The Trumpist Cultural Revolution
At one time, knowing things, learning, respecting scientific thought, and trying to understand the world was well regarded in our society. Culture was connected to status and opportunity, and sending children to college was the goal of many workers to help them climb the social ladder. In humble homes, books were devoured, even those given away by the local savings bank or the Círculo de Lectores, or they were purchased and respected. The same applies in the United States. In the self-proclaimed land of opportunity and self-made people, no great fortune was left without a plaque for a million-dollar contribution to a museum, a concert hall, or a prestigious university. Today, the climate is not the same, especially in the United States, where resentment against elites has been fostered, personified by a type of leftist movement that has become a caricature, equating the part with the whole. A leftist movement that is sarcastically considered woke because it defends identity and social justice policies beyond race, such as gender and identities perceived as marginalized. Linked to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, today it is woke It is a pejorative term for the ideological stupefaction of many progressive parties, including European ones.
The Trumpist cultural revolution, which affects us as part of a global reactionary wave, is a primal attitude that today combines the frustrations of many people unable to assimilate economic changes and technological and social advances. In short, to digest transformations that are moving much faster than our capacity to understand them and anticipate where they are taking us.
The use of the excuse of anti-Semitic activities and the "abuse" of affirmative action policies for minorities to persecute major American universities is extremely serious. Due to the very fact and the consequences not only for the faint-hearted, but for all those cultural institutions that cannot survive without the support of public funds that until now have protected intellectual work or academic freedom.
In Praise of Ignorance
In fact, the Trumpist reaction connects with the classic "Death to the intellectuals!" and "Long live death" slogans of the idiot Millán-Astray and his ilk, and has remarkable precedents with the Holy Inquisition, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the ineffable Pol Pot. Not to mention the persecution of dissident intellectuals of Nazism and fascism. They all have in common a distrust of critical thought, contempt for science, women, and minorities, and a cult of personality of a presumptuous leader.
In the Chinese case, Mao's "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (1966-1976) attempted to preserve Chinese communism by purging bourgeois and traditional elements from society and "revisionists" from the Communist Party. Professors, teachers, writers, scientists, technicians, and other members of the cultural elite were subjected to systematic persecution. Universities and schools were paralyzed and purged by the cry of counterrevolutionaries. Insults and persecution led to mass murders and endless sessions of reading Mao quotes or forced agricultural manual labor with deportations to remote regions.
In Cambodia, books were also banned, newspapers were shut down, and academic associations were dissolved. Possession of books, notebooks, family photographs, eyeglasses, typewriters, or other cultural objects was considered a cultural or intellectual sign that could mean death. The Khmer Rouge promoted forced illiteracy to re-educate the population. In both China and Cambodia, having fine hands (no trace of manual labor), good manners, or speaking languages could lead to death.
Mentioning Mao or Pol Pot is distant, exaggerated, and sounds like a parody, but the persecution of dissent, the economic strangulation of universities, the detention of students and professors, the deportation of citizens without legal protection, the closure of state agencies dedicated to protecting the less fortunate, and presumptuous and narcissistic leadership are now a reality in the most powerful country on the planet. Trump is eating away at America's main institutions, and we cannot underestimate the effects of fear. For now, the protection of democracy and its institutions is only in the hands of a few large universities, a few Democratic figures, the judiciary as a whole, and the Supreme Court, which has temporarily blocked the expulsions under an old wartime law. It is also in the hands of the markets, which do not want to mess around with the economy. Until citizens who believe that democratic decline is not their problem are affected by the ruin of their pensions and the closure of consumer protection agencies, ministries, and universities, we won't know if American democracy will survive Trump.
