Europe suffers from a technological lag. This seems indisputable. But when did it miss the boat? In reality, not so long ago. In the mid-20th century, it was still at the forefront, and in certain sectors, it maintained advantageous positions almost until the dawn of the 21st century. Then it collapsed.

The war on drugs was declared by then-US President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971. The rest of the world quickly joined in. 55 years have passed, tens of thousands of people have died, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent. And illegal drugs are now more accessible, cheaper, and more widely consumed than in 1971.

There are several ways to get rich. In Spain, one is to achieve power. That's all. Apparently, when you are in charge, the money comes by itself.

Ideologies of Marxist or anarchist tradition, that is, what we used to call “the left”, tend to consider the legal frameworks of the bourgeois state and its diplomatic tentacles as more or less oppressive instruments. Friedrich Nietzsche, on the other hand, asserted something very different: the law, according to him, is nothing more than an invention of the weak to subjugate the strong.

The James Bond of the early novels bore no resemblance to the James Bond of the films. According to his creator, Ian Fleming, he was "a boring man" with "a boring name." That is, a typical spy. The cinematic Bond has much in common with Everette Howard Hunt, a real but atypical spy: exhibitionist, romantically in love with his profession, and quite clumsy. Hunt is today a legend who receives veiled tributes in cinema and television.

Fascism is a sentimental issue. It arises, above all, from certain masculine sentiments. Economic, social, and cultural causes can be sought, but it is fundamentally the collective expression of a series of personal frustrations.

Are we becoming more servile to power every day? The signs point to yes. Apathy is gaining ground, especially among the youngest. We are witnessing atrocious massacres like the one in Gaza, wars of caprice like the one in Iran, imperialist aggressions like Russia's against Ukraine. The government of the world's leading power, the United States, is in the hands of delirious madmen. Yet we protest less than twenty years ago. And much less than fifty years ago.

We already have a fairly clear diagnosis of Donald Trump. The question now –assuming Trump does not manage to become a lifelong dictator– is: what comes next? The American empire is losing credibility in the world. And, internally, it shows growing difficulties in coexisting with itself.

The Sophists have a bad reputation. Those itinerant teachers were skeptics and relativists, they charged for their lessons and sought to persuade, through one argument or the other, instead of seeking absolute truth, in which they did not believe. Plato and Aristotle despised them.

The wars in the Middle East never end: they morph into new conflicts. Every time the United States, Israel, or any Arab country launches a military campaign, instigates a coup, or finances a guerrilla movement supposedly aligned with its interests, it plants the seeds of a future crisis.

Human societies have always questioned the nature of power and its effect on those who wield it. Right now, many are wondering why Donald Trump, however idiotic he may be—and we know he is—has embarked on the adventure of a disastrous war. There are countless partial explanations: pressure from Israel, family business interests… But, as always, it is illuminating to read the classics. In this case, Suetonius and his De vita Caesarum: Lives of the Twelve CaesarsGaius Suetonius Tranquillus (69-126) was head of libraries and archives under Emperor Trajan and personal secretary to his successor, Emperor Hadrian. This gave him access to all private and public documents in Rome. Lives of the Twelve CaesarsFrom Julius Caesar to Domitian, this is a hilarious and seemingly frivolous book, given the profusion of anecdotes and the meticulous detail with which it describes the sexual habits of its protagonists. In fact, well into the 20th century, most translations omitted or masked certain passages. For example, Tiberius's "little fish." These weren't "little fish," but rather children who had to remain underwater while they sucked his genitals. In any case, Suetonius had firsthand information. And he had personally met several of the emperors he portrayed.

Robert Fisk (1946-2020) was, for three decades, the most influential, well-informed, and criticized foreign correspondent in the Middle East. He covered every war in a region perpetually at war. In 2005 he published The great war for civilizationThese voluminous memoirs (1,511 pages in the Spanish edition) contained, in their penultimate paragraph, a melancholic phrase: "In the Middle East, people relive their past history over and over again, every day."

Gorton and Denton is an electoral district in Greater Manchester. Where there were once mines and textile industries, there is now poverty. Elections were held in Gorton and Denton on Thursday, and the seat went to the Greens, followed by the far-right Reform Party, and in third place, Labour. The Conservatives didn't even show up. The result demonstrates how the political map of the United Kingdom is changing. But there's something even more interesting: the Greens won thanks to the Muslim vote.

Jaime Gil de Biedma exaggerated: "Of all the stories in History, the saddest is that of Spain, because it ends badly." Perhaps the poet didn't know Haiti, whose history began badly, continued worse, and continues to sink into endless horror. Haiti is hardly mentioned anymore: why continue describing the chaos and violence of each day?

We live in turbulent times, if you'll pardon the obvious. A new empire, China, threatens the hegemony of another, the United States. New technologies like artificial intelligence propel us into the unknown. Mass migrations alter societies' self-perception. The basest popular passions (racism, xenophobia, classism) are unleashed, the middle class is sinking, and truth and lies are becoming blurred. And not even the most robust democratic mechanisms seem capable of surviving the chaos.

I am an atheist. And, while remaining so, I now find myself on the side of the Christians. Our enemy is strong: it relies, perhaps without much awareness of it, on paganism, on nature itself, and on the philosophy that followed Friedrich Nietzsche. Perhaps those of us on the Christian side don't even know we are Christians. I'm not talking, of course, about religion, but about a clash between worldviews that erupted in the 20th century and is characterizing the 21st.

The Catalan phrase "to call for bad times"It refers to the doomsayer or the jinx: the one who predicts misfortunes. In Spain, and in Catalonia, it is usually the one who does the opposite who attracts misfortune. That is, "calls good weather." In other words, they see the sky as bright and clear without knowing (or knowing, even worse) that storm clouds are approaching.

DomainTom Holland's book is probably the best history of Christianity published to date. Aside from revealing the immense global influence of Christian cultural values, beyond the religious sphere, the reader may reach the last page with the feeling that there is nothing new under the sun. If we limit ourselves to the realm of the Catholic, or universal, Church, it is evident that it has never ceased to revolve around two fundamental issues: poverty and purity. Now, as the world plunges into a dizzying crisis, both issues are highly topical. And they demand clear positions. The question of priestly purity or impurity has resurfaced in recent decades, with the continuous denunciations of abuse and rape by members of the clergy. And the Doctors of the Church have continued to refer to an idea formulated in the fourth century to oppose the Donatists.

German national identity (assuming such a thing exists) changed after Nazism. The same happened with the Jews, recipients of a wave of international sympathy after the horror of the Holocaust. Now, with the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza and the West Bank, the perception of Jewish identity (not just Israeli) is shifting worldwide. What hardly changes is how we see the Palestinians: either terrorists or victims, almost never human beings in all their dimensions.

These days, it's common to hear that the imperialist excesses of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin hark back to the 19th century. But, imperial issues aside, there are other, perhaps deeper, similarities with that century. The first half of the 21st century, like the first half of the 19th, is an era of romanticism and fear, of technological advances and social crises, of distrust in parliamentary systems and unbridled capitalism.