War demonstrates an inability to understand fundamental problems in a complex way.
Edgar Morin, Le paradigme perdu
In a war the second casualty is truth. The first is thought.
We are living it these days: in an Argentine restaurant the Russian salad is forbidden. In Spain, a 200-year-old oak tree was disqualified from a “tree of the year” contest because it was planted in the 19th century by the Russian writer Ivan Turguenev. The Università Milano-Bicocca eliminated a course on the 19th-century Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
That is why I say that the first victim of war is thought and subsequently its daughter, truth. Californian politician Hiram Johnson is credited with the idea that the first casualty in war is truth. 105 years ago.
They have just banned RT and the Sputnik agency in Europe, as well as in other regions and social networks. That is why the perfect fascist the Spanish José Millán-Astray exclaimed:
“Death to intelligence, long live death!” He shouted it at the University of Salamanca, a temple of intelligence.
Russian dolls, Matrioshkas, should be prohibited, those that go one inside the other, because it is not known what horrifying thing, that is, Russian, they might conceal.
The Chinese warn that the north wind must be prohibited because it passes through Russia.
The Russian game Tetris must also be prohibited.
We must therefore prepare for a hysteria of generalized imbecility. So that they present us as realities images taken from video games, past events or movies like Star Wars. It is idiocy by decree, as a war weapon, according to plans inspired by Leo Strauss. It is obligatory to be an idiot, under penalty of serious sanctions.
The brilliant Russian and Spanish-speaking journalist Inna Afinogenova has been banned from some Internet channels. Because of her intelligence and for her sharp humor. Not even for her ideas. The imbecility does not refute or argue, it simply prohibits. It is easier and faster. The intelligence of the less intelligent person prevails. Intelligence is a subversive and dangerous behavior.
You clever, tremble! It can cost you your life! The least that can happen to you, for now, is that the networks identify you with the Russian government. The scarlet letter, the A, the one that women accused of adultery were forced to wear according to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel. That is, intelligence is Russian… Stupidity is versatile.
I love sunsets and rational enemies. To a rational enemy in a potentially nuclear conflict, you point an atomic missile and he stops nagging because he understands that it is not convenient to continue a war that nobody can win. But an irrational person just yells at you: “Shoot, I don’t care if the world is destroyed as long as I termitate you, you fucking Russian!”
It is the problem of absolute good and evil. Killing millions of people is a relative evil compared to the absolute evil, which is Russian, as everybody knows.
I do not remember such a demonization. Perhaps the Holy Inquisition achieved something comparable. Or Nazism with Jews. Because neither Hugo Chávez nor Nicolás Maduro have suffered from a comparable phobia.
If there is no nuclear war, we will still have an analogous catastrophe: the death of intelligence. I hope we survive. Surely we will, unless there is a nuclear apocalypse.
Read this article in Spanish here.
Read this article in French here.
