que de ellos no me gustaba. Al terminar la amistad, me abstuve de perjudicarlos, pero sí dejé de echarles aquellas manos, y ellos entendieron la mera cesación de un apoyo –nada más comprensible, si yo me había considerado traicionado– como una declaración de hostilidades por mi parte. Hasta tal punto habían olvidado que se trataba algo espontáneo y amistoso, a lo que no estaba en modo alguno obligado.(…)

“No católicos sino catolicistas” en Lo que no vengo a decir, de Javier Marías.

Dejamos atrás la calle del artista.

Esperábamos algo tan acogedor y tan modesto, pero no ha dejado de asombrarnos que fuera tan acogedor y tan modesto. El impacto de respirar la humilde intimidad de alguien del que ya nadie niega su grandeza, ni artística ni humana. Pero en este caso no hay cursilería ni sentimentalismo en la emoción. No hay manera de vincular la procelosa vida de Amstrong con la nuestra. No podemos imaginar cómo alguien que creció en el lumpen, que vivió de la caridad o que padeció la humillación del racismo pudo encarar la vida con tanta alegría. Era un ser tocado por la gracia, un elegido. Podría haber sido un delincuente, podría haber sido un cabrón, podría haber sido un desgraciado. Pero fue un hombre de buen corazón y generoso.

Su museo está donde tiene que estar, en Corona. Cuando pintaron el exterior de su casa se empeño en pintar también la de los vecinos porque le daba apuro que su casa pudiera resultar ostentosa.

Elvira Lindo, Lugares que no quiero compartir con nadie.

Juror 8: You want to see this boy die because you personally want it, not because of the facts! You’re a sadist!

El precepto de la duda razonable -fundamental para un veredicto de culpabilidad- ha quedado violado esta noche, cuando se quitó, de forma legal, la vida a un hombre sobre el que siete testigos, no uno ni dos, siete, se han retractado sobre la acusación que hicieron en un primer momento. Demasiadas dudas para practicar tan definitiva -sin vuelta atrás- decisión: matar a un ser humano. Más en El País.

Bertrand Russell

BBC Radio, London, 30 December 1954

Bertrand Russell’s claim to be remembered by his history rests on his work in mathematic and symbolic logic and his profound influence on philosophy. Yet he was also constantly involved in political affairs. Russell (1872-1970) was deprived of his fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, during the First World War because of his pacifism. He was imprisoned in 1918. During the Second World War, however, he abandoned his pacifism because of his hatred of Fascism. When the atom bomb was followed by hydrogen bomb, he became a campaigner for nuclear disarmament- and this speech on BBC Radio was a characteristic example of the powerful rhetoric he used against the arms race that built up between the United States and Soviet Union, the two great superpowers, and which, he argued, was endangering the human race.

The broadcast was made after the explosion of the first H-bomb, his thin singsong voice charged with the detached intensity of a prophet.

I am speaking not as a Briton, not as a European, not as a member of a western democracy, but as a human being, a member of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts: Jews and Arabs; Indians and Pakistanis; white men and Negroes in Africa; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between communism and anticommunism.

Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but I want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings for the moment and consider yourself only as a member of a biological species which has had a remarkable history and whose disappearance none of us can desire. I shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it. We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps. The question we have to ask ourselves is: What steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all sides?

The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with hydrogen bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old and that, while one atomic bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one hydrogen bomb could obliterate the largest cities such as London, New York, and Moscow. No doubt in a hydrogen-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that hydrogen bombs can gradually spread destruction over a much wider area than had been supposed. It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 25,000 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radioactive particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish although they were outside what American experts believed to be the danger zone. No one knows how widely such lethal radioactive particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with hydrogen bombs is quite likely to put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many hydrogen bombs are used there will be universal death – sudden only for a fortunate minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration…

Here, then, is the problem which I present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race1 or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war. The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term ‘mankind’ feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity’ And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited. I am afraid this hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use hydrogen bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture hydrogen bombs as soon as war broke out, for if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious…

As geological time is reckoned, Man has so far existed only for a very short period one million years at the most. What he has achieved, especially during the last 6,000 years, is something utterly new in the history of the Cosmos, so far at least as we are acquainted with it. For countless ages the sun rose and set, the moon waxed and waned, the stars shone in the night, but it was only with the coming of Man that these things were understood. In the great world of astronomy and in the little world of the atom, Man has unveiled secrets which might have been thought undiscoverable. In art and literature and religion, some men have shown a sublimity of feeling which makes the species worth preserving. Is all this to end in trivial horror because so few are able to think of Man rather than of this or that group of men? Is our race so destitute of wisdom, so incapable of impartial love, so blind even to the simplest dictates of self-preservation, that the last proof of its silly cleverness is to be the extermination of all life on our planet? – for it will be not only men who will perish, but also the animals, whom no one can accuse of communism or anticommunism.

I cannot believe that this is to be the end. I would have men forget their quarrels for a moment and reflect that, if they will allow themselves to survive, there is every reason to expect the triumphs of the future to exceed immeasurably the triumphs of the past. There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal, as a human being to human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death.

The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Speeches.

