On one occasion, in front of a large housing complex, three ideologues were reasoning about the same reality: each housewife prepared soup according to the tastes and recipe of the family.
Making and seasoning different soups for the people who live there! was the comment of the first expert, enlightened and moved by effectiveness and efficiency. “This practice seemed to be irrational and expensive. The best solution would be to cook a single soup in a kind of common pot for all the neighbors, which would generate savings, security, order, and would facilitate the logistics of the ingredients.” This man did not realize that such a proposal would end up violating the freedom to choose what each one likes most. Pretexts always appear for totalitarianism and paternalism to be activated; not infrequently, the power of money also exercises dominion, when it insists on multiplying, it restricts information in its promotional campaigns.
The second expert added: Certainly, the proposed method will cause protest and displeasure among the diners, because the soup prepared in this way will not please anyone. The best thing would be – keeping the common pot – to modify the preparation process: each diner would put the ingredients of its preference, that is, the soup would be the result of the heterogeneous variety of particular tastes. According to this policy, the result would be: conflicting flavors, closer to indigestion than to an appetizing fusion. When individualism prevails, the intersections of coincidences are few, the differences abound, which end up imposing one over the other by virtue of individual or group power.
In unbridled individualism it is not possible to include the demands of others; in some cases, they are excluded because it forces one to postpone or prevent the satisfaction of personal whim; but in others, they are “used” as an instrument to achieve them. In this context, the phrase that has some truth in it is included: My freedom ends where the other’s begins… For those who live in a palace, the neighbor’s house is a hindrance both to their desires for expansion, and because the river water makes a detour before reaching their taps.
More than a limit, the commitment – according to the philosopher Ricardo Yépez – is to try to increase the freedom of the “other”, a task that becomes a responsibility. Under the prism of individualism, it is difficult to take charge of the fact that others are my responsibility. When the center is the self and its requests, there is little room for cooperation and acceptance.
Faced with the obvious indigestion caused by the heterogeneity of the components of the soup, a third expert interjected: What if we keep the party in peace, eliminating those elements that do not please everyone, without disagreeing and with extreme tolerance, adding ingredients that do not affect the tastes of each one, that is, that are neutral. Without unifying criteria or concessions in favor of third parties, the only component accepted by all would undoubtedly be water: the conclusion is that more than soup, we would have hot water. Such is permissiveness, letting things happen, without asking for efforts or commitments that incubate complications for the good of society. Authority only flickers in an amber light, because if everything is allowed, then nothing is important or valuable, and from there to skepticism and pessimism there is no middle ground.
Governing people is not just a matter of skills, it requires knowing human nature, so that mandates respect their freedom, their responsibility and promote solidarity. Freedom so that they can choose, responsibility so that they take charge of the consequences of their decisions and solidarity as a principle that looks at the communication of talents. Good government is more than a position, it is a service that looks at removing obstacles so that the person is freer, more responsible and more supportive.
