VAP intends to count the world, touch it, teach it and of course discuss it and understand it. Our literary criticism of travel or international policy books, 6 Paragraphs, makes us work with many texts that seem remarkable to analyze. Selecting significant pieces of those works, There are still many of those criticism for publishing, A curious idea emerged: Many of the problems that seem very current to us come from very far. Without understanding the past it is impossible to analyze the present and glimpse the future.
All selected phrases are previous, Some much, To this 21st century. And, however, They could have written today or explain a lot about what happens today. We advise reading them carefully because they offer clues to understand so many things that now have the planet in suspense. Pulling that thread, perhaps the arrival of the Trump phenomenon is better understood, of nationalisms and populisms, of the decline in the West, of the debate on the concept of freedom, of the media discredit, of the triumph of the networks ... Lean. Look at the dates they were written. Surprise.
About the crisis of democracy. "Naples, 1944», the Norman Lewi. (Talk about world postwar italy. 1944-45. The work is published in 1978).
A year ago we freed them from the "fascist monster" and are still sitting in the ruins of their beautiful city, where the law and order have ceased to exist, striving to kindly smile, as hungry as ever and more overwhelmed by diseases that never. And what will be the award that will be achieved in the end? The Renaissance of Democracy. The wonderful perspective of being able to choose their rulers one day among a list of powerful men, whose corruption are almost all of the public domain and are accepted with tired resignation. The times of Benito Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared to that.
In Italy it fell apart in 1992 The I Republic after years of very serious corruption. Did not improve with what came after (Berlusconi, Democratic Party…). In the last two elections in the country, two "anti system" parties were surprisingly defeated. First the populist movement 5 Stars and, recently, El Ultra Conservation Fratelli d’Italia.
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On the lack of credibility of the media. «Travel with Charley», John Steinbeck. (A trip throughout the United States to beginnings of the decade of the 60).
With so many surveys and polls, With newspapers that bring more opinions than news in such a way that we no longer distinguish one of the other.
The company Gallup published in 2024 a survey that figure in just one 31% To Americans who have confidence in their media. In 1976, This same study said that a 72% I trusted them. And 2016, New York Donald Trump first arrived at the presidency and made his phrase "fake news" famous.
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About the value of freedom. «Winter notes on summer impressions», by Fiódor Dostoitivski. (Posted in 1863. It tells a trip through Europe).
What is the freedom? Freedom. What freedom? The identical freedom for everyone to do everything that is wanted within the limits of the law. When can everything you want? When you have a million. Does each million give freedom? Not. What is a man without a million? A man without a million is not the one who does everything he wants, but that with whom they do everything they want.
Freedom begins to be a concept that Young people value less. The generalized discredit of the political system and the belief in which there are some elites, «casta» o «establishment», that abuse the majority support for authoritarian regimes.
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On the Internet, tv, networks. «Glimpses of India», of Octavio Paz. (Book about his experience in India as an ambassador to 1962 and 1968 , more trips before and after that period. The book ends in 1994).
The defeat of Nazism and that of totalitarian communism have left intact and exposed all the evils of liberal democratic societies, dominated by the demon of profit. Marx's famous phrase about religion as the opium of the people, It can be applied now, with more reason to television, that will end up anesthetizing the human race, plunged into an idiotic beatitude, The future has ceased to be a radiant promise and has become a gloomy interrogation.
A study of the third quarter of 2023 figure in 6 hours 40 minutes The time that people spend up to date in front of a computer or seeing and interacting on social networks.
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About urban poverty bags. "The city of God", De Paul Paolo Pasolini. (Texts, Interviews and stories of the filmmaker about the Rome of the 50, 60 and 70).
They are the eyes of those who "believe" that suburbs are not a problem that concerns them: They don't even consider it a current problem. And they are so convinced of that strange and inactual condition of the sub -projective and underdeveloped "quality of life" that, precisely why, They don't see her, Not even even if they have her in front of the eyes.
The enormous demographic growth of the 21st century is creating megalopolis. Each city begins to divide in many cities that barely communicate. It is there, In those poverty bags, where Extremistic ideas germinate that, at least, They offer alternatives, Even if they are simple and little elaborate, to the so -called traditional policy that voters feel that they have failed.
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On the western vision of the rest of the world. "From the ruin of empires", de pankaj mishra. (The vision that from Asia was of European colonialism. The next phrase, the Beginning of the 20th century, It is from the Japanese philosopher Okakura Kakuzo).
Asians often overwhelm the curious network of facts and fantasy that has been woven over us. We are portrayed as the people who feed on the Loto perfume, When not mice and cockroaches (…) Indian spirituality has been mocked and equated with ignorance; Chinese sobriety to stupidity and Japanese patriotism looks like a consequence of fatalism. It has been said that we are less sensitive to pain and wounds due to the insensitivity of our nervous organization.
There is a current very strong feeling, especially in Africa and Asia, What the West controlled and manipulated the story According to your ideas and interests. That has generated a suspicion, Sometimes until almost a revenge desire with racist dyes, that is marking the diplomatic relations of the 21st century. An extended story today in the global south is to qualify everything Western as a hypocritical and harmful.
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About decay in the United States. «Travel with Charley», John Steinbeck. (Book that speaks of the United States to beginnings of the decade of the 60).
Of course I had read about the demographic explosion of the West Cost, But most people say west coast refers to California. Swarms of people, populations that double and triple, While tax officials complain about the growing weight of improvements and the need to take care of a new batch of homeless
Many analysts explain the Trump phenomenon under the prism of the tiredness of some US middle classes, especially white, tired of its economic decline. However, read chronicles after the end of World War II, like this Steinbeck, or those that appear on the "on the way" by Jack Kerouac, where a portrait is already offered from the success of the "American Way of Life" told in Hollywood. The poverty and destitution It is a serious problem of world superpower for decades.
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About prostitution. "Christianity in China", De Matteo Ricci. (The autobiography of the first Jesuit missionary in China. Ends of the 16th century and the beginning of the seventeenth).
The Kingdom is full of merettrices: Only in the city of Beijing there are close to 40.000 and, While some do it by personal will, Most of them are very young girls bought by men who force them to do that job.
The legalization or not of prostitution is a debate Very current. Those who advocate legalizing affect the freedom to use your body, While those who advocate prohibiting talking about the chic@as obliged to exercise the trade.
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On the globalization and use of natural resources. "My trip to Africa", de Winston Churchill. (A trip through the British colonies of Kenya and Uganda in 1907).
From this vast territory materials will be extracted for much of our most relevant industries; As a counterpart a continuous and growing traffic of British products will flow towards these colonies that, turn, They will constitute a healthy and honest land where the peculiar administrative skills and high civic virtues of our race.
The project of the China Silk Route has raised and lifts a huge controversy. Beijing is accused of neo-colonialism by offering developing countries and building infrastructure in exchange for taking the country's natural resources and filling their shelves with "Made in China" products.
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About immigration stigma. "On the way", de Jack Kerouac. "It tells various trips through the United States and Mexico to ends of the decade of the 40 and the beginning of the 50.
Look at all those stories that we have read about Mexico and the Mexican sleepy, When people are honored here, gentle, It does not bother.
In the electoral campaign of 2016, Trump said Mexicans who emigrated to the United States drugs, crime and violations. Ago 70 years there was already an stigma in the US over its southern neighbors, Kerouac points out.