There is a small minority, for example, that believes that bad weather comes from bad thoughts. This is a rather mystical approach to the question, for it implies that thoughts can be translated directly into events in the physical world. According to them, when you think a dark or pessimistic thought, it produces a cloud in the sky. If enough people are thinking gloomy thoughts at once, then rain will begin to fall. That is the reason for all the startling shifts in the weather, they claim, and the reason why no one has been able to give a scientific explanation of our bizarre climate. Their solution is to maintain a steadfast cheerfulness, no matter how dismal the conditions around them. No frowns, no deep sighs, no tears. These people are known as the Smilers, and no sect in the city is more innocent or childlike. If a majority of the population could be converted to their beliefs, they are convinced the weather would at last begin to stabilize and that life would then improve. They are therefore always proselytizing, continually looking for new adherents, but the mildness of the manner they have imposed on themselves makes them feeble persuaders. They rarely succeed in winning anyone over, and consequently their ideas have never been put to the test-for without a great number of believers, there will not be enough good thoughts to make a difference. But this lack of proof only makes them more stubborn in their faith. (…)

By contrast, there is another group called the Crawlers. These people believe that conditions will go on worsening until we demonstrate-in a utterly persuasive manner-how ashamed we are of how we lived in the past. their solution is to prostrate themselves on the ground and refuse to stand up until some sign is given to them that their penance has been deemed sufficient. what this sign is supposed to be is the subject of long theoretical debates. Some say a month of rain, others say a month of fair weather, and still others say they will not know until it is revealed to them in their hearts. There are two principal factions in this sect-the Dogs and the Snakes. The first contend that crawling on hands and knees shows adequate contrition, whereas the second hold that nothing short of moving on one’s belly is good enough. Bloody fights often break out between the two groups-each vying for control of the other-but neither faction has gained much of a following, and by now I believe the sect is on the verge of dying out. (…)

If you happen to get wet in the rain, you’re unlucky, and that’s all there is to it. If you happen to stay dry, then so much the better. But it has nothing to do with your attitudes or your beliefs. The rain make no distinctions. At one time or another, it falls on everyone, and when it falls, everyone is equal to everyone else- no one better, no one worse, everyone equal and the same.

Paul Auster, “In the Country of Last Things.”

The invention
Of weights and measures
Makes robbery easier.
Signing contracts, setting seals,
Makes robbery more sure.
Teaching love and duty
Provides a fitting language
With which to prove that robbery
Is really for the general good.
A poor man must swing
For stealing a belt buckle
But if a rich man steals a whole state
He is acclaimed
As statesman of the year.

Chuang Tzu.

A mature society is one that reserves its moral outrage for what really matters: poverty and preventable disease in the third world, arms sales, oppression, injustice. Bad language and sex might offend some, who certainly have a right to complain; but they do not have the right to censor. They do not have to watch or listen if they are offended: they have an ‘off’ button on their television sets and radios. After all, it is morally outrageous that moral outrage should be used as an excuse to perpetrate the outrage of censorship on others.

A. C. Grayling, “The Form of Things”.

MAPPING AMERICA

By the way, Justice: Fairness and the Big Society.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.

There one was a young person named Red Riding Hood who lived with her mother on the edge of a large wood. One day her mother asked her to take a basket of fresh fruit and mineral water to her grandmother’s house-not because this was womyn’s work, mind you, but because the deed was generous and helped engender a feeling of communitiy. Futhermore, her grandmother was not sick, but rather was in full physical and mental health and was fully capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.

So Red Riding Hood set off with her basket through the woods. Many people believed that the forest was a foreboding and dangerous place and never set foot in it. Red Riding Hood, however, was confident enough in her own budding sexuality that such obvious Freudian imagery did not intimadate her.

On the way to Grandma’s house, Red Riding Hood was accosed by a wolf, who asked her what was in her basket. She replied, “Some healthful snacks for my grandmother, who is certainly capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.”

The wolf said, “You know, my dear, it isn’t safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone.”

Red Riding Hood said, “I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be on my way.”

Red Riding Hood walked on along the main path. But, because his status outside society, had freed him from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style thought, the wolf knew a quicker route to Grandma’s house. He burst into the house and ate Grandma, an entirely valid course of action for a carnivore such as himself. Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist notions of what was masculine or feminine, he put on Grandma’s nightclothes and crawled into bed.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said, “Grandma, I have brought you some fat-free, sodium-free snacks to salute you in your role of a wise and nurturing matriarch.”

From the bed, the wolf said softly, “Come closer, child, so that I might see you.”

Red Riding Hood said, “Oh, I forgot you are as optically challenged as a bat. Grandma, what big eyes you have!”

“They have seen much, and forgiven much, my dear.”

“Grandma, what a big nose you have/only relatively, of course, and certainly attractive in its own way.”

“It has smelled much, and forgiven much, my dear.”

“Grandma, what big teeth you have!”

The wolf said, “I am happy with who I am and what I am,” and leaped out of bed. He grabbed Red Riding Hood in his claws, intent on devouring her. Red Riding Hood screamed, not out of alarm at the wolf’s apparent tendency toward cross-dressing, but because of his willful invasion of her personal space.

Her screams were heard by a passing woodchopper-person (or log-fuel technician, as he preferred to be called). When he burst into the cottage, he saw the melee and tried to intervene. But as he raised his ax, Red Riding Hood and the wolf both stopped.

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” asked Red Riding Hood.

The woodchopper-person blinked and tried to answer, but no words came to him.

“Bursting in here like a Neanderthal, trusting your weapon to do your thinking for you!” she exclaimed. “Sexist! Speciesists!How dare you assume that womyn and wolves can’t solve their own problems without a man’s help!”

When she heard Red Riding Hood’s impassioned speech, Grandma jumped out of the wolf’s mouth, seized the woodchopper-person’s ax, and cut his head off. After this ordeal, Red Riding Hood, Grandma, and the wolf felt a certain commonality of purpose. The decided to set up an alternative household based on mutual respect and cooperation, and they lived together in the woods happily ever after.

James Finn Garner, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.