The more protected, the more vulnerable

The latest ES-Alert from Civil Protection sent due to the forecast of heavy rains in five regions caused some controversy because, in the end, only a few drops fell. The criticisms focused on the forecast error because the water ended up falling into the sea. And above all, the excesses in the restrictions imposed on the population were discussed, such as the suspension of classes in schools and universities or a large part of hospital activity.

A week later, however, I think it is pertinent to look up and look a little beyond the fiasco of the weather forecast and the precautions that were—only in the end—excessive. In fact, a forecast is just that: an assumption about an uncertain phenomenon. And the limitations on ordinary activity imposed by Civil Protection must be understood as the result of an administration chastened by previous experiences and under great pressure from a public opinion that increasingly tolerates fewer unforeseen events and demands to be protected to extremes that end up, as we shall see, in greater risks.

What can be said, then, about last week's ES-Alert warning, which turned into a damp squib? Firstly, that if alert warnings are repeated too often, they will cease to be effective. We could talk about the “crying wolf” effect. If, due to an excess of caution, the ES-Alerts respond to little or nothing, it could be that when it really matters, no one will pay attention to them. In a mature and well-informed society, alerts about the risk level from 1 to 6, the Procicat, Infocat, Inuncat, Neucat, Ventcat... should be enough. The ES-Alert should be used as sparingly as possible to prevent that very irritating sound that reaches our mobile phones from becoming annoying or, worse, trivialized.

But this has a more relevant derivative: it highlights a society that is increasingly less tolerant of uncertainty. The search for security is more than reasonable, yes, but we must see what we consider to depend on our own responsibility or what we expect to be guaranteed to us from the outside. This is a question that deeply affects the way of understanding social life and ourselves. Should street safety rely only on police action and video surveillance, or is it appropriate for us to act with caution? Is the education of children only the responsibility of the educational system, or do the students and parents themselves have something to do with it? Should our nutritional health be guaranteed by health regulations, or should it rely on well-informed personal criteria? Does the public space being tidy only depend on cleaning services, or on whether we make good use of the bins and, if necessary, sweep in front of our homes? And whose responsibility is it that electric scooters circulate where it is mandatory in order to avoid accidents? A careful analysis of the degree of individual irresponsibility would not only tell us who we are—and what we have become—but, instead of just obsessively appealing to the rights that must be guaranteed to us, it would help to place the accent on the duties to which we must apply ourselves.

Finally, the progressive individual irresponsibility means that every day we let the state and its bureaucratic and ideological machinery into our homes and deep into our bowels. In a previous article I already said that it seemed strange to me that in the educational malaise the responsibility of families was ignored, for example. And, beyond budgetary constraints and the corresponding collapse, the abuse of emergency health services is well known. And isn't the burden on the streets of mandatory signs and warnings in order to, they say, “pacify them” exaggerated?

Increasingly, the administration launches very costly campaigns—of unmeasured efficacy—acting as a tutor for both our behaviors and often our thoughts and emotions. It explains to us, as if we were children, what an emergency kit should contain in case we are left in the dark. Or it causes us anxiety about the traffic accidents of others... If anyone believes that this overprotection that we demand and that the state provides us is harmless, they are very much mistaken. First, because as we become dependent on the state administration, we lose personal autonomy. Second, because paradoxically, the more we depend on the state's protection, the more vulnerable we feel, in a spiral of dissatisfaction that has no end. And finally, because this hypothetical overprotection makes us permanently complaining and ends up diluting a true civic commitment.