When I read that a Tomahawk missile had killed 168 people at a girls' school in Iran, I subconsciously attributed it to some error in the artificial intelligence that is increasingly used to designate military targets. Perhaps I thought this because, with the assassinations and captures we've seen in the last year, from Maduro to Khomeini, many analysts speculate that the success and surgical precision of these forceful operations must be related to new developments in AI: historically, the leaders of these entrenched regimes managed to slip away. But, whether this is ultimately proven or not, what has unnerved me is noticing how a psychological automatism downplays the severity of the war. Even more so: however much it all started with Ukraine, I believe it is in this conflict with Iran that the word drone It has become firmly established in our vocabulary as a strange, normalizing "tel." Technology is adding another layer between us and the violence of war, obscuring the political content of warfare in favor of the elites.

Michel Foucault proposes a very apt dichotomy to define our ambivalent relationship with what we have called "the welfare state." While the pre-modern state "kills and lets live," the contemporary state "makes live and lets die." I also recall another one that always makes me think: "Health has replaced salvation." These are memorable summaries that show us that the Leviathan is no longer an impersonal and distant force that merely punishes those who break the law, but has become a solicitous agent whose main function is to watch over the population, and which incorporates a function that was formerly the monopoly of the Church: caring for souls. All this may seem quite abstract, but it becomes concrete if we think about the conflicting feelings that almost everyone has experienced as a result of the country's lockdown due to the storm and the proliferation of mobile phone alerts. What should we do about the irritation we feel toward the state's excessive care?

A windy day with an odd clarity after so much rain; perfect temperature for demonstrating. I head down towards Urquinaona in the morning march and, after so many years, I know that the lack of a throng means I won't find the typical crowds of the Catalan National Day. The atmosphere is easier to define by what it isn't than by what it is. The pressure to feign smiles from the years of the Catalan independence movement has disappeared, but neither is the fratricidal resentment that permeated the darkest moments after the collapse of the Catalan independence movement. Likewise, there's nothing resembling the effervescent rage of the angry Catalans of 2007, who will need an element of novelty and surprise incompatible with the eternal recurrence of the commuter rail robbery.

In less than 24 hours, Santiago Abascal seized upon the Córdoba train accident to declare that "nothing works under corruption and lies," and Silvia Orriols latched onto Salvador Illa's infection to chirp that "a president's life is worth no more than that of a police officer, a mechanic, or a florist..." I would say that if these two statements catch our attention, it's not so much because their content has shocked us more than usual from these two figures, but because they reflect the confidence of the new right that the cultural winds are in their favor—the rhetorical excess that betrays those who have taken the polls at face value and are going overboard. It's impossible to know for sure whether these pronouncements will ultimately add to or detract from their support, but it has become abundantly clear that the aura of authenticity surrounding right-wing leaders is just as much of a pose as that of the rivals they criticize so vehemently, and in reality, they all follow the same playbook.

The far-right's victory on social media is so overwhelming that an overly defeatist narrative about the internet is taking hold. In the United States, people have been asking for years why a left-wing Joe Rogan doesn't emerge, and our equivalent would be asking the same question about Jordi Wild. These are two extremely popular podcast hosts among teenagers, featuring long conversations with diverse guests and blending entertainment, curiosity, and politics, always with a strong bias in favor of the new right's arguments. Rogan's numbers in particular, and the male-dominated online sphere in general, are so large compared to progressive alternatives that a significant portion of the American left has blamed this digital world for Donald Trump's reelection, just as here, every time Vox gains ground in the polls, we see editorials blaming Elon Musk's algorithms. This past week, these talking points resurfaced following... the Army Awards gala presented by Santiago SeguraThese anti-awards ironically recognize internet personalities and the most viral moments of the year, and have sparked controversy because several nominees left the event denouncing the unbearably fascist atmosphere.

Something has long felt off in the heart of the Eixample's golden square, where it's impossible to shake the feeling of artificiality. We've been pointing out the problems with the tourism model for so many years now, the exados And the de-Catalanization, which seemed like simply repeating the same old thing would eventually lead to something happening. But, naturally, what's happening is that nothing is happening, and what's already wrong can always reach even higher levels of misery. But the irony is that we no longer lament the destruction caused by unfettered capitalism, but rather that this destruction isn't even the famous... creative destruction. Strolling through the center of Barcelona in the midst of the Christmas rush, we experience a shift in nostalgia: from yearning for the anti-capitalist virtues of traditional Christmas, we have moved to a world where we simply yearn for a Christmas in which capitalism works.

