When I went to school, X was the unknown to isolate. Back then we called it “despejar”, because what was a real school unknown was Catalan! The X of today is no longer that unknown that had to be found in the algebra equation. We are getting to know it quite well. Perhaps not everything about it is known, because the algorithms that guide it are complex and not easy to unravel. Just as the human soul is not! But we do know what they intend: that we get hooked on it, that we depend on it, that it irritates us and that we react to it. And to achieve all this, they make X trained to agree with us or to provoke a response if we dispute it. X's algorithms seem to set the polarized morality of our time.

One of the fields that has changed the most in recent decades is how the personal and collective sense of life is experienced. What we also call religiosity. Perhaps more so than politics. So much so that it now offers an extremely complex, not to say confusing, panorama. And wanting to approach it with opinion polls based on how the old schemes of belief and institutional ecclesiastical belonging have been only adds confusion to confusion. The question is no longer even whether one believes in God. The social phenomenon of belief and spirituality overflows all the models used until now.

The repeated public debates about who is Catalan, or what it means to be Catalan, have little to do with wanting to understand Catalan society. These are discussions that arise from political confrontations, in which each participant uses their definition to define themselves and distance themselves from the adversary. Therefore, nothing can be known about Catalans and their nation, and all the interest lies in how we are used to further the respective political projects. These are debates that occur intermittently in all nations, but here they are endemic.

I'm aware of how foolish it is to want to talk about artificial intelligence right during the week of Mobile World Congress, the year in which AI is the main focus of attention. And even more so if the point is to say that one of the best things it offers us right now is that it not only forces us to better define its scope and limits, but above all to consider what differentiates it from human intelligence. Or, to put it without so much self-promotion, what the true specificity of the human condition is. A few days ago, in SubtrackIgnasi Llorente argued, quite rightly, that AI needs more philosophers and fewer computer scientists. It's a good way to put it. Llorente wrote this in response to the news that Google is looking for philosophers to join its AI teams, and that it doesn't want them just to make things look good.

Do I agree with not giving mobile phones to children until they are 16? Generally speaking, yes, although biological age isn't necessarily the most important factor in assessing the negative impact of using these devices. Furthermore, social media has many other entry points. The policy of providing computers to all students makes access to inappropriate content widespread. And, above all, addictive practices extend to other screens available at home, such as tablets.

Writes Frédéric Taddeï, in MarianneThat Donald Trump has not ushered the world into the era of post-truth, but rather into the era of stark truth: "The US president champions brutality as both a method and a legacy. A stark truth that particularly disturbs those who still prefer to believe in diplomatic fables." I couldn't say if that's exactly the case, but what is certain is that Trump wields power obscenely, ruthlessly, without disguise, relying on the law of the strongest, because he is convinced that he is the most powerful man in the world.

The PSOE-ERC-PSC agreement for a supposed new financing model is a prime example of the current political reality in Catalonia. Or, to put it more accurately: of the current state of affairs. Firstly, because in our country, both from the mainstream media and from those who always prioritize stability—even above their own economic interests—the agreement has been presented as a fait accompli, when in reality it is nothing more than a highly improbable possibility. In other words, ERC and PSOE have counted their chickens before they hatched, counting on anyone who denounces them paying a high price.

We grew up with the idea of continuous progress, with the expectation that things are always moving forward and improving, even though there might be ups and downs, accelerations and setbacks. That's why what is currently disconcerting and anxiety-inducing is having to conclude that the world is generally and continuously regressing in practically every area. Even major technological advances are viewed with fear, if not as complicit in the rest of the material and moral setbacks.

I've been pondering for some time whether one of the main moral characteristics of our country isn't irreverence. I say this in general terms, but when the Christmas holidays arrive, everything I see confirms it. To be more precise: we are irreverent with tradition, with the past, and with everything that identifies us as a historical nation. And, at the same time, reverential with the new, with intellectual trends, and with everything that comes from abroad. It's a distinctive trait of the Catalan character. Or, at least, of the dominant thought, even if it remains relatively disconnected from what guides genuine individual lifestyles.

Sooner or later, it was to be expected: that citing the Bible as a source of authority could be considered a hate crime and even a crime against humanity. This is what has happened to Päivi Räsänen, a member of the Finnish Parliament for the Christian Democratic Party since 1995 and Minister of the Interior from 2011 to 2015. The case has been dragging on since 2019, and she has been tried twice, receiving an acquittal. But just last October 30, the matter reached the highest court, the Supreme Court, from which a verdict is now awaited.

The 50th anniversary of the dictator's death has brought to the forefront the memory of the most direct anti-Franco struggles, with their heroes and victims. So, the younger generations—those with short memories—may have been left with the impression that the majority of Catalan—and Spanish—society was anti-Franco. And that's not true. What was truly widespread was what was called "sociological Francoism." This is what allowed the dictator to continue killing, with five executions two months before he died in bed. It is what meekly tolerated the restoration of a historically corrupt monarchy, one that has been bowing down and genuflecting for fifty years. And it was also popular support that made possible what some still praise as exemplary: a Transition without a break from the previous regime, which has allowed for the veneration of prominent Francoists—Adolfo Suárez there, Juan Antonio Samaranch here—without anyone ever having to face justice.

