Why lie: I’m a shitty elitist. In terms of literature, Cervantes; when it comes to cinema, John Ford; when it comes to music, Bach; in painting, Velázquez; in matters of philosophy, Spinoza; when it comes to tennis, Rafa Nadal; y, when it comes to politics, Nelson Mandela (y, at least on February 23, 1981, at 6:23 p.m., Adolfo Suárez). Ultimately, I am passionate about the best: those who have demonstrated that human beings are capable of unprecedented feats, who have taught us how strong we are and helped us live longer, in a richer, more complex and more intense way, those who redeem us or console us from our mediocrity and our limitations and our neglect and allow us to aspire to the best version of ourselves, which is the most we can aspire to.
Seen in this light, there is nothing wrong with being elitist. The problem is no longer elite; These are the elites who do not deserve to exist, the false elites. Against them we only have to fight, and the most effective tool that we invented before closing it is called democracy, which is another name for meritocracy. But lately it has been possible to despotize it; against meritocracy, I want to decide. It is assured that in Spain (and on the ground in Spain), a person of modest origin has much more difficulty prospering in life and doing better than a person of privileged origin; Of course, you just have to not be completely blind to accept that this is true, I call myself as if I call it privileged. This is a blatant injustice; To explain why, I have to repeat myself. Perfect democracy does not exist (or, if you prefer, perfect democracy is a dictatorship: the organic democracy of General Franco; the popular democracies of the former Soviet orbit); What defines true democracy is that it is perfectible, infinitely perfectible: that every day can and must improve. “He who is not busy when he is born is busy when he dies,” says a verse from Bob Dylan; Democracy is the same: it is better or worse, it is born or dies every day, and the idea that it is better or worse depends on us, and first of all on our governors, on the moment when we elect and the moment when we are obliged to monitor (and, when it is acquired, we will dismiss them). In an essay entitled “The Ghost of the Elites,” published some time ago Free letters, Víctor Lapuente explained it this way: in all areas, from science to telecommunications, from education to financial markets, “governments must guarantee the maintenance of skills and prevent the creation of oligopolistic elites”; This is to be decided: in order to position itself in the most outstanding places in any job or to discipline the most qualified people – and not those who have enough money to access the best education and make the best contacts – the government must “seek ways to prevent those who occupy the blocked point from gaining access.” Lapuente rightly comments that this applies to everyone, but especially to public authorities: “If an elite, like members of the political party in government, occupies positions of responsibility in all public aid institutions, including formal and informal control bodies, such as public television, it is very difficult to avoid their arrest. Nadie You can dethrone someone who sits on all the thrones of the country.”
This is what must be avoided on all coasts: enthronement without the return of the elites, their inquistamiento. The problem, I repeat, is not the elite: it is the elite of a group, whose lack of merit as an elite makes them toxic, for others and for themselves. The problem is not meritocracy: the problem is that we still do not have a truly meritocratic society. The problem is that, just as there is no perfect democracy, there is no perfect meritocracy: like democracy, meritocracy is an ideal, an aspiration. A democracy is better the more it resembles a meritocracy.
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