A rainy afternoon, more London than Barcelona, and that's perfectly fine: I've always found something English about the ARA newspaper that makes me imagine newsroom crises like in the movies, with section heads wielding words like "facts" and "sources," trying to combat the tension with phlegm and irony until, when their strength wanes, the true value of journalism returns and everyone gets down to work. And there's also something distinctly English in the humor of Toni Soler, who will be chatting with the editor this afternoon, a sort of Protestant afternoon, thanks to one of the many events with which ARA is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary. They both take to the stage, and it's like holding the Sunday paper open at both ends, the editorial in one hand and the back page in the other.

Killing the father figure is important for life in general, but for politics it is absolutely necessary. Politics is a collective discussion about the nature of good and what we must do to achieve it, and change begins when the feeling spreads that the old vision that explained it to us is running out and a new one is needed. Any political renewal is always a "transvaluation of values," as Nietzsche said; someone who points out that the emperor has no clothes, that what everyone says is no longer tenable, and that where no one is looking is precisely where we should focus our attention. The charismatic leader acts like the modern artist, who denounces the fossilization of the old canon and proposes a new form that challenges it from top to bottom—a scandal. In the feverish moment of cultural revelation, the break with the past anoints the breaker with an aura of irresistible novelty, and then the marginal takes center stage and begins to rise like foam.

There's a certain sense of a return to cruelty in the air. I'm not talking about a widespread collective psychological shift, although that could be the long-term consequence, but rather that cruelty is being politically sanctioned. Many common threads can be found among the leaders of the new right, but perhaps one of the most palpable is that they all speak and act in a way that clearly gives us permission to be cruel. Cruel to the losers of capitalism, who deserve it for being lazy, and cruel to other races and cultures, because they have a way of being that is bad and irreconcilable with our own. Now that most political thinkers say we are entering a post-liberal era, it seems pertinent to remember that a preoccupation with cruelty is perhaps the most distinctive feature of liberalism.

In this week's article Ferran Sáez was taking advantage of Rosalía's new album to warn us against the temptation to interpret the popularity of a certain type of spirituality as if it were "the drift of a search for meaning in an ultra-fragmented world." The mysticism with which the singer from Sant Esteve Sesrovires works in her new project is what Sáez would call a "postmodern spirituality," which, due to its imbrication with market logic, would be directly incompatible with the transformation of consciousness that the album itself invokes. I agree with the diagnosis, but I would like to take advantage of it to talk about the world toward which this artistic endeavor is directed, because we can be sure that the great pop divas are very attentive readers of the times in which they live, and that Rosalía wants to make art and business out of a certain return to spirituality means that this certain return has not been properly shaped and capitalized upon.

The attempt to defame Brigitte Macron by accusing her of belonging to the opposite sex from the one she professes contains an important political lesson. The case is so striking and bizarre that it has been used as an example of gratuitous malice and a lack of scruples when it comes to lying. This is a relevant interpretation, but I believe that if we want to learn anything from this episode, we need to look at a political program. underlying issues that go beyond the anecdote.

Not only is there a fever for Ozempic, but the drug's patent will soon expire and much more affordable generic versions will be arriving. This is more than good news for diabetics or those who take it to lose weight: according to many studies, GLP-1 receptor agonists, which is the technical name for the thing, reduce alcohol, cocaine, and tobacco consumption among addicts, prevent heart attacks, are associated with a lower risk of several types of arthritis, and may even slow memory loss associated with Alzheimer's. Although enthusiasm and economic interests should make us wary, there are indications that we are talking about a miracle drug.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger produced a very fruitful distinction between fear and anxiety that is still fully relevant. Fear always has a concrete object that threatens the realization of our projects (and here "projects" can simply mean staying alive); on the other hand, anxiety has no concrete object, because it is precisely the impossibility of becoming emotionally involved in any project, the unease that manifests when we realize there is no ultimate foundation behind anything and we are alone before the precipice of free choice. What is more characteristic of the internet: fear or anxiety?

Pantone is the American company that created the color system used by virtually all graphic designers around the world: any color you see on a screen can be traced to a number-name combination, with varying grace, from its archive of colors. Furthermore, for twenty-six years, a group of company experts has chosen the Color of the Year, "a color snapshot of what we see happening in our culture that serves as an expression of mood and attitude." The 2025 color was Mocha Mousse, a "soft and evocative brown" that "continues the trend toward the expansion of neutral, genderless, and practical tones." Perhaps there's nothing we associate more with individual subjectivity than color choice, but the people at Pantone try to convince us of another equally powerful intuition we all carry within us: that collective psychology exists and, pardon the metaphor, colors our experience of the world. If they are right, we find ourselves in a time as opaque and neutral as coffee, pasty, conservative and self-indulgent as a chocolate dessert.

Before I begin writing this chronicle, I'll plaster over all the analogies I've been pointing out throughout the day between the rain and the mood of the independence movement. Let it be known that so much rain has fallen and I've spent so much time sheltered under stalls of self-centered artisan cheeses and initiatives. I've had to face this Diada without an umbrella because, like so many others with whom I'll exchange angry, empathetic glances, I belong to a group of idiots who prefer to trust their cell phone screens rather than their eyes.

Our great historian Josep Fontana liked to quote a phrase from the German satirist Karl Kraus: "May God preserve communism for us forever, so that the capitalist rabble does not become more shameless and so that, at least, they have nightmares when they go to sleep." Fontana used it to shock consciences and point out a counterintuitive historical pattern: as the economist Thomas Piketty demonstrated in his analysis of capital in the 20th century, if we look at the economic evolution of the world after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we see that inequalities reached an all-time low in the 1970s. Well, this week, as we saw the photograph of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Narendra Modi, I can't help but wonder what Fontana would say about this new Cold War in which capitalism must not lose a single minute of sleep because of any ideological enemy.

The heat is exploding, and with it, one of the most pathetic phenomena of contemporary summer: criticizing those who criticize tourism during the year when their vacation time arrives and they are, in fact, actually doing tourism. It's such a blatant spectacle that it's hard to watch it without blushing: profiles circulating on social media photos of other individuals peacefully relaxing on the beach, supposedly grown-ups turned into spies. Naturally, this spectacle only betrays the concern of certain systemic forces regarding the possibility that a genuine awareness is taking place. After decades of enjoying unquestioned cultural prestige, a correct analysis has begun to spread of the ravages that a tourism model based on the importation of cheap labor has brought to our lives, from low productivity that becomes a covert subsidy for entrepreneurs to the plundering of scarce resources and the political potential of the city, breaking ties between neighbors. The criticism of tourism is so fair and accurate that it's spreading like an oil slick.

Now that we have objective data on the poor health of Catalan and its sustained decline over time, we can avoid denialism and raise the bar and, for the same price, become justifiably combative. The good thing about this misfortune is that it allows us to dismantle what until now had been the star argument of the Spanish-speaking community in Catalonia: self-regulation. As sociolinguists have always known, languages do not spontaneously balance themselves, but rather compete like starving animal species for the scarce resources of the same biotope. This is sometimes difficult to see, because linguistic plurality is presented to us as a luminous natural wealth, but, as always happens with the romanticization of nature, once we study it, we see that the reality of the pre-political world is brutal and ruthless competition. Without regulatory mechanisms and coercive power, the law of the jungle prevails, and the largest language inexorably overwhelms the smallest. Now that we have data to prove it, every time someone talks about linguistic self-regulation, we must discredit them quickly and ruthlessly.

In recent months, something has changed in the way we read without us even realizing it. And I say "read" and not "search for information on the internet" because I don't know a single writer or artist, even those in their seventies surrounded by a venerably analog aura, who doesn't log on to the internet every day to see how the world is doing. And it turns out the world is increasingly empty of people and more filled with stochastic parrots. "Stochastic parrot" is the nickname we use to try to diminish the authority and propaganda that dominates the great language models of artificial intelligence like ChatGPT: "parrot" because they regurgitate the work of others and are only capable of repeating what someone has already said; "stochastic" because the mechanism that makes these models guilty of what these things are is not a process of logical reasoning, but one of chance artificially introduced into the choice of words. But, although this robotic parrotism is perfectly familiar to us and we instinctively despise it, we use it. For a few months now, newspaper traffic has been plummeting because we're asking ChatGPT for things we used to ask publications written by human writers. There's a bubble of inhuman readings that we should burst.

Comparing the art of Sijena with that of Taüll helps us understand what a nation is. In both situations, mural paintings that adorned the walls of Pyrenean churches at the beginning of the 20th century were removed using the technique ofstrappo and taken to a museum for safekeeping. Unlike the treasures of the British Museum or the Louvre, which come from former plundered colonies, everything here would have been lost were it not for the Catalan institutions. But now Aragon is demanding the paintings be returned despite the risk of irreparable damage, while the inhabitants of the Taüll Valley are perfectly content with the interplay established between the replicas they have in their churches and the exhibition in the Romanesque galleries of the MNAC (where, incidentally, they have free admission). Why is no one from Taüll asking for the return of the originals?