We have inherited a disastrous way of understanding reality: the human individual is the center of the world and the world is a series of objects that the human individual, sometimes in alliance and sometimes in competition with other individuals, must control, dominate and exploit to its benefit and pleasure. This is the legacy that Western colonial capitalist and patriarchal “modernity” has left us, which was born around the 15th century and is still the prevailing way of life today.
There are two variations of this inheritance: the conservative and the liberal. According to the conservative, in this project of domination, exploitation and enjoyment of the world, there are groups of individuals who have always stood out for being the best, those who best carry out this project. These superior groups should not hesitate to discipline and punish the inferior ones, because these inferior ones, it is claimed, hinder the project.
According to the liberal version, in this project of domination, exploitation and enjoyment of the world, there are groups of individuals who have always stood out for being the best, those who best carry out this project. These superior groups must try to educate or transform the inferior ones, including them, it is said, so that they can better contribute to the project.
In the conservative version, the individual who considers himself one of the best also feels honest, feels that he is not hypocritical and that he does not deceive himself. For him, the inferiority of some people is not only a fact, but a threat that must be used for the benefit of the project. When this is not possible, this danger must be controlled or even eliminated. In the extreme variant of this conservative version, the individual also finds satisfaction in violence exercised against inferiors.
The individual feels alone, dissatisfied. And also the world rebels, it does not allow itself to be controlled
In the liberal version, the individual who considers himself one of the best also feels good, morally superior, because instead of crushing the inferior, he tries to include them, elevate them to his own level.
In practice, the two versions of our way of life generate great discomfort in the individual, because no matter how much the feeling of superiority and the objects that he obtains for his pleasure and enjoyment can provide, this is never enough. The individual feels alone, dissatisfied. And furthermore, the world rebels, it does not allow itself to be controlled: no matter how much the human individual tries to subject it to his desires, the uncontrollable, the unpredictable, continues to exist inside and outside of him. Classic examples of the uncontrollable (although it is everywhere) are: feelings, desire, other people, illness, death, nature, language, the body, etc., etc.
To our knowledge, no other human culture has historically taken a project of control of the uncontrollable (and separation of the human from the world, and of human individuals from each other) as far as Western colonial capitalist and patriarchal “modernity.” Colonization (racism, genocide), capitalism and patriarchy have been and are its great tools. The result is ecological destruction, which threatens to erase human life from the face of the Earth, the epidemic of malaise (depression, anxiety, stress, etc.) and poverty.
Now, if this is how things are, it seems clear that we have to be attentive to other forms of life that are not this one. Fortunately, the world is full of them. In fact, our lives are only sustained because we partially participate in other non-individualistic ways of life. The need we have for these other forms of life (it is either them or the end) asks us to be patient with their hesitations, their failures, their “smallness,” their contradictions. The most obvious place to look for these other forms of life are anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal movements. Although it is true that elements of the liberal version often reappear in these movements (moral superiority, individualism, anthropocentrism, etc.), they are still a nursery that we cannot renounce. On the other hand, “pre-modern” ways of life (peasant, “indigenous”, non-Western) obviously never completely disappeared. Before rushing to point out that these “other cultures also have bad things”, we could see what they can give us to get out of the situation we are in.
Today, we see how the conservative version of Western “modernity” in its most extreme decline (fascist) is conquering the desire and desperation of many, all over the world.
Faced with that, it doesn’t seem like rebuilding the “a little more liberal” version of the same way of life makes much sense. Do we really want to continue focusing on the current politicians who embody the conservative and liberal versions of the same thing?
What would it mean to search within and outside of ourselves for other forms of life and fight for them?
Who would we become? What would we lose? What fears would we have to confront? And how much uncontrollable chaos would we be willing to endure? What can life be if we stop seeing ourselves as the center of the world and start taking care of the links that make our existence possible? With whom, in what spaces can we try this change? How can we ensure that this transformation does not become, without realizing it, a new search for moral superiority?
How to start living differently?
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Katryn Evinson is an assistant professor of Romance Studies at Duke University. Luis Moreno-Caballud is an associate professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Pennsylvania.
We have inherited a disastrous way of understanding reality: the human individual is the center of the world and the world is a series of objects that the human individual, sometimes in alliance and sometimes in competition with other individuals, must control, dominate and exploit to its benefit and pleasure. This is the inheritance that…
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