"What characterizes today's youth is the collapse of ideals, disillusionment, and consequently, to a greater or lesser degree, skepticism." This phrase has come to mind now that the topic of [the youth movement] is being discussed again. loss of confidence in democracy among young CatalansBut the charm of the phrase is that it belongs to the philosopher José Luis López Aranguren, taken from the book European Youth and Other EssaysPublished... in 1961! A good phrase to begin putting into perspective the alarm about today's youth supposedly turning to the far right.

I rated it as "game of impotence"(NOW, July 17, 2025) the agreement between ERC and the PSC for the investiture of Salvador Illa. I said this in light of the five pages presented by the Bilateral Commission between the government of the Generalitat and the general administration of the State that sought to develop - in fact, diluted - the four pages of the initial agreement." issues that the PSC could not decide and the fact that ERC had no better alternative - for the party - than to let the PSC govern. Two impotences were added with an agreement with a more than improbable result: Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE, and for which Junts also had no alternative to agree with anyone else. Only Sánchez's government has not had the full implementation of the amnesty in its hands—apart from 150 activists, and particularly the exiled Comín, Puig, and Puigdemont—but it has not succeeded in making Catalan an official language in Europe, nor in transferring full powers over immigration to Catalonia, or in making progress on such significant issues as making public the fiscal balances or budget execution figures, which did depend on it. And on the underlying issue, the Swiss roundtable as an intermediary for the resolution of the political conflict—economic agreement and referendum, among others—has been reduced to President Isla, Sánch's right-hand man.

One of the things that most upsets me is that social demands systematically ignore the framework of fiscal predation in which our country lives. Perhaps there is no need to go into the history of this abuse, which Ramon Trias Fargas and his team have done with sufficient detail and rigor. Narration of a premeditated asphyxiation, A work whose first edition will be forty years old this year. We're content with the figures that the administration itself accepts as true: the famous 22 billion euros that we Catalans in the Principality pay each year in taxes and that never come back.

When I appealed last week to a new intelligence—I could also have said a new imaginary—to refer to the migration processes our country is experiencing, what I meant was that we must know how to speak about social reality appropriately. That there are old concepts that don't fit the new realities. That concepts should be adapted to reality, not the other way around. That we must think in a way that brings us as close as possible to the facts—and, if possible, to the truth—especially those that are most conflicting and disturbing to us. That we must avoid masking or mystifying reality, whether it's done intentionally to make it more obvious or in bad faith to alarm us and take advantage of it.

The country's internal political debate has decidedly focused on the immigration issue. Calling it a "debate" is perhaps too delicate a way of describing it, because the terms of the discussion range from exhausting and paralyzing low-key bickering to broad insults that exasperate and make one lose control. A dialectic that leaves relatively little room for thoughtful and reasonable dialogue. Immigration, which for some is the mother of all evils and for others the path to redemption from all our misfortunes, polarizes public conversation and seems to determine future parliamentary political representation above all other axes of confrontation.

It's surprising how easily, especially in the world of culture, works of all kinds are presented that claim to be groundbreaking, that seek to eliminate prejudices and break down stereotypes, or that boast of expressing themselves "without filters." It's a pretension that's somewhere between naive, very naive, and arrogant, ridiculously arrogant. Two unforgivable vices in culture because naiveté demonstrates ignorance, and arrogance masks a lack of lucidity that leads to self-deception or, worse, the desire to deceive others.

With the same headline, What do the French really talk about?, earlier this year the magazine Marianne published a dossier. The assumption was that there is a great distance between the facts reported in newspapers and the facts discussed at the bar. The weekly compared the front-page headlines of six major French newspapers with the conversations discreetly overheard by thirteen journalists located in thirteen bars across the thirteen French metropolitan regions. This is not a scientific pretense, but following Honoré de Balzac's assumption that the bar of a café is the Parliament of the people.

Without having to go to the extreme of agreeing with what Tony Blair maintained to define the pragmatism of his third way, when he said that "what matters is what works", it is true that in politics they what need one as for being credible. So when the as fail, the what are faltering. And I think this is where the independence movement in Catalonia has settled. that may be more alive than ever and probably those who would like independence have not regressed as significantly as it may seem at first glance... or at the first poll result. But as long as there is no as convincing, a plausible electoral translation of the political project, the that will reasonably remain in a secondary position, awaiting this one as.

What should happen with immigration, especially when there are rapid processes of "population growth and renewal" and the change –quite rightly– perceived as "dazzling", as What did Dr. Andreu Domingo say in this newspaper last Sunday? It should beintegrate by assimilate it to the host society? Should it bewelcome he newcomer In a gesture of generous benevolence? Policies need to be made inclusive that respect, and even protect, cultural particularities?