All dishes end up breaking
Duralex endures. Just like its products. The brand does not break. Even though in the last two decades it has been in insolvency proceedings five times and now, that it was in danger again, it has been saved once more from closure to begin a new stage. Duralex advertised itself as tableware “practically unbreakable” and it was. It did not deceive. They devised an innovative technique that consisted of heating the glass a lot and then cooling it down rapidly. Thus, they made it much more resistant. And if many homes still have vestiges of Duralex, it is because, effectively, it has withstood many onslaughts and endured them. But does it make sense to cling to a brand that was very useful in the 60s and 70s, when it was alone in its field? Objectively, nowadays there is a wide and better offer than the traditional Duralex. What do we want, then, from nostalgia? And what nostalgia is salvageable?
The political left has never been unbreakable and has been in insolvency proceedings for some time. It clings to a nostalgia, to an aesthetic and to paradigms that made sense in other contexts but have not been updated, in a landscape that demands new approaches. And leaderships. The left has broken many times and makes evident the pieces that have remained. That is why it is forced to pretend a union, however much the context may demand it. Which I also don't know if it does. When it is very hard for someone to decide if they want to be with the other, the best thing is for them to go their separate ways. Or to glue the pieces as they do in Japan, with the kintsugi technique, which consists of repairing ceramics with gold dust to make the cracks visible and not hide the imperfection of a broken piece.
The right does not break because it is monolithic. And out of ignorance. And out of cynicism. The right does not disappoint because there are no expectations of change upon it. A total lack of creativity is assumed of it. It does not need it. If everything is already invented, why rack one's brain? The right also draws on nostalgia but because it is lazy and because it wants to go backwards literally. Its homages to the past always have to do with very dark tunnels that, to want to enter them again, one must have a notable sense of perversion. But not all the right is the same right nor is all the left the same left, and perhaps the problem is that this system is surviving more than Duralex and, finally, nobody knows exactly what the citizenry wants because not even the citizenry knows what it wants.
Groups are hard to group. And the most normal thing is not to agree. Like when you go out for dinner and we are still deciding whether we have tapas or each of us orders a main course. From Duralex, naturally. Because Duralex did not deceive us. And when it broke, you knew, because they had told you, that it was not infallible. You didn't end up with a Zapatero acting like a jeweler or a Correos executive allergic to stamps. Duralex served its purpose. But perhaps now is no longer its time. Sometimes it is better for the whole set of dishes to break to set a table that is more pleasing. And from nostalgia, one must make its cracks evident. Because for the moment, we are only destroying what was beautiful. The horrible, on the other hand, remains